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I will perform it, to enfranchise you.
Mean time, this deep difgrace in brotherhood,
Touches me deeper than you can imagine.

Clar. I know, it pleaseth neither of us well.
Glo. Well, your imprisonment fhall not be long;
I will deliver you, or elfe lye for you :

Mean time, have patience.

Clar. I must perforce'; farewel.

[Exeunt Clarence and Brakenbury. Glo. Go, tread the path that thou fhalt ne'er return, Simple, plain Clarence !-I do love thee fo, That I will fhortly fend thy foul to heaven, If heaven will take the prefent at our hands. But who comes here? the new-deliver'd Haftings?

Enter Haftings.

Haft. Good time of day unto my gracious lord Glo. As much unto my good lord chamberlain ! Well are you welcome to this open air. How hath your lordship brook'd imprisonment? Haft. With patience, noble lord, as prifoners muft: But I fhall live, my lord, to give them thanks, That were the caufe of my imprisonment.

Glo. No doubt, no doubt; and fo fhall Clarence

too;

For they, that were your enemies, are his,
And have prevail'd as much on him, as you.

Haft. More pity, that the eagle fhould be mew'd,
While

cafually, widow, into the place of wife, he tempts Clarence with an oblique propofal to kill the king. JOHNSON.

King Edward's widow is, I believe, only an expreffion of contempt, meaning the widow Grey, whom Edward had chofen for his queen. Glofter has already called her, the jealous o'erworn widow. STEEVENS.

1

I must perforce.] Alluding to the proverb, "Patience perforce is a medicine for a mad dog." STEEVENS.

2

-Should be mew'd,] A mew was the place of confinement where a hawk was kept till he had moulted. So, in Albumazar:

"Stand

While kites and buzzards prey at liberty.
Glo. What news abroad?

Haft. No news fo bad abroad, as this at home ;-
The king is fickly, weak, and melancholy,
And his phyficians fear him mightily.

Glo. Now, by faint Paul3, that news is bad indeed. O, he hath kept an evil diet long,

And over-much confum'd his royal perfon; 'Tis very grievous to be thought upon. What, is he in his bed?

Haft. He is.

Glo. Go you before, and I will follow you.

[Exit Haftings.

He cannot live, I hope; and muft not die,

'Till George be pack'd with post-horse up to heaven.
I'll in, to urge his hatred more to Clarence,
With lies well fteel'd with weighty arguments;
And, if I fail not in my deep intent,
Clarence hath not another day to live:

Which done, God take king Edward to his mercy,
And leave the world for me to buftle in!

For then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter : What though I kill'd her husband, and her father? The readiest way to make the wench amends,

Is to become her husband, and her father:
The which will I; not all fo much for love,
As for another fecret close intent,

By marrying her, which I must reach unto.
But yet I run before my horse to market:
Clarence ftill breathes; Edward ftill lives, and reigns;
When they are gone, then muft I count my gains.
[Exit.

"Stand forth, transform'd Antonio, fully mew'd
"From brown foar feathers of dull yeomanry,

"To the glorious bloom of gentry.

3 Now, by faint Paul,Now, by faint John,

22 STEEVENS,

-] The folio reads:
STEEVENS.

SCENE

SCENE II.

Another Street.

Enter the corfe of Henry the fixth, with halberds to guard it; Lady Anne being the mourner.

Anne. Set down, fet down your honourable load,If honour may be shrouded in a hearse,— Whilft I a while obfequioufly lament * The untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.Poor key-cold figure of a holy king! Pale afhes of the houfe of Lancaster! Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood! Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost, To hear the lamentations of poor Anne, Wife to thy Edward, to thy flaughter'd fon, Stabb'd by the felf-fame hand that made thefe wounds !

Lo, in these windows, that let forth thy life,

I

pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes :O, curfed be the hand, that made these holes! Curfed the heart, that had the heart to do it! Curfed the blood, that let this blood from hence! More direful hap betide that hated wretch, That makes us wretched by the death of thee, Than I can wish to adders, fpiders, toads,

-obfequiously lament] Obfequious, in this inftance, means funereal. So, in Hamlet, act I. fc. ii:

5

"To do obfequious forrow." STEEVENS.

-

key-cold] A key, on account of the coldness of the metal of which it is compofed, was anciently employed to ftop any flight bleeding. The epithet is common to many old writers; among the reft, it is used by Decker in his Satiromaftix:

"It is beft you hide your head, for fear your wife brains take key-cold."

Again, in the Country Girl, by T. B. 1647:

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"The key-cold figure of a man.' STEEVENS.

Or

Or any creeping venom'd thing that lives!
If ever he have child, abortive be it,
Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,
Whofe ugly and unnatural afpect

May fright the hopeful mother at the view;
And that be heir to his unhappiness!
If ever he have wife, let her be made
More miferable by the death of him,

Than I am made by my young lord, and thee!-
Come, now, toward Chertsey with your holy load,
Taken from Paul's to be interred there;

And, ftill as you are weary of the weight,
Reft you, whiles I lament king Henry's corfe.

Enter Glofter.

Glo. Stay you, that bear the corse, and set it down. Anne. What black magician conjures up this fiend, To stop devoted charitable deeds?

Glo. Villains, fet down the corfe; or, by faint Paul, I'll make a corfe of him that disobeys 5.

Gen. My lord, ftand back, and let the coffin pafs. Glo. Unmanner'd dog! ftand thou when I command:

Advance thy halberd higher than my breast,
Or, by faint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot,
And fpurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.
Anne. What, do you tremble? are you all afraid?
Alas, I blame you not; for you are mortal,
And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.-
Avaunt, thou dreadful minifter of hell!
Thou had'ft but power over his mortal body,
His foul thou canst not have; therefore, be gone.
Glo. Sweet faint, for charity, be not fo curft.
Anne. Foul devil, for God's fake, hence, and
trouble us not;

5 Ill make a corfe of him that disobeys.] So, in Hamlet :
"I'll make a ghost of him that lets me." JOHNSON.

For

For thou haft made the happy earth thy hell,
Fill'd it with curfing cries, and deep exclaims.
If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,
Behold this pattern of thy butcheries :-6
Oh, gentlemen, fee, fee! dead Henry's wounds
Open their congeal'd mouths, and bleed afresh !-7
Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity;
For 'tis thy prefence that exhales this blood
From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells;
Thy deed, inhuman, and unnatural,

Provokes this deluge most unnatural.

-pattern of thy butcheries:] Pattern is inftance, or example.

JOHNSON. Holinfhed fays: "The dead corps on the Afcenfion even was conveied with billes and glaives pompoutlie (if you will call that a funerall pompe) from the Tower to the church of faint Paule, and there laid on a beire or coffen bare-faced; the fame in the prefence of the beholders did bleed; where it refted the space of one whole daie. From thenfe he was carried to the Black-friers, and bled there likewife; &c." STEEVENS.

7 -fee, dead Henry's wounds,

Open their congeal'd mouths, and bleed afresh!-]

It is a tradition very generally received, that the murdered body bleeds on the touch of the murderer. This was fo much believed by fir Kenelm Digby that he has endeavoured to explain the reafon. JOHNSON.

So, in Arden of Feverfham, 1592:

"The more I found his name, the more he bleeds:
"This blood condemns me, and in gufhing forth
"Speaks as it falls, and asks me why I did it."

Again, in the Widow's Tears, by Chapman, 1612:

The captain will affay an old conclufion often approved; that at the murderer's fight the blood revives again and boils afresh; and every wound has a condemning voice to cry out guilty against the murderer."

Again, in the 46th Idea of Drayton :

"If the vile actors of the heinous deed,

"Near the dead body happily be brought,

"Oft t'hath been prov'd the breathlefs corps will bleed." Mr. Tollet obferves that this opinion feems to be derived from the ancient Swedes, or Northern nations from whom we descend; for they practised this method of trial in dubious cafes, as appears from Pitt's Atlas, in Sweden, p. 20. STEEVENS.

O God!

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