Uncharitably with me have you dealt, And fhamefully by you my hopes are butcher'd. And in my fhame ftill live my forrow's rage! Q. MAR. O princely Buckingham, I kifs thy In fign of league and amity with thee: BUCK. Nor no one here; for curfes never pafs The lips of those that breathe them in the air. Q. MAR. I'll not believe but they afcend the sky, And there awake God's gentle-fleeping 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: Sin, death, and hell,' have set their marks on him; GLO. What doth she say, my lord of Buckingham? BUCK. Nothing that I refpect, my gracious lord. Q. MAR. What, doft thou fcorn me for my gentle counfel? ▾ Sin, death, and hell,] Poffibly Milton took from hence the hint of his famous allegory. BLACKSTONE. Milton might as probably catch the hint from the following paffage in Latimer's Sermons, 1584, fol. 79: "Here came in death and hell, finne was their mother. Therefore they must have fuch animage as their mother finne would geue them." HOLT WHITE. And footh the devil that I warn thee from? When he shall split thy very heart with forrow; And he to yours, and all of you to God's ! [Exit. curfes. RIV. And fo doth mine; I muse, why fhe's at liberty.3 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 fome body good, That is too cold in thinking of it now. Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid; He is frank'd up to fatting for his pains ;4God pardon them that are the cause thereof! 2 Live each of you the fubjects to his hate, And he to yours, and all of you to God's!] It is evident from the conduct of Shakspeare, that the houfe of Tudor retained all their Lancaftrian prejudices, even in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In his play of Richard the Third, he feems to deduce the woes of the houfe of York from the curfes which Queen Margaret had vented against them; and he could not give that weight to her curfes, without fuppofing a right in her to utter them. WALPOLE. 3 -I mufe, why he's at liberty.] Thus the folio. The quarto reads: 66 I wonder the's at liberty. STEEVÈNS. 4 He is frank'd up to fatting for his pains ;] A frank is an old English word for a hog-fty. "Tis poffible he uses this metaphor to Clarence, in allufion to the crest of the family of York, which was a boar. Whereto relate thofe famous old verses on Richard III : To RIV. A virtuous and a chriftian-like conclufion, pray for them that have done fcath to us.5 GLO. So do I ever, being well advis'd; For had I curs'd now, I had curs'd myself. [Afide. Enter CATESBY. 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 GLOSTER. "The cat, the rat, and Lovel the dog, He uses the fame metaphor in the laft fcene of Act IV. POPE. A frank was not a common hog-ftye, but the pen in which thofe hogs were confined of whom brawn was to be made. STEEVENS, From the manner in which the word is used in King Henry IV. a frank fhould feem to mean a pen in which any hog is fatted. "Does the old boar feed in the old frank ?" So alfo, as Mr. Bowle obferves to me, in Holinfhed's Defcription 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 uneafie coate." "He feeds like a boar in a frank," as the fame gentleman obferves, is one of Ray's proverbial fentences. MALONE. Mr. Bowie's chief inftance will fufficiently countenance my affertion for what hogs, except those defigned for brawn, are ever purpofely lodged "on the bare planches of an uneafy cote ?" 5 : STEEVENS. done feath to us. .] Scath is harm, mifchief. So, in Soliman and Perfeda: Again: "Whom now that paltry ifland keeps from feath." "Millions of men opprest with ruin and feath." STEEVENS. GLO. I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl. Namely, to Stanley, Haftings, Buckingham; With old odd ends, ftol'n forth of holy writ; Enter Two Murderers. But foft, here come my executioners.- 1 MURD. We are, my lord; and come to have the warrant, That we may be admitted where he is. me: GLO. Well thought upon, I, have it here about [Gives the Warrant. When you have done, repair to Crosby-place. But, firs, be fudden in the execution, 6 to defpatch this thing] Seagars in his Legend of Richard the Third, speaking of the murder of Glofter's nephews, makes him fay: "What though he refufed, yet be fure you may, "That other were as ready to take in hand that thing.” The coincidence was, I believe, merely accidental. MALONE. 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 affur'd, We go to use our hands, and not our tongues. GLO. Your eyes drop mill-ftones, when fools' eyes drop tears:7 I like you, lads;-about 1 MURD. your business straight; The fame. A Room in the Tower. Enter CLARENCE and BRAKENBURY. BRAK. Why looks your grace fo heavily to-day? CLAR. O, I have pass'd a miserable night, So full of fearful dreams, of ugly fights,* That, as I am a christian faithful man," I would not spend another fuch a night, 7 Your eyes drop mill-ftones, when fools' eyes drop tears:] This, I believe, is a proverbial expreffion. It is ufed again in the tragedy of Cæfar and Pompey, 1607: "Men's eyes muft mill-stones drop, when fools fhed tears.” STEEVENS. So full of fearful dreams, of ugly fights,] Thus the folio. The quarto, 1598: "So full of ugly fights, of ghaftly dreams." MALONE. 9-faithful man,] Not an infidel. JOHNSON. |