And all their ministers attend on him.

Glo. What doth she say, my lord of Buckingham?
Buck. Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.
Q. Mar. What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle
counsel?

And sooth the devil that I warn thee from?,

O, but remember this another day,

When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow;
And say, poor Margaret was a prophetess.—
Live each of you the subjects to his hate,
And he to yours, and all of you to God's!9

[Exit.

Hast. My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses. Riv. And so doth mine; I muse, why she's at liberty.1 Glo. I cannot blame her, by God's holy mother; She hath had too much wrong, and I repent

My part thereof, that I have done to her.

Q. Eliz. I never did her any, to my knowledge.
Glo. Yet you have all the vantage of her wrong.
I was too hot to do some body good,

That is too cold in thinking of it now.
Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repay'd;
He is frank'd up to fatting for his pains;2-

and hell, sinne was their mother. Therefore they must have such an image as their mother sinne would geue them." H. White. 9 Live each of you the subjects to his hate,

And he to yours, and all of you to God's!] It is evident from the conduct of Shakspeare, that the house of Tudor retained all their Lancastrian prejudices, even in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In his play of Richard the Third, he seems to deduce the woes of the house of York from the curses which Queen Margaret had vented against them; and he could not give that weight to her curses, without supposing a right in her to utter them. Walpole. I muse, why she's at liberty.] Thus the folio. The quarto

1

reads:

66 I wonder she 's at liberty."

Steevens.

2 He is frank'd up to fatting for his pains;] A frank is an old English word for a hog-sty. "Tis possible he uses this metaphor to Clarence, in allusion to the crest of the family of York, which was a boar. Whereto relate those famous old verses on Richard III:

"The cat, the rat, and Lovel the dog,
"Rule all England under a hog "

He uses the same metaphor in the last scene of Act IV. Pope. A frank was not a common hog stye, but the pen in which those hogs were confined of whom brawn was to be made. Steevens.

God pardon them that are the cause thereof!

Riv. A virtuous and a christian-like conclusion, Το pray for them that have done scath to us.3

Glo. So do I ever, being well advis'd;— For had I curs'd now, I had curs'd myself. Enter CATESBY.

[Aside.

Cates. Madam, his majesty doth call for you,----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 upon your grace.

[Exeunt all but GLO.

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 villainy

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.

From the manner in which the word is used in King Henry IV, a frank should seem to mean a pen in which any hog is fatted. "Does the old boar feed in the old frank?" So also, as Mr. Bowle observes to me, in Holinshed's Description of Britaine, B. III, p. 1096: "The husbandmen and farmers never fraunke them above three or four months, in which time he is dyeted with otes and peason, and lodged on the bare planches of an uneasie coate."

"He feeds like a boar in a frank," as the same gentleman observes, is one of Ray's proverbial sentences. Malone.

Mr. Bowle's chief instance will sufficiently countenance my assertion for what hogs, except those designed for brawn, are ever purposely lodged "on the bare planches of an uneasy cote?"

3

Steevens.

done scath to us.] Scath is harm, mischief. So, in Soliman and Perseda:

"Whom now that paltry island keeps from scath." Steevens.

How now, my hardy, stout, resolved mates?

Are you now going to despatch this thing?4

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 good doers; be assur'd,

We go to use our hands, and not our tongues.

Glo. Your eyes drop mill-stones, when fools' eyes drop

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,7

4

to despatch this thing?] Seagars, in his Legend of Richard the Third, speaking of the murder of Gloster's nephews, makes

him say:

"What though he refused, yet be sure you may,

"That other were as ready to take in hand that thing.” The coincidence was, I believe, merely accidental. Malone.

5 Your eyes drop mill-stones, when fools' eyes drop tears:] This, I believe, is a proverbial expression. It is used again in the tragedy of Casar and Pompey, 1607:

"Men's eyes must mill-stones drop, when fools shed tears." Steevens.

6 So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,] Thus the folio. The quarto, 1598:

7

"So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams." Malone. -faithful man,] Not an infidel. Johnson.

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,
And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;8
And, in my company, my brother Gloster:
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk

Upon the hatches; thence we look'd toward England,
And cited up a thousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster
That had befall'n us. As we pac'd along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought, that Gloster stumbled; and, in falling,
Struck me, that thought to stay him, over-board,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.

O Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of water in mine ears!9
What sights of ugly death1 within mine eyes!
Methought, I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
A thousand men, that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,2

8 -to Burgundy;] Clarence was desirous to assist his sister Margaret against the French King, who invaded her jointurelands after the death of her husband, Charles Duke of Burgundy, who was killed at the siege of Nancy, in January, 1476-7. Isabel the wife of Clarence being then dead, (taken off by poison, administered by the Duke of Gloster, as it has been conjectured,) he wished to have married Mary the daughter and heir of the Duke of Burgundy; but the match was opposed by Edward, who hoped to have obtained her for his brother-in-law, Lord Rivers; and this circumstance has been suggested as the principal cause of the breach between Edward and Clarence. Mary of Burgundy however chose a husband for herself, having married in August, 1477, Maximilian, son of the Emperor Frederick. Malone.

9 What dreadful noise of water in mine ears!] See Mr. Warton's note on Milton's Lycidas, v. 157. Milton's Poems, second edit. Steevens.

1791.

1 What sights of ugly death -] Thus the folio. The quarto has -What ugly sights of death. Malone.

2 Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,] Unvalued is here used for invaluable. So, in Lovelace's Posthumous Poems, 1659:

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 bottom3 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 the 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;5
But smother'd it within my panting bulk,6
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.

Brak. Awak'd you not with this sore agony?
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

the unvalew'd robe she wore,

"Made infinite lay lovers to adore."

Malone.

3 That woo'd the slimy bottom By seeming to gaze upon it;

or, as we now say, to ogle it. Johnson.

4 Kept in my soul,] Thus the quarto. The folio-Stopt in.

Malone.

5 To seek the empty, vast, and wand'ring air;] Perhaps we should point thus:

To seek the empty vast, and wand'ring air. that is, to seek the immense vacuity. Vast is used by our author as a substantive in other places. See Vol. VI, p. 164, n. 3. Seek is the reading of the quarto, 1598; the folio has find.

Malone.

· empty, vast, and wand'ring air;] Vast, is waste, desolate— vastum per inane. Steevens.

6

within my panting bulk,] Bulk is often used by Shakspeare and his contemporaries for body. So again, in Hamlet:

'66 it did seem to shatter all his bulk,
"And end his being." Malone.

4

7

grim ferryman -] The folio reads-s

s-sour ferryman.

Steevens.