* And creep into it far before thy time? * Warwick is chancellor, and the lord of Calais; Stern Faulconbridge commands the narrow seas; The duke is made protector of the realm;

' And yet shalt thou be safe? * such safety finds * The trembling lamb, environed with wolves. Had I been there, which am a silly woman, The soldiers should have toss'd me on their pikes, Before I would have granted to that act. * But thou preferr'st thy life before thine honour: ' And seeing thou dost, I here divorce myself,

proach is founded on a position long received among politicians, that the loss of a king's power is soon followed by loss of life. JOHNSON.

9 Stern Faulconbridge commands the narrow seas;] So, in Marlowe's Edward II:

"The haughty Dane commands the narrow seas." This may be too slight a circumstance to prove Marlowe the author of The Whole Contention; it is, however, in other respects, sufficiently probable that he had some hand in it.

The person here meant was Thomas Nevil, bastard son to the lord Faulconbridge, "a man," says Hall, " of no lesse corage then audacitie, who for his euel condicions was such an apte person, that a more meter could not be chosen to set all the worlde in a broyle, and to put the estate of the realme on an yl hazard." He had been appointed by Warwick vice-admiral of the sea, and had in charge so to keep the passage between Dover and Calais, that none which either favoured King Henry or his friends should escape untaken or undrowned: such at least were his instructions, with respect to the friends and favourers of King Edward, after the rupture between him and Warwick. On Warwick's death, he fell into poverty, and robbed, both by sea and land, as well friends as enemies. He once brought his ships up the Thames, and with a considerable body of the men of Kent and Essex, made a spirited assault on the city, with a view to plunder and pillage, which was not repelled but after a sharp conflict and the loss of many lives; and, had it happened at a more critical period, might have been attended with fatal consequences to Edward. After roving on the sea some little time longer, he ventured to land at Southampton, where he was taken and beheaded. See Hall and Holinshed. RITSON.

'Both from thy table, Henry, and thy bed, • Until that act of parliament be repeal'd, Whereby my son is disinherited.1 The northern lords, that have forsworn thy colours, Will follow mine, if once they see them spread : 'And spread they shall be; to thy foul disgrace, 'And utter ruin of the house of York.

Thus do I leave thee :-Come, son, let's away; * Our army's ready; come, we'll after them.

K. HEN. Stay, gentle Margaret, and hear me speak.

Q. MAR. Thou hast spoke too much already; get thee gone.

K. HEN. Gentle son Edward, thou wilt stay with me?

Q. MAR. Ay, to be murder'd by his enemies. PRINCE. When I return with victory from the

field,

2

I'll see your grace: till then, I'll follow her. Q. MAR. Come, son, away; we may not linger thus.

[Exeunt Queen MARGARET, and the Prince. K. HEN. Poor queen! how love to me, and to her son,

' Hath made her break out into terms of rage!
Reveng'd may she be on that hateful duke;
* Whose haughty spirit, winged with desire,

Whereby my son is disinherited.] The corresponding line in the old play is this. The variation is remarkable:

"Wherein thou yieldest to the house of York."

MALONE. Folio-to the field. The true read

ing is found in the old play. MALONE.

* Will cost my crown, and, like an empty eagle,

3

Whose haughty spirit, winged with desire,

Will cost my crown, and, like an empty eagle, &c.] Read coast, i. e. hover over it. WARBURTON.

Dr. Warburton's alteration aims at a distinction without a difference, both cost and coast being ultimately derivations of the same original. HENLEY.

The word which Dr. Warburton would introduce, has been supposed to violate the metaphor; nor indeed is to coast used as a term of falconry in any of the books professedly written on that subject. To coast is a sea-faring expression, and means to keep along shore. We may, however, maintain the integrity of the figure, by inserting the word cote, which is used in Hamlet, and in a sense convenient enough on this occasion :

"We coted them on the way."

To cote is to come up with, to overtake, to reach. So, in The Return from Parnassus, a comedy, 1606:

66

marry, we presently coted and outstript them." Yet, on further inquiry, I am become less certain, that to coast is merely a sea-faring expression. It is used in the following instance to denote speed:

" And all in haste she coasteth to the cry."

Shakspeare's Venus and Adonis.

Again, in The Loyal Subject, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "Take you those horse, and coast them."

Again, in The Maid of the Mill, by the same authors, two gentlemen are entering, and a lady asks :

66

who are those that coast us?"

Mr. Tollet therefore observes, that Dr. Warburton's interpretation may be right, as Holinshed often uses the verb to coast, i. e. to hover, or range about any thing. So, in Chapman's version of the fifth Iliad:

"Atrides yet coasts through the troops, confirming men so stay'd."

See Holinshed, Vol. III. p. 352: “William Douglas still coasted the Englishmen, doing them what damage he might." So again, p. 387, and 404, and in other writers. STEEVENS.

I have no doubt but coast is the true reading. To coast is to keep along side of it, and watch it. In King Henry VIII. the Chamberlain says of Wolsey:

"

the king perceives him how he coasts

"And hedges his own way."

* Tire on the flesh of me, and of my son !4 * The loss of those three lords torments my heart:

* I'll write unto them, and entreat them fair ;

* Come, cousin, you shall be the messenger.

* EXE. And I, I hope, shall reconcile them all. [Exeunt.

And in the last Act of The Loyal Subject, Archas says:

66

Lord Barris, Catc" Take you those horse, and coast them." M. MASON. Will cost my crown,] i. e. will cost me my crown; will induce on me the expence or loss of my crown. MALONE.

Had this been our author's meaning, he would have otherwise formed his verse, and written "cost me my crown." So, in King Lear:

" The dark and vicious place where thee he got,
" Cost him his eyes."

* Tire on the flesh of me,]

lons, from the French tirer.

STEEVENS.

To tire is to fasten, to fix the ta-
Johnson.

To tire is to peck. So, in Decker's Match me in London,

1631:

5

"Upon the eagle's heart." STEEVENS.

_ those three lords] That is, of Northumberland,

Westmoreland, and Clifford, who had left him in disgust.

6

JOHNSON.

- you shall be the messenger.] Instead of the six last lines

of this speech, the first copy presents these:

"Come, cousin of Exeter, stay thou here,

" For Clifford and those northern lords be gone,

" I fear towards Wakefield, to disturb the duke."

See p. 16, n. 2, and the notes there referred to. MALONE.

SCENE II.

A Room in Sandal Castle, near Wakefield, in York

shire.

Enter EDWARD, RICHARD, and MONTAGUE.

RICH. Brother, though I be youngest, give me

leave.

EDW. No, I can better play the orator.

MONT. But I have reasons strong and forcible.

Enter YORK.

'YORK. Why, how now, sons and brother, at a strife?

What is your quarrel? how began it first?

7

sons and brother, I believe we should read-cousin instead of brother, unless brother be used by Shakspeare as a term expressive of endearment, or because they embarked, like brothers, in one cause. Montague was only cousin to York, and in the quarto he is so called. Shakspeare uses the expression, brother of the war, in King Lear. STEEVENS.

It should be sons and brothers; my sons, and brothers to each other. JOHNSON.

Brother is right. In the two succeeding pages York calls Montague brother. This may be in respect to their being brothers of the war, as Mr. Steevens observes, or of the same council, as in King Henry VIII. who says to Cranmer: “You are brother of us." Montague was brother to Warwick; Warwick's daughter was married to a son of York: therefore York and Montague were brothers. But as this alliance did not take place during the life of York, I embrace Mr. Steevens's interpretation rather than suppose that Shakspeare made a mistake about the time of the marriage. TOLLET.

The third folio reads as Dr. Johnson advises. But as York