That no man fhall have private conference,
Of what degree fo ever, with his brother.

GLO. Even fo? an please your worship, Brakenbury,

You may partake of any thing we fay:

We speak no treason, man;-We fay, the king
Is wife, and virtuous; and his noble queen
Well ftruck in years; fair, and not jealous:-
We fay, that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,
A cherry lip,

A bonny eye, a paffing pleafing tongue;

And the queen's kindred 3 are made gentlefolks:
How fay you, fir? can you deny all this?

BRAK. With this, my lord, myself have nought to do.

GLO. Naught to do with mistress Shore? I tell thee, fellow,

He that doth naught with her, excepting one,
Were beft to do it fecretly, alone.4

Well ftruck in years ;] This odd expreffion in our language was preceded by others as uncouth though of a fimilar kind. Thus, in Arthur Hall's tranflation of the first Book of Homer's Iliad, 1581:

Again:

"In Grea's forme, the good handmaid, nowe wel ystept in yeares."

"Well fhot in years he feem'd," &c.

Spenter's Fairy Queen, B. V. c. vi. The meaning of neither is very obvious; but as Mr. Warton has obferved in his Effay on The Fairy Queen, by an imperceptible progreffion from one kindred fenfe to another, words at length obtain a meaning entirely foreign to their original etymology. STEEVENS.

3 And the queen's kindred-] The o'd copies harthly and unneceffarily read

And that the queen's &c. STEEVENS.

4 alone.] Surely the adjective-alone, is an interpolation,

BRAK. What one, my lord?

GLO. Her husband, knave :-Would'ft thou betray me?

BRAK. I beseech your grace to pardon me; and, withal,

Forbear your conference with the noble duke. CLAR. We know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will obey.

GLO. We are the queen's abjects,5 and must obey.

as what the Duke is talking of, is feldom undertaken before witneffes. Befides, this word deranges the metre, which, without it, would be regular :-for instance:

5

Were beft to do it fecretly.

My lord?

What one,

Her husband, knave :-Would'
ft thou betray me?
STEEVENS.

the queen's abjects,] That is, not the queen's fubjects, whom the might protect, but her abjects, whom she drives away. JOHNSON.

So, in The Cafe is altered. How? Ask Dalio and Milo, 1604 :

"This ougly object, or rather abject of nature."

HENDERSON.

I cannot approve of Johnfon's explanation. Glofter forms a fubftantive from the adjective abject, and ufes it to express a lower degree of fubmiffion than is implied by the word fubject, which otherwise he would naturally have made use of. The Queen's abjects, means the most servile of her subjects, who must of course obey all her commands; which would not be the case of those whom she had driven away from her.

In a preceding page Glofter had faid of Shore's wife—
-I think, it is our way,

66

"If we will keep in favour with the king,

"To be her men, and wear her livery,"

The idea is the fame in both places, though the expreffion differs. In Jonfon's Every Man out of his Humour, Puntarvolo says to Swift:

--

"I'll make thee ftoop, thou abject!" M. MASON. This fubftantive was not of Shakspeare's formation. We meet with it in Pfalm xxxv. 15: "—yea the very abjects came together against me unawares, making mouths at me, and ceased not.”

་

Brother, farewell: I will unto the king;
And whatsoever you will employ me in,-
Were it, to call king Edward's widow-fifter,-
I will perform it to enfranchife you.

Mean time, this deep disgrace in brotherhood,
Touches me deeper than you can imagine.

CLAR. I know it pleaseth neither of us well. GLO. Well, your imprisonment fhall not be long; I will deliver you, or else lie for

Mean time, have patience.

CLAR.

you :7

I must perforce; farewell. [Exeunt CLARENCE, BRAKENBURY, and Guard.

Again, in Chapman's tranflation of the 21ft Book of Homer's Ody Jey:

"Whither? rogue! abject! wilt thou bear from us
"That bow propos'd?"

Again, in the fame author's verfion of Homer's Hymn to Venus :

6

"That thou wilt never let me live to be

"An abject, after so divine degree

"Taken in fortune ;- STEEVENS.

• Were it to call king Edward's widow-fifter,] This is a very covert and fubtle manner of infinuating treafon. The natural expreffion would have been, were it to call king Edward's wife, fifter. I will folicit for you, though it should be at the expence of fo much degradation and constraint, as to own the low-born wife of King Edward for a fifter. But by flipping, as it were cafually, widow, into the place of wife, he tempts Clarence with an oblique proposal to kill the King. JOHNSON.

King Edward's widow is, I believe, only an expreffion of contempt, meaning the widow Grey, whom Edward had chofen for his queen. Glofter has already called her, the jealous o'erworn widow. STEEVENS.

?lie for you:] He means to be imprisoned in your stead. To lie was anciently to refide, as appears by many inftances in thefe volumes. REED.

I must perforce ;] Alluding to the proverb, " Patience perforce, is a medicine for a mad dog." STEEVENS.

GLO. Go, tread the path that thou shalt ne'er

return,

Simple, plain Clarence!-I do love thee so,
That I will shortly send thy foul to heaven,
If heaven will take the present at our hands.
But who comes here? the new-deliver'd Haftings?

Enter HASTINGS.

HAST. Good time of day unto my gracious lord! GLO. As much unto my good lord chamberlain ! Well are you welcome to this open air, How hath your lordship brook'd imprisonment? HAST. With patience, noble lord, as prisoners

muft:

But I fhall live, my lord, to give them thanks,
That were the caufe of my imprisonment.

GLO. No doubt, no doubt; and fo fhall Clarence too;

For they, that were your enemies, are his,
And have prevail'd as much on him, as you.

HAST. More pity, that the eagle fhould be

mew'd,8

While kites and buzzards

prey

at liberty.

GLO. What news abroad?

HAST. No news fo bad abroad, as this at home;The king is fickly, weak, and melancholy, And his phyficians fear him mightily.

8

-Should be mew'd,] A mew was the place of confinement where a hawk was kept till he had moulted. So, in Albumazar : "Stand forth, transform'd Antonio, fully mew'd

yeomanry,

"From brown foar feathers of dull
"To the glorious bloom of gentry." STEEVENS.

GLO. Now, by Saint Paul, this news is bad in

deed.

I

O, he hath kept an evil diet 1 long,

And over-much confum'd his royal perfon; 'Tis very grievous to be thought upon. What, is he in his bed?

GLO. Go you before, and I will follow you.

[Exit HASTINGS. He cannot live, I hope; and muft not die,

Till George be pack'd with posthorse up to heaven.
I'll in, to urge his hatred more to Clarence,
With lies well fteel'd with weighty arguments;
And, if I fail not in my deep intent,
Clarence hath not another day to live:

Which done, God take king Edward to his mercy,
And leave the world for me to buftle in!

For then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter :3
What though I kill'd her husband, and her father?
The readiest way to make the wench amends,
Is to become her husband, and her father:
The which will I; not all fo much for love,
As for another fecret close intent,

By marrying her, which I must reach unto.
But yet I run before my horfe to market:
Clarence ftill breathes; Edward ftill lives, and reigns;
When they are gone, then must I count my gains.

Now, by Saint Paul,] The folio reads:

Now, by Saint John,- STEEVENS.

[Exit.

· an evil diet —] i. e. a bad regimen. STEEVENS.

2 He is.] Sir Thomas Hanmer very properly completes this

broken verfe, by reading

3

He is, my lord. STEEVENS.

Warwick's youngest daughter :] See p. 131, n. 4.

STEEVENS.