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 foft and pitiful, like mine; I am too childish-foolish for this world. Q. MAR. Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave this world, Thou cacodæmon! there thy kingdom is. RIV. My lord of Glofter, in those busy days, Which here you urge, to prove us enemies, We follow'd then our lord, our lawful king;3 So fhould we you, if you fhould be our king. GLO. If I fhould 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; As little joy you may fuppofe in me, That I enjoy, being the queen thereof. Q. MAR. A little joy enjoys the queen For I am the, and altogether joyless. thereof; I can no longer hold me patient.- [Advancing. Hear me, you wrangling pirates,' that fall out our lawful king ;] So the quarto 1598, and the subsequent quartos. The folio has-fovereign king. In this play the variations between the original copy in quarto, and the folio, are more numerous than, I believe, in any other of our author's pieces. The alterations, it is highly probable, were made, not by Shakspeare, but by the players, many of them being very injudicious. The text has been formed out of the two copies, the folio, and the early quarto; from which the preceding editors have in every scene felected fuch readings as appeared to them fit to be adopted. To enumerate every variation between the copies would encumber the page with little ufe. MALONE, 9 Hear me, you wrangling pirates, &c.] This fcene of Margaret's imprecations is fine and artful. She prepares the audience, like another Caffandra, for the following tragic revolutions. WARBURTON, In fharing that which you have pill'd from me :1 GLO. Foul wrinkled witch, what mak'st thou in my fight 3 Q. MAR. But repetition of what thou haft marr'd; That will I make, before I let thee go. Surely, the merits of this fcene are infufficient to excuse its improbability. Margaret, bullying the court of England in the royal palace, is a circumftance as abfurd as the courtship of Glofter in a publick ftreet. STEEVENS. 1 - which you have pill'd from me:] To pill is to pillage. So, in The Martyr'd Soldier, by Shirley, 1638 : "He has not pill'd the rich, nor flay'd the poor." STEEVENS. To pill, is literally, to take off the outside or rind. Thus they fay in Devonshire, to pill an apple rather than pare it; and Shirley uses the word precisely in this fenfe. HENLEY. 2Ah, gentle villain,] We fhould read: ungentle villain.— WARBURTON. The meaning of gentle is not, as the commentator imagines, tender or courteous, but high-born. An oppofition is meant between that and villain, which means at once a wicked and a lowborn wretch. So before: 66 Since ev'ry Jack is made a gentleman, JOHNSON. Gentle appears to me to be taken in its common acceptation, but to be used ironically. M. MASON. 3 what mak'ft thou in my fight ?] An obfolete expreffion for-what doft thou in my fight. So, in Othello : "Ancient, what makes he here?" Margaret in her answer takes the word in its ordinary acceptation. MALONE. So does Orlando, in As you like it: Now, fir, what make you here ?— "Nothing: I am not taught to make any thing." STEEVENS. GLO. Wert thou not banished on pain of death ?4 Than death can yield me here by my abode. GLO. The curfe my noble father laid on thee,When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper, And with thy fcorns drew'ft rivers from his eyes; And then, to dry them, gav'ft the duke a clout, Steep'd in the faultlefs blood of pretty Rutland ;His curfes, then from bitterness of foul Denounc'd against thee, are all fallen upon thee; And God, not we, hath plagu'd thy bloody deed.5 Q. ELIZ. So juft is God, to right the innocent." HAST. O, 'twas the fouleft deed to flay that babe, And the most merciless, that e'er was heard of. 4 Wert thou not banished, on pain of death ?] Margaret fied into France after the battle of Hexham in 1464, and Edward' foon afterwards iffued a proclamation, prohibiting any of his fubjects from aiding her to return, or harbouring her, fhould the attempt to revifit England. She remained abroad till the 14th of April 1471, when the landed at Weymouth. After the battle of Tewksbury, in May 1471, the was confined in the Tower, where the continued a prifoner till 1475, when the was ranfomed by her father Reignier, and removed to France, where he died in 1482. The present scene is in 1477-8. MALONE. 1 hath plagu'd thy bloody deed.] So, in King John : "That he's not only plagued for her fin.” Hence the To plague, in ancient language, is to punish. fcriptural term-" the plagues of Egypt." STEEVENS. So juft is God, to right the innocent.] So, in Thomas Lord Cromwell, 1602: "How juft is God, to right the innocent!" RITSON. RIV. Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported. DORS. No man but prophecied revenge for it. BUCK. Northumberland, then prefent, wept to fee it." Q. MAR. What were you fnarling all, before I came, Ready to catch each other by the throat, And turn you all your hatred now on me? ven, That Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death, Can curfes pierce the clouds, and enter heaven ?Why, then give way, dull clouds, to my quick curfes! Though not by war, by furfeit die your king,9 As ours by murder, to make him a king! Edward, thy son, that now is prince of Wales, For Edward, my fon, that was prince of Wales, Die in his youth, by like untimely violence! Thyfelf a queen, for me that was a queen, Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self! 7 Northumberland, then prefent, wept to fee it.] Alluding to a fcene in King Henry VI. P. III: 1 "What, weeping ripe, my lord Northumberland ?” STEEVENS. 8 Could all but answer for that peevish brat?] This is the reading of all the editions, yet I have no doubt but we ought to read Could all not anfwer for that peevish brat? The fenfe feems to require this amendment; and there are no words fo frequently mistaken for each other as not and but. 9 M. MASON. by furfeit die your king,] Alluding to his luxurious life. JOHNSON. Long may'st thou live, to wail thy children's lofs; Deck'd in thy rights, as thou art ftall'd in mine! That none of you may live your natural age, GLO. Have done thy charm, thou hateful wither'd hag. Q. MAR. And leave out thee? ftay, dog, for thou If heaven have any grievous plague in store, On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace! elvish-mark'd,] The common people in Scotland (as I learn from Kelly's Proverbs,) have still an averfion to those who have any natural defect or redundancy, as thinking them mark'd out for mifchief. STEEVENS. 2 -rooting hog!] The expreffion is fine, alluding (in memory of her young fon) to the ravage which hogs make, with the finest flowers, in gardens; and intimating that Elizabeth was to expect no other treatment for her fons. WARBURTON, |