Q. Mar. And turns the sun to shade;-alas! alas!-
Witness my son, now in the shade of death;6
Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath
Hath in eternal darkness folded up.

Your aiery buildeth in our aiery's nest :7.
O God, that see'st it, do not suffer it;
As it was won with blood, lost be it so!

Buck. Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity.
Q. Mar. Urge neither charity nor shame to me;
Uncharitably with me have you dealt,

And shamefully by you my hopes are butcher'd.
My charity is outrage, life my shame,-

And in my shame still live my sorrow's rage!
Buck. Have done, have done.

Q. Mar. O princely Buckingham, I kiss thy hand,
In sign of league and amity with thee:
Now fair befal thee, and thy noble house!
Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,
Nor thou within the compass of my curse.

Buck. Nor no one here; for curses never pass
The lips of those that breathe them in the air.
Q. Mar. I'll not believe but they ascend the sky,
And there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace.
O Buckingham, beware of yonder dog;

Look, when he fawns, he bites; and, when he bites,
His venom tooth will rankle to the death:
Have not to do with him, beware of him;

Sin, death, and hell,8 have set their marks on him;

6 Witness my son, &c.] Her distress cannot prevent her quibbling. It may be here remarked, that the introduction of Margaret in this place, is against all historical evidence. She was ransomed and sent to France soon after Tewksbury fight, and there passed the remainder of her wretched life. Ritson.

Witness my son.] Thus the quarto of 1598, and the folio. The modern editors, after the quarto of 1612, read- sun. Malone. 7 Your aiery buildeth in our aiery's nest:] An aiery is a hawk's or an eagle's nest. So, in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1608:

"It is a subtle bird that breeds among the aiery of hawks." Again, in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1630:

"His high-built aiery shall be drown'd in blood."

8 Sin, death, and hell,] Possibly Milton took from hence the hint of his famous allegory. Blackstone.

Milton might as probably catch the hint from the following passage in Latimer's Sermons, 1584, fol. 79: "Here came in death

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,

[Exit.

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!"
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. 1 I muse, why she's at liberty.] Thus the folio. The quarto reads:

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, To 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 G10. 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 tears:5

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

1 Murd.

We will, my noble lord. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

The same. 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,"

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 Cæsar 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:

"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. 1791. Steevens.

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: