Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women [Flourish. Alarums. Either be patient, and entreat me fair, K. RICH. Ay; I thank God, my father, and yourfelf. DUCH. Then patiently hear my impatience. K. RICH. Madam, I have a touch of your con dition,9 That cannot brook the accent of reproof. DUCH. O, let me speak. K. RICH. Do, then; but I'll not hear. DUCH. I will be mild and gentle in my words. K. RICH. And brief, good mother; for I am in haste. Duc Art thou fo hafty? I have ftaid for thee, God knows, in torment and in agony. K. RICH. And came I not at last to comfort you? DUCH. No, by the holy rood, thou know'ft it well, Thou cam'ft on earth to make the earth my hell. A grievous burden was thy birth to me; 9a touch of your condition,] A fpice or particle of your temper or difpofition. JOHNSON. So, in Chapman's tranflation of the 24th Iliad: his cold blood embrac'd a fiery touch "Of anger," &c. Again, in the thirteenth Iliad: if any touch appear "Of glory in thee :-' STEEVENS. 1 Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy; Thy fchool-days, frightful, defperate, wild, and fu rious; Thy prime of manhood, daring, bold, and ventu rous; Thy age confirm'd, proud, fubtle, fly, and bloody, More mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred: What comfortable hour canft thou name, That ever grac'd me in thy company? K. RICH. 'Faith, none, but Humphrey Hour,3 that call'd your grace Tetchy-] Is touchy, peevish, fretful, ill-temper'd. So, in Romeo and Juliet: RITSON. "To fee it tetchy, and fall out with the dug―.” STEEVENS. That ever grac'd me-] To grace feems here to mean the fame as to blefs, to make happy. So, gracious is kind, and graces are favours. JOHNSON. We find the fame expreffion in Macbeth: 3 "Please it your highness "To grace us with your royal company." STEEVENS. Humphrey Hour,] This may probably be an allufion to fome affair of gallantry of which the Duchefs had been fufpected. I cannot find the name in Holinfhed. Surely the poet's fondness for a quibble has not induced him at once to perfonify and chriften that hour of the day which fummon'd his mother to breakfast. So, in The Wit of a Woman, 1604: "Gentlemen, time makes us brief: our old mistress, Houre, is at hand.” Shakspeare might indeed by this ftrange phrase (Humphrey Hour) have defigned to mark the hour at which the good Duchefs was as hungry as the followers of Duke Humphrey. The common cant phrafe of dining with Duke Humphrey, I have never yet heard fatisfactorily explained. It appears, however, from a satirical pamphlet called The Guls Horn-booke, 1609, written by T. Deckar, that in the ancient church of St. Paul, one of the aifles was called Duke Humphrey's Walk; in which those who had no means of procuring a dinner, affected to loiter. Deckar concludes his fourth chapter thus: "By this, I imagine you have walked your bellyful, and thereupon being weary, or To breakfast once, forth of my company. (which is rather, I beleeve,) being moft gentleman-like hungry, it is fit that as I brought you unto the duke, fo (because he followes the fashion of great men in keeping no house, and that therefore you must go feeke your dinner,) fuffer me to take you by the hand and leade you into an ordinary." The title of this chapter is, "How a gallant fhould behave himself in Powles Walkes." Hall, in the 7th Satire, B. III. feems to confirm this interpretation : ""Tis Ruffio: Trow'st thou where he din'd to-day? "Manie good welcoms, and much gratis cheere, 66 "An open house haunted with greate refort, Long fervice mixt with muficall difport," &c. Hall's Satires, edit. 1602, p. 60. See likewife Foure Letters and certain Sonnets, by Gabriel Harvey, 1592: : to feeke his dinner in Poules with duke Humphrey to licke dishes, to be a beggar." Again, in The Return of the Knight of the Poft, &c. by Nash, 1606: “—in the end comming into Poules, to behold the old duke and his guests," &c. Again, in A wonderful, ftrange, and miraculous Prognoftication, for this Year, &c. 1591, by Nafh: "fundry fellowes in their filkes fhall be appointed to keepe duke Humfrye company in Poules, because they know not where to get their dinners abroad." If it be objected that duke Humphrey was buried at St. Albans, let it likewife be remembered that cenotaphs were not uncommon. STEEVENS. It appears from Stowe's Survey, 1598, that Sir John Bewcampe, fon to Guy, and brother to Thomas, Earls of Warwick, who died in 1358, had “ a faire monument" on the fouth fide of the body of St. Paul's Church." He," fays Stowe, "is by ignorant people mifnamed to be Humphrey Duke of Glofter, who lyeth honourably buried at Saint Albans, twentie miles from London: And therefore fuch as merily profeffe themelues to ferue Duke Humphrey in Powles, are to bee punished here, and fent to Saint Albons, there to be punished againe, for theyr abfence from theyr maister, as they call him." RITSON. Humphrey Hour,] I believe nothing more than a quibble was Let me march on, and not offend you, DUCH. madam. I pr'ythee, hear me speak. K. RICH. You speak too bitterly. DUCH. Hear me a word; For I fhall never speak to thee again. K. RICH. So. DUCH. Either thou wilt die, by God's juft ordi nance, Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror ; Therefore, take with thee my moft heavy curfe ; Shame ferves thy life,+ and doth thy death attend. [Exit. Q. ELIZ. Though far more cause, yet much less fpirit to curfe Abides in me; I fay amen to her. [Going. K RICH. Stay, madam,5 I must speak a word with you. meant. In our poet's twentieth Sonnet we find a fimilar conceit; a quibble between hues (colours) and Hughes, (formerly fpelt Hewes) the perfon addreffed. MALONE. + Shame ferves thy life,] To ferve is to accompany, fervants being near the perfons of their mafters. JOHNSON. 5 Stay, madam,] On this dialogue 'tis not neceffary to bestow much criticism, part of it is ridiculous, and the whole improbable. JOHNSON. Q. ELIZ. I have no more fons of the royal blood, For thee to murder: for my daughters, Richard,They fhall be praying nuns, not weeping queens; And therefore level not to hit their lives. K. RICH. You have a daughter call'd—Elizabeth, Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious. Q. ELIZ. And must she die for this? O, let her And I'll corrupt her manners, ftain her beauty; So fhe may live unscarr'd of bleeding flaughter, K. RICH. Wrong not her birth, she is of royal Q. ELIZ. To fave her life, I'll fay-she is not fo. K. RICH. Lo, at their births7 good ftars were Q. ELIZ. No, to their lives bad friends were contrary. I cannot agree with Dr. Johnson's opinion. I fee nothing ridiculous in any part of this dialogue; and with respect to probability, it was not unnatural that Richard, who by his art and wheedling tongue, had prevailed on Lady Anne to marry him in her heart's extremeft grief, should hope to perfuade an ambitious, and, as he thought her, a wicked woman, to confent to his marriage with her daughter, which would make her a queen, and aggrandize her family. M. MASON. 6fhe is of royal blood.] The folio reads-she is a royal princefs. STEEVENS. 7 Lo, at their births] Perhaps we should read-No, at their births. TYRWHITT. |