She may do inore, sir, than denying that:
She may help you to many fair preferments;
And then deny her aiding hand therein,
And lay those honours on your high desert.
What may she not? She may,-ay, marry, may As little joy you may suppose in me,
she,-

Glo. If I should be?—I had rather be a pedlar.
Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof!
Q. Eliz. As little joy, my lord, as you suppose
You should enjoy, were you this country's king;

Riv. What, marry, may she?

That I enjoy, being the queen thereof.
Q. Mar. A little joy enjoys the queen thereof;

Glo. What, marry, may she? marry with a king, For I am she, and altogether joyless.
A bachelor, a handsome stripling too;
I wis, your grandam had a worser match.

Q. Eliz. My lord of Gloster, I have too long borne
Your blunt upbraidings, and your bitter scoffs :
By heaven, I will acquaint his majesty,
Of those gross taunts I often have endur'd.
I had rather be a country servant maid,
Than a great queen, with this condition-
To be so baited, scorn'd, and stormed at:
Small joy have I in being England's queen.

Enter QUEEN MARGARET, behind.

Q. Mar. And lessen'd be that small, God, I be-
seech thee!

Thy honour, state, and seat, is due to me.
Glo. What? threat you me with telling of the
king?

Tell him, and spare not: look, what I have said
I will avouch, in presence of the king:
I dare adventure to be sent to the Tower.
'Tis time to speak, my pains are quite forgot.
Q. Mar. Out, devil! I remember them too well:
Thou kill'dst my husband Henry in the Tower,
And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.

Glo. Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband
king,

I was a packhorse in his great affairs;
A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,
A liberal rewarder of his friends;

To royalize his blood, I spilt mine own.

Q. Mar. Ay, and much better blood than his, or

thine.

Glo. In all which time, you, and your husband
Grey,

Were factious for the house of Lancaster ;-
And, Rivers, so were you :-Was not your husband
In Margaret's battle at Saint Albans slain ?
Let me put in your minds, if you forget,
What you have been ere now, and what you are;
Withal, what I have been, and what I am.
Q. Mar. A murderous villain, and so still thou art.
Glo. Poor Clarence did forsake his father War-
wick,

Ay, and forswore himself,-Which Jesu pardon!
Q. Mar. Which God revenge!

Glo. To fight on Edward's party, for the crown:
And, for his meed, poor lord, he is mew'd up:
I would to God, my heart were flint like Edward's,
Or Edward's soft and pitiful, like mine;

I am too childish-foolish for this world.

[Advancing.

I can no longer hold me patient.-
Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out
In sharing that which you have pill'd' from me:
Which of you trembles not, that looks on me?
If not, that, I being queen, you bow like subjects;
Yet that, by you depos'd, you quake like rebels ?→→
Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away!

Glo. Foul wrinkled witch, what mak'st thou in
my sight?

Q. Mar. But repetition of what thou hast marr'd; That will I make, before I let thee go.

Glo. Wert thou not banished on pain of death?
Q. Mar. I was; but I do find more pain in ban-
ishment,

Than death can yield me here by my abode.
A husband, and a son, thou ow'st to me,-
And thou a kingdom;-all of you, allegiance:
This sorrow that I have, by right is yours;
And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.

Glo. The curse my noble father laid on thee,When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper,

And with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes;
And then, to dry them, gav'st the duke a clout,
Steep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland ;-
His curses, then from bitterness of soul
Denounc'd against thee, are all fall'n upon thee;
And God, not we, hath plagu'd thy bloody deed,
Q. Eliz. So just is God, to right the innocent.
Hast. O, 'twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,
And the most merciless that e'er was heard of.
Riv. Tyrants themselves wept when it was re-
ported.

Dors. No man but prophesied revenge for it.
Buck. Northumberland, then present, wept to see

it.10

Q. Mar. What! were you snarling all, before I

came,

Ready to catch each other by the throat,
And turn you all your hatred now on me!
Did York's dread curse prevail so much with heaven,
That Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death,
Their kingdom's loss, my woful banishment,
Could all but answer for that peevish brat?
Can curses pierce the clouds, and enter heaven.
Why, then give way, dull clouds, to my quick

curses!

Though not by war, by surfeit die your king,12
As ours by murder, to make him a king!
Edward, thy son, that now is prince of Wales,

Q. Mar. Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave For Edward, my son, that was prince of Wales

this world,

Thou cacodæmon! there thy kingdom is.

Riv. My lord of Gloster, in those busy days,
Which here you urge, to prove us enemies,
We follow'd then our lord, our lawful king;
So should we you, if should be our king.

1 i. e. I think.

2 Labours.

you

Die in his youth, by like untimely violence!
Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,
Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self!
Long may'st thou live, to wail thy children's loss;
And see another, as I see thee now,

Deck'd in thy rights, as thou art stall'd in mine!
Long die thy happy days before thy death;

hibiting any of his subjects from aiding her return, or

3 See note on King Henry VI. Part III. Act iii. Sc. 2. harbouring her, should she attempt to revisit England. Margaret's battle is Margaret's army.

4 Reward.

5 To pill is to pillage. It is often used with to poll or strip. Kildare did use to pill and poll his friendes, tenants, and reteyners.'-Holinshed.

6 Gentle is here used ironically.

7 What dost thou in my sight.' This phrase has been already explained in the notes to Love's Labour's Lost, Act iv. Sc. 3. In As You Like It, Act i. Sc. 1, Shakspeare again plays upon the word make, as in this instance:

Now, sir, what make you here?

Nothing: I am not taught to make any thing.”

She remained abroad till April, 1471, when she landed at Weymouth. After the battle of Tewksbury, in May, 1471, she was confined in the Tower where she continned a prisoner till 1475, when she was ransomed by her father Regnier, and removed to France, where she died in 1482. So that her introduction in the present scene is a mere poetical fiction.

9 To plague in ancient language is to punish. Hence the scriptural term of the plagues of Egypt. 10 See King Henry VI. Part III. Act 1, Sc. 2:What, weeping-ripe, my Lord Northumberland.' 11 But is here used in its exceptive sense: could ali this only, or nothing but (i. e. be out or except) this an

8 Margaret fled into France after the battle of Hex-swer for the death of that brat. ham, in 1464, and Edward issued a proclamation pro

12 Alluding to his luxurious life.

1 Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog. was an old prejudice which is not yet quite extinct, that those who are defective or deformed, are marked by na2 Alluding to Gloster's form and venom. A bottled ture as prone to mischief. She calls him hog, in allu-spider is a large, bloated, glossy spider: supposed to sion to his cognizance, which was a boar. The ex- contain venom proportionate to its size. pression (says Warburton) is fine; remembering her youngest son, she alludes to the ravage which hogs make with the finest flowers in gardens; and intimating that Elizabeth was to expect no other treatment for her sons. The rhyme for which Collingborne was executed, as given by Heywood in his Metrical History of King Edward IV. will illustrate this :

The persons aimed at in this rhyme, were the king, and he could not give that weight to her curses, without Catesby, Ratcliff, and Lovell.

He is frank'd' up to fatting for his pains;-
God pardon them that are the cause thereof!
Riv. A virtuous and a christianlike conclusion,
To pray for them that have done scath to us.
Glo. So do I ever, being well advis'd;-
For had I curs'd now, I had curs'd myself. [Aside.
Enter CATESBY.

And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy ;*
And, in my company, my brother Gloster:
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches; thence we look'd toward Eng-
land,

And cited up a thousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster
That had befall'n us. As we pac'd along

Cates. Madam, his majesty both call for you,Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
And for your grace,-and you, my noble lords.
Q. Eliz. Catesby, I come :-Lords, will you go
with me?

Riv. Madam, we will attend your grace.
[Exeunt all but GLOSTER.
Glo. I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.
The secret mischiefs that I set abroach,
I lay unto the grievous charge of others.
Clarence,-whom I, indeed, have laid in darkness,
I do beweep to many simple gulls;
Namely, to Stanley, Hastings, Buckingham;
And tell them-'tis the queen and her allies,
That stir the king against the duke my brother.
Now they believe it; and withal whet me
To be reveng'd on Rivers, Vaughan, Grey:
But then I sigh, and with a piece of scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villany
With old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ:
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
Enter Two Murderers.

But soft, here come my executioners.
How now, my hardy, stout resolved mates?
Are you now going to despatch this thing?

1 Murd. We are, my lord; and come to have the

warrant,

That we may be admitted where he is.
Glo. Well thought upon, I have it here about me:
[Gives the Warrant.
When you have done, repair to Crosby-place.
But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,
Withal obdurate, do not hear him plead;
For Clarence is well spoken, and, perhaps,
May move your hearts to pity, if you mark him.
1 Murd. Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to
prate,

Talkers are no great doers; be assur'd,
We go to use our hands, and not our tongues.
Glo. Your eyes drop mill-stones, when fools' eyes
drop tears:3

I like you, lads-about your business straight;
Go, go, despatch.
1 Murd.

We will, my noble lord.

[Exeunt. SCENE IV. London. A Room in the Tower. Enter CLARENCE and BRAKENBURY.

Brak. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day?
Clar. O, I have pass'd a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That, as I am a christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days;
So full of dismal terror was the time.

Brak. What was your dream, my lord? I pray
you, tell me.

Clar. Methought, that I had broken from the
Tower,

A frank is a pen or coop in which hogs and other animals were confined while fatting. To be franked up was to be closely confined. To franch, or frank, was to stuff, to cram, to fatten.

2 Harm, mischief.

3 This appears to have been a proverbial saying. It occurs again in the tragedy of Cæsar and Pompey, .607:

'Men's eyes must millstones drop, when fools shed

tears.'

4 Clarence was desirous to assist his sister Margaret against the French king, who invaded her jointure lands after the death of her husband, Charles duke of Burgundy, who was killed at Nancy, in January, 1476-7. Isabel, the wife of Clarence, being then dead (poisoned by the duke of Gloucester, as it has been conjectured,) he wished to have married Mary, the daughter and heir

Struck me, that thought to stay hin, overboard,
Methought, that Gloster stumbled; and, in falling,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.

What dreadful noise of water in mine ears:
O lord! methought, what pain it was to drown
What sights of ugly death within mine eyes!
Methought, I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
A thousand men, that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea,
Some lay in dead men's skulls; and in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept
(As 'twere in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems,
That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.
Brak. Had you such leisure in the time of death
To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?

Clar. Methought, I had; and often did I strive
To yield the ghost: but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
To seek the empty, vast, and wand'ring air;
But smother'd it within my panting bulk,"
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.

Brak. Awak'd you not with this sore ageny?
Clar. O, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life;
O, then began the tempest to my soul!
I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that grim ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
The first that there did greet my stranger soul,
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick,
Who cry'd aloud,-What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?
And so he vanish'd: Then came wand'ring by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood," and he shriek'd out aloud,—
Clarence is come, false, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence,
That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury ;-
Seize on him, furies, take him to your torments!
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Environ'd me, and howled in mine cars
Such hideous cries, that, with the very noise,
I trembling wak'd, and, for a season after,
Could not believe but that I was in hell;
Such terrible impression made my dream.
Brak. No, marvel, lord, though it affrighted you!
I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.
Clar. O, Brakenbury, I have done these things
That now give evidence against my soul,--
For Edward's sake; and, see, how he requites

me!

O God! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee,
But thou wilt be aveng'd on my misdeeds,
Yet execute thy wrath on me alone:
O,spare my guiltless wife," and my poor children:-

of the duke of Burgundy; but the match was opposed
by Edward, who hoped to have obtained her for his bro-
ther-in-law, Lord Rivers, and this circumstance has
been suggested as the principal cause of the breach be-
tween Edward and Clarence. Mary of Burgundy how-
ever chose a husband for herself, having married, in
1477, Maximilian, son of the Emperor Frederic.

5 See a note on Milton's Lycidas, v. 157. Milton's Minor Poems, by T. Warton, ed. 1791.

6 Unvalued for invaluable, not to be valued, inestimabe.

7 Vast is waste, desolate. Vastum per inane. 8 Bulk, i. e. breast. See note on Ham'et, Act li. Sc. 1. 9 Lee has transplanted this image into his Mithridates, Act iv. Sc. 1.

10 Fleeting or flitting, in old language, was used for uncertain, inconstant, fluctuating.

11 The wife of Clarence died before he was appre hended and confined in the Tower.

I pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me;
My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.
Brak. I will, my lord; God give your grace good
rest!-

[CLARENCE reposes himself on a Chair.
Sorrow breaks seasons, and reposing hours,
Makes the night morning, and the noontide night.
Princes have but their titles for their glories,'
An outward honour for an inward toil;
And, for unfelt imaginations,

They often feel a world of restless cares :
So that, between their titles, and low name,
There's nothing differs but the outward fame.
Enter the Two Murderers.

1 Murd. Ho! who's here?
Brak. What would'st thou fellow? and how
cam'st thou hither?

1 Murd. I would speak with Clarence, and I came hither on my legs.

Brak. What, so brief?

2 Murd. O, sir, 'tis better to be brief than tedious:

Let him see our commission; talk no more.

[A Paper is delivered to BRAKENBURY, who

reads it.

Brak. I am, in this, commanded to deliver
The noble duke of Clarence to your hands:-
I will not reason what is meant hereby,
Because I will be guiltless of the meaning.
Here are the keys;-there sits the duke asleep:
I'll to the king; and signify to him,

That thus I have resign'd to you my charge.

1 Murd. You may, sir; 'tis a point of wisdom: Fare you well. [Exit BRAKENBURY.

2 Murd. What, shall we stab him as he sleeps ? 1 Murd. No; he'll say, 'twas done cowardly, when he wakes.

2 Murd. When he wakes! why, fool, he shall never wake until the great judgment day.

1 Murd. Why, then he'll say, we stabb'd him sleeping.

2 Murd. The urging of that word, judgment, hath bred a kind of remorse in me.

1 Murd. What? art thou afraid?

2 Murd. Not to kill him, having a warrant for it; but to be damn'd for killing him, from the which no warrant can defend me.

1 Murd. I thought, thou had'st been resolute. 2 Murd. So I am, to let him live.

1 Murd. I'll back to the duke of Gloster, and tell him so.

2 Murd. Nay, I pr'ythee, stay a little: I hope, this holy humour of mine will change; it was wont to hold me but while one would tell twenty. 1 Murd. How dost thou feel thyself now? 2 Murd. 'Faith, some certain dregs of conscience are yet within me.

1 Murd. Remember our reward, when the deed's done.

2 Murd. Come, he dies; I had forgot the reward. 1 Murd. Where's thy conscience now? 2 Murd. In the duke of Gloster's purse. 1 Murd. So, when he opens his purse to give us our reward, thy conscience flies out.

2 Murd. 'Tis no matter; let it go; there's few, or none, will entertain it.

1 Murd. What, if it come to thee again?

1 This line may be thus understood, The glories of princes are nothing more than empty titles: but it would impress the purpose of the speaker, and correspond better with the following lines, if it were read :

'Princes have but their titles for their troubles.' Johnson.

2 They often suffer real miseries for imaginary and unreal gratifications.

2 Murd. I'll not meddle with it, it is a dangerous thing, it makes a man a coward; a man cannot steal, but it accuseth him; a man cannot swear, but it checks him; a man cannot lie with his neighbour's wife, but it detects him: 'Tis a blushing shamefaced spirit, that mutinies in a man's bosom; it hils one full of obstacles: it made me once restore a purse of gold, that by chance I found: it beggars any man that keeps it: it is turned out of all towns and cities for a dangerous thing, and every man that means to live well, endeavours to trust to himself, and live without it.

1 Murd. 'Zounds, it is even now at my elbow, persuading me not to kill the duke.

2 Murd. Take the devil in thy mind, and believe him not: he would insinuate with thee, but to make thee sigh.'

1 Murd. I am strong-fram'd, he cannot prevail with me.

2 Murd. Spoke like a tall fellow, that respects his reputation. Come, shall we fall to work?`

1 Murd. Take him over the costards with the hilts of thy sword, and then throw him into the malmsey butt, in the next room.

2 Murd. O excellent device! and make a sop of him.

1 Murd. Soft! he wakes.

2 Murd. S rike.

1 Murd. No, we'll reason with him.

Clar. Where art thou, keeper? give me a cup of

wine.

1 Murd. You shall have wine enough, my lord,

To slay the innocent? What is my offence?
Where is the evidence that doth accuse me?
What lawful quest' have given their verdict up
Unto the frowning judge? or who pronounc'd
The bitter sentence of poor Clarence' death?
Before I be convict by course of law,

To threaten me with death is most unlawful.
I charge you, as you hope to have redemption,
By Christ's dear blood shed for our grievous sins,

5 Head.

6 i. e. falk with him

7 Quest was the term for a jury. A quest of twelve men, Duodecim viratus.'-Buret. In Hamlet we have 'crowner's quest law.'

Shakspeare has followed the current tale of his own time. But the truth is, that Clarence was tried and found guilty by his peers, and a bill of attainder was af terwards passed against him. According to Sir Tho mas More, his death was commanded by Edward; but he does not assert that the duke of Gloster was the in strument. Polydore Virgil says, though he talked with several persons who lived at the time, he never could get any certain account of the motives that induced Ed.

3 One villain says. Conscience is at his elbow, persuading him not to kill the duke. The other says, take the devil into thy mind, who will be a match for thy conscience, and believe it not. Perhaps conscience is here personified, as in Launcelot's dialogue in the Mer-ward to put his brother to death. chant of Venice; but however that may be, Shakspeare would have used him for it without scruple

4 i. e. a bold courageous fellmo.

N

8 This line was altered, and the subsequent line omitted, by the editors of the follo, to avoid the penalty of the statute

1 Murd. How canst thou urge God's dreadful I'll drown you in the malmsey-butt within.

1 Murd. Ay, millstones; as he lesson'd us to Since I have made my friends at peace on earth.

2 Blooming Plantagenet, a prince in the spring of from Sir John Paston to his brother, dated Feb 14,