And even now my burden'd heart would break,
Should I not curfe them. Poison be their drink!
Gall, worse than gall, the daintieft that they taste !
Their sweetest fhade, a grove of cyprefs trees!3
Their chiefeft profpect, murdering bafilifks!
Their fofteft touch, as smart as lizards' ftings!
Their mufick, frightful as the ferpent's hifs;
And boding fcritch-owls make the concert full!
All the foul terrors in dark-feated hell

Q. MAR. Enough, fweet Suffolk; thou torment'ft thyfelf;

And thefe dread curfes

like the fun 'gainft glass, * Or like an overcharged gun, - recoil, And turn the force of them upon thyself.

2

SUF. You bade me ban, and will you bid me leave! 5

Now, by the ground that I am banifh'd from, Well could I curfe away a winter's night, Though ftanding naked on a mountain top, Where biting cold would never let grafs grow, And think it but a minute spent in sport.

Poifon be their drink!] Moft of these execrations are used, in the very words of Shakspeare, by Lee, in his Cafar Borgia, A& IV. STEFVENS.

3

of cypress trees!] Cypress was employed in the funeral rites of the Romans, and hence is always mentioned as an ill-boding plant. STEFVENS.

4

murdering bafilisks!

lizards' ftings!] It has been said of the bafilifk that it has the power of deftroying by a fingle glance of its eye. A lizard has no fting, but is quite inoffenfive.

STEEVENS.

See p. 266, n. g. MALONE. 5 You bade me ban, and will you bid me leave?] This inconfift ency is very common in real life. Those who are vexed to impa. tience, are angry to fee others lefs difturbed than themselves, but when others begin to rave, they immediately fee in them what they could not find in themfelves, the deformity and folly of useless rage, JOHNSON.

* Q. MAR. O, let me entreat thee, cease! Give
6
me thy hand,

* That I may dew it with my mournful tears;
*Nor let the rain of heaven wet this place,
To wash away my woeful monuments.

O, could this kifs be printed in thy hand;
[kiffes his hand.
That thou might'ft think upon thefe by the feal,
Through whom a thousand fighs are breath'd for

thee! 7

So, get thee gone, that I may know my grief; 'Tis but furmis'd whilft thou art ftanding by, As one that furfeits thinking on a want. I will repeal thee, or, be well affur'd, Adventure to be banished myself: *And banished I am, if but from thee. * Go, fpeak not to me; even now be gone. * O, go not yet!

demn'd

Even thus two friends con

*Embrace, and kiss, and take ten thousand leaves, * Lother a hundred times to part than die.

60, let me entreat thee, &c.] Instead of the first four lines of this speech, we find in the old play thefe, which Shakspeare has availed himself of elfewhere:

"No more, fweet Suffolk, hie thee hence to France; "Or live where thou wilt within this world's globe, "I'll have an Irish [Iris] that fhall find thee out.

"That thou might't think upon thefe by the feal,

MALONE.

Through whom a thousand fighs &c.] That by the impreffion of my kifs for ever remaining on thy hand thou mightest think on thofe lips through which a thousand fighs will be breathed for thee. JOHNSON.

See the fong introduced in Measure for Measure:

"But my kiffes bring again,

"Seals of love, but feal'd in vain.

"

Of this image our author appears to have been fond, having introduced it in feveral places. There is no trace of it in the old play. MALONE.

Yet now farewell; and farewell life with thee! SUF. Thus is poor Suffolk ten times banished, Once by the king, and three times thrice by thee. * 'Tis not the land I care for, wert thou hence; * A wilderness is populous enough,

So Suffolk had thy heavenly company: For where thou art, there is the world itfelf, * With every several pleasure in the world; And where thou art not, defolation.

* I can no more:- Live thou to joy thy life; Myself no joy in nought, but that thou liv'ft.

*

Enter VAUX.

Q. MAR. Whither goes Vaux fo faft? what news, I pr'ythee?

VAUX. To fignify unto his majefty, That cardinal Beaufort is at point of death: For fuddenly a grievous fickness took him,

• That makes him gasp, and ftare, and catch the

air,

Blafpheming God, and curfing men on earth. Sometime, he talks as if duke Humphrey's ghoft Were by his fide; fometime, he calls the king, And whispers to his pillow, as to him,

*The fecrets of his over-charged foul:*

And I am fent to tell his majefty,

That even now he cries aloud for him.

And whispers to his pillow, as to him,

The Jecrets &c.] The firft of these lines is in the old play. The fecond is unqueftionably our author's. The thought appears

to have ftruck him; for he has introduced it again in Macbeth:

Infeded minds

"To their deaf pillows will discharge their fecrets.

MALONE.

Q. MAR. Go, tell this heavy meffage to the

king. [Exit Vaux. Ah me! what is this world? what news are

thefe?9

But wherefore grieve I at an hour's poor lofs,*
Omitting Suffolk's exile, my foul's treafure?
Why only, Suffolk, mourn I not for thee,

And with the fouthern clouds contend in tears;
Theirs for the earth's increase,3 mine for my

rows?

for

Now, get thee hence: The king, thou know'st

is coming;

If thou be found by me, thou art but dead. SUF. If I depart from thee, I cannot live: And in thy fight to die, what were it else, But like a pleasant flumber in thy lap? Here could I breathe my foul into the air, As mild and gentle as the cradle-babe, Dying with mother's dug between its lips:

• Ah me! what is this world? what news are these?] Inftead of this line, the quarto reads:

2

"Oh! what is wordly pomp? all men muft die,
"And woe am I for Beaufort's heavy end.

STEEVENS.

at an hour's poor lofs, ] She means, I believe, at a loss which any hour spent in contrivance and deliberation will enable her to supply. Or perhaps she may call the fickness of the cardinal the lofs of an hour, as it may put fome ftop to her schemes.

JOHNSON.

I believe the poet's meaning is, Wherefore do I grieve that Beaufort has died an hour before his time, who, being an old man, could not have had a long time to live? STEEVENS.

This certainly may be the meaning;, yet I rather incline to think that the queen intends to say, “ Why do I lament a circumftance, the impreffion of which will pafs away in the short period of an hour; while I neglect to think on the lofs of Suffolk my affe&tion for whom no time will efface? MALONE,

for the earth's increase,]

See Vol. VII. p. 49, n. 6.

MALONE,

2

Where, from thy fight,
And cry out for thee to
To have thee with thy

I fhould be raging mad,
clofe up mine eyes,
lips to flop my mouth;

So fhouldft thou either turn my flying foul, 3
• Or I should breathe it fo into thy body,
And then it liv'd in fweet Elyfium.
To die by thee, were but to die in jest ;

From thee to die, were torture more than death: O. let me flay, befall what may befall.

Q. MAR. Away! though parting be a fretful corrofive, 4

It is applied to a deathful wound.

To Fiance, fweet Suffolk: Let me hear from thee; For wherefoe'er thou art in this world's globe, I'll have an Iris 5 that fhall find thee out.

Where, from thy fight,] In the preambles of almoft all the statutes made during the firft twenty years of queen Elizabeth's reign, the word where is employed inftead of whereas. It is fo used here. MALONE.

So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona:

"And where I thought the remnant of mine age" &c. See Vol. IV. p. 228, n. 6. STEEVENS.

3

turn my flying foul, ] Perhaps Mr. Pope was indebted to this paffage in his Eloifa to Abelard, where he makes that votarift of exquifite fenfibility fay:

See my lips tremble, and my eye-balls roll,
"Suck my laft breath, and catch my flying foul."

STEEVENS.

▲ Away! though parting be a fretful corrofive,] This word was generally, in our author's time, written, and, I fuppofe, pronounced corfive; and the metre fhows that it ought to be so printed here. So, iu The Spanish Tragedy, 1605:

His fon diftreft, a corfive to his heart."
Again, in The Alchymift, by Ben Joufon, 1610:

"Now do you fee that fomething's to be done
"Befide your beech-coal and your corfive waters.

Again, in an Ode by the fame:

"I fend not balms nor corfives to your wound.

MALONE.

I'll have an Iris ] Iris was the meffenger of Juno.

JOHNSON