I will perform it, to enfranchise you. Clar. I know, it pleaseth neither of us well. 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, Haft. More pity, that the eagle fhould be mew'd, 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. Haft. No news fo bad abroad, as this at home ;- 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. Which done, God take king Edward to his mercy, 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: By marrying her, which I must reach unto. "Stand forth, transform'd Antonio, fully mew'd "To the glorious bloom of gentry. 3 Now, by faint Paul,Now, by faint John, 22 STEEVENS, -] The folio reads: 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: "The key-cold figure of a man.' STEEVENS. Or Or any creeping venom'd thing that lives! May fright the hopeful mother at the view; Than I am made by my young lord, and thee!- And, ftill as you are weary of the weight, 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, 5 Ill make a corfe of him that disobeys.] So, in Hamlet : For For thou haft made the happy earth thy hell, 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: 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! |