And thou, a kingdom;-all of you, allegiance: Glo. The curfe my noble father laid on thee,- Dorf. No man but prophefy'd revenge for it. Buck. Northumberland, then prefent, wept to fee it. 2. Mar. What! were you fnarling all, before I came, Ready to catch each other by the throat, curfes!- Though not by war, 7 by furfeit die your king, 6 Q. Mar. So juft is God, &c.] This line fhould be given to Edward IVth's queen, WARBURTON. 7 by furfeit die your king!] Alluding to his luxurious life. JOHNSON. Thy Thyfelf a queen, for me that was a queen, Deck'd in thy rights, as thou art stall'd in mine! age, Glo. Have done thy charm, thou hateful wither'd hag. 2. Mar. And leave out thee? stay, dog, for thou If heaven have any grievous plague in ftore, 8 Thou 3 elvish-mark'd] The common people in Scotland (as I learn from Kelly's Proverbs) have still an averfion to those who have any natural defect or redundancy, as thinking them mark'd out for mischief. STEEVENS. 9 rooting bog!] The expreffion is fine, alluding (in memory of her young fon) to the ravage which hogs make, with the finest flowers, in gardens; and intimating that Elizabeth was zo expect no other treatment for her fons. WARBURTON. She calls him bog, as an appellation more contemptuous than bear, Thou that waft feal'd in thy nativity The flave of nature, and the fon of hell! Thou flander of thy mother's heavy womb! Thou loathed iffue of thy father's loins! Thou rag of honour! thou detefted Glo. boar, as he is elsewhere termed from his enfigns armorial. There is no fuch heap of allufion as the commentator imagines. JOHNSON. In the Mirror for Magiftrates (a book already quoted) is the following Complaint of Collingbourne, who was cruelly executed for making a rime. For where I meant the king by name of hog, I only alluded to his badge the bore: To Lovel's name I added more,—our dog; As cat and rat, the half-names of the reft, To hide the fenfe that they fo wrongly wreft. That Lovel was once the common name of a dog, may be likewife known from a paffage in The Hiftorie of Jacob and Efau, an interlude, 1568: 4 "Then come on at once, take my quiver and my bowe; "Fette lovell my hounde, and my horne to blowe." The rhime for which Collingbourne fuffered, was: "A cat, a rat, and Lovel the dog, "Rule all England under a hog." STEEVENS. The flave of nature,] The expreffion is ftrong and noble, and alludes to the ancient custom of masters branding their profligate flaves: by which it is infinuated that his misshapen perfon was the mark that nature had fet upon him to ftigmatize his ill conditions. Shakespeare expreffes the fame thought in The Comedy of Errors: "He is deformed, crooked, &c. But as the speaker rifes in her refentment, she expresses this contemptuous thought much more openly, and condemns him to a ftill worse state of flavery: "Sin, death, and hell, have fet their marks on him." Only, in the first line, her mention of his moral condition infinuates her reflections on his deformity: and, in the last, her mention of his deformity infinuates her reflections on his moral condition: And thus he has taught her to fcold in all the elegance of figure. WARBURTON. 2 Thou rag of honour, &c.] We should certainly read : Thou wrack of honour Glo. Margaret. 2. Mar. Richard! Glo. Ha? 2. Mar. I call thee not. Glo. I cry thee mercy then; for I did think, That thou had'it call'd me all these bitter names. 2. Mar. Why, fo I did; but look'd for no reply. O, let me make the period to my curse. Glo. 'Tis done by me; and ends in-Margaret. Queen. Thus have you breath'd your curse against yourself. 2. Mar. Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune 3! 4 Why ftrew'st thou fugar on that bottled spider, 2. Mar. Foul fhame upon you! you have all mov'd mine. i. e. the ruin and deftruction of honour; which, I fuppofe, was first writ rack, and then further corrupted to rag. WARBURTON. Rag is, in my opinion, right, and intimates that much of his honour is torn away. Patch is, in the same manner, a contemp tuous appellation. JOHNSON. This word of contempt is used again in Timon : "If thou wilt curfe, thy father, that poor rag, Again, in this play: 3 "Thefe over-weening rags of France." STEEVENS. -flourish of my fortune!] This expreffion is likewise used by Maffinger in the Great Duke of Florence: "As flourishings of fortune." STEEVens. bottled fpider,] A fpider is called bottled, because, like other infects, he has a middle flender and a belly protuberant. Richard's form and venom, make her liken him to a spider. 叠 VOL. VII. D. JOHNSON. Riv. Riv. Were you well ferv'd, you would be taught your duty. 2. Mar. To ferve me well, you all should do me duty, Teach me to be your queen, and you my fubjects: O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty. Dorf. Difpute not with her, fhe is lunatic. Q. Mar. 5 Peace, mafter marquis, you are malapert; Your fire-new ftamp of honour is fcarce current : O, that your young nobility could judge, What 'twere to lose it, and be miserable! They that ftand high, have many blafts to fhake them; And, if they fall, they dafh themselves to pieces. Glo. Good counfel, marry ;-learn it, learn it, marquis. Dorf. It touches you, my lord, as much as me. Glo. Ay, and much more: But I was born fo high, Our aiery buildeth in the cedar's top, And dallies with the wind, and fcorns the fun. 2. Mar. And turns the fun to fhade;-alas! alas!Witnefs my fun, now in the fhade of death; Whose bright out-fhining beams thy cloudy wrath Hath in eternal darkness folded up. 5 Peace, mafter marquis; you are malapert; &c.] Shakespeare may either allude to the late creation of the marquis of Dorfet, or to the institution of the title of marquis here in England, as a fpecial dignity, which was no older than Richard II. Robert Vere, earl of Oxford, was the first, who, as a diftinct dignity, received the title of marquis, 1ft December, anno nono Richardi fecundi. See Afhmole's Hiftory of the Order of the Garter, p. 456. GRAY. Peace, mafter marquis, you are malapert ;] As near a hundred years had elapfed between the time when the title of marquis was first inftituted in England, and the creation of this Thomas Grey marquis of Dorfet, I think Shakespeare can hardly allude to the inftitution of the dignity itself; much less could he call it a fire-new ftamp of honour fearce current. Robert Vere, the first created marquis received this new title, A. D. 1386. Thomas Grey was created marquis of Dorset, A. D. 1476. PERCY. Your |