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*No, no; my heart will burft, an if I fpeak * And I will speak, that fo my heart may burft.* Butchers and villains, bloody cannibals !

* How sweet a plant have you untimely cropp'd! You have no children, butchers ! if you had, 'The thought of them would have stirr'd up remorfe :

*But, if you ever chance to have a child, Look in his youth to have him fo cut off, As, deathfmen! you have rid this fweet young prince ! 9

"You have no children, butchers !] The fame fentiment is repeated by Macduff, in the tragedy of Macbeth; and this paffage may ferve as a comment on that. BLACKSTONE.

The original play reads:

"You have no children, devils; if you had,

"The thought of them would then have ftopt your rage." This thought occurring alfo (as Sir William Blackftone has obferved,) in Macbeth, [See Vol. X. p. 249, n. 7.] may per haps be urged as a proof of Shakspeare's being the author of the firft draught, as well as of the alterations and additions to it. But how many thoughts and even expreffions has he borrowed from preceding writers? Having (as I fuppofe) greatly enlarged, and almoft new-written, this and the preceding play, the thoughts they contain, whether found in the firft copy, or his amplifica tion of it, were as likely to recur in a future piece, as any of those which he has employed in one originally written by himself. In his original plays he frequently borrowed from himself.

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MALONE.

you have rid this fweet young prince.] The condition of this warlike Queen would move compaffion, could it be forgotten that she gave York, to wipe his eyes in his captivity, a handkerchief ftained with his young child's blood. JOHNSON.

But furely it does move our compaffion, though that be not forgotten. When we fee any of our fellow-creatures involved in deep distress, from a juft and tender cause we attend only to their present sufferings, and not to their former crimes.

M. MASON.

K. Edw. Away with her; go, bear her hence perforce.

Q. MAR. Nay, never bear me hence, despatch me here;

Here fheath thy fword, I'll pardon thee my death: What! wilt thou not ?-then, Clarence, do it thou. CLAR. By heaven, I will not do thee fo much

ease.

Q. MAR. Good Clarence, do; fweet Clarence, do thou do it.'

CLAR. Didft thou not hear me fwear, I would not do it.

Q. MAR. Ay, but thou useft to forswear thyself; 'Twas fin before, but now 'tis charity.

'What! wilt thou not? where is that devil's

butcher,

Hard-favour'd Richard ?3 Richard, where art thou? Thou art not here: Murder is thy alms-deed; Petitioners for blood thou ne'er put'ft back.

do thou do it.] The old play reads-kill me too. MALONE.

2 'Twas fin before,] She alludes to the desertion of Clarence. JOHNSON.

3

where is that devil's butcher,

Hard-favour'd Richard ?] Thus all the editions. But devil's butcher, in others terms, I think, is kill-devil: rare news for the free-thinkers, if there were any grounds for depending on it. But the poet certainly wrote-devil-butcher; and the first part of the compound is to be taken adjectively, meaning execrable, infernal, devilifh. THEOBALD.

Devil's butcher, is a butcher fet on by the devil. Either reading may ferve without fo long a note. JOHNSON,

The folio adds, at the end of this line, the word-Richard. But both the metre and the old play fhow that it was an accidental repetition by the transcriber, or compofitor. MALONE.

'K. EDW. Away, I fay; I charge ye, bear her

hence.

Q. MAR. So come to you, and yours, as to this

prince!

[Exit, led out forcibly.

K. EDW. Where's Richard gone ?

' CLAR. To London, all in poft; and, as I guess, To make a bloody fupper in the Tower.

K. EDW. He's fudden, if a thing comes in his

head.

'Now march we hence: discharge the common fort

'With pay and thanks, and let's away to London, 'And fee our gentle queen how well the fares;

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By this, I hope, she hath a fon for me.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VÍ.

London. A Room in the Tower.

King HENRY is difcovered fitting with a Book in his Hand, the Lieutenant attending. Enter GLOSTER.

GLO. Good day, my lord! What, at your book fo

hard?

K. HEN. Ay, my good lord: My lord, I fhould fay rather;

'Tis fin to flatter, good was little better: Good Glofter, and good devil, were alike,

* And both prepofterous; therefore, not good lord. * GLO. Sirraḥ, leave us to ourselves: we must [Exit Lieutenant.

confer.

*K. HEN. So flies the reckless fhepherd from the wolf:

*So firft the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece, *And next his throat unto the butcher's knife.What scene of death hath Rofcius now to act ?4

• What scene of death hath Rofcius now to act ?] Rofcius was certainly put for Richard by fome fimple conceited player who had heard of Rofcius and of Rome; but did not know that he was an actor in comedy, not in tragedy. WARBURTON.

Shakspeare had occafion to compare Richard to fome player about to represent a scene of murder, and took the first or only name of antiquity that occurred to him, without being very fcrupulous about its propriety.

I know not, however, that it is proved, on claffical authority, that Rofcius, though generally a comedian, was no occafional actor in tragedy. Nah, in Pierce Penniless's Supplication to the Devil, 1592, fays: "Not Rofcius nor Efope, thofe admired tragedians, that have lived ever fince before Chrift was born, could ever performe more in action than famous Ned Allen."

Again, in Acolaftus his Afterwitte, 1600:

"Through thee each murthering Rofcius is appointed "To act ftrange scenes of death on God's anointed.” Again, in Certaine Satyres, 1598:

"Was penn'd by Rofcio the tragedian." STEEVENS. What Scene of death hath Rofcius now to act?] So, in Acolaftus his Afterwitte, a poem, 1600:

"What bloody scene hath cruelty to act?"

Dr. Warburton reads Richard, instead of Rofcius, because Rofcius was a comedian. That he is right in this affertion, is proved beyond a doubt by a paffage in Quintilian, cited by W. R. [probably Sir Walter Rawlinfon] in The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. LIV. P. II. p. 886: "Rofcius citatior, fopus gravior fuit, quod ille comoedias, hic tragoedias egit." QUINTIL. Lib. XI. c. iii. -But it is not in Quintilian or in any other ancient writer we are to look in order to ascertain the text of Shakspeare. Rofcius was called a tragedian by our author's contemporaries, as apFears from the quotations in the preceding note; and this was fufficient authority to him, or rather to the author of the original play, for there this line is found. MALONE,

GLO. Sufpicion always haunts the guilty mind; The thief doth fear each bufh an officer.

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'K. HEN. The bird, that hath been limed in a

bufh,

With trembling wings mifdoubteth every bush:5 And I, the hapless male' to one sweet bird, Have now the fatal object in my eye,

Where my poor young was lim'd, was caught, and kill'd.

< GLO. Why, what a peevish fool was that of Crete,

'That taught his fon the office of a fowl?

And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown'd.

S mifdoubteth every bush :] To mifdoubt is to fufpe& danger, to fear. So, in Humour out of Breath, a comedy by John Day, 1608 :

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"Hip. Doubt and mifdoubt! what difference is there here? "Oct. Yes, much: when men mifdoubt, 'tis faid they fear.". STEEVENS.

hapless male-] The word male is here used in a very uncommon fenfe, not for the male of the female, but for the male parent; the sweet bird is evidently his fon Prince Edward. M. MASON. "-peevith-fool-] As peevishness is the quality of children, peevish feems to fignify childish, and by confequence filly. Peevish is explained by childish, in a former note of Dr. Warburton. JOHNSON.

Shakspeare employs the word peevish in the fame sense in Cymbeline, where the reader will find many inftances of this use of it. STEEVENS.

This epithet which Shakspeare has fo frequently employed, was one of his additions to the original play.

The ordinary fignification of peevish in our poet's time was foolish. See Mintheu's Dict. 1617, in v. MALONE.

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And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown'd.] The old play reads:

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"And yet for all that the poor fowl was drown'd."

MALONE.

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