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ANNE. Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canft make

No excufe current, but to hang thyself.

GLO. By fuch despair, I fhould accuse myself.

ANNE. And, by despairing, fhalt thou stand excus'd;

For doing worthy vengeance on thyself,
That didit unworthy flaughter upon others.

GLO. Say, that I flew them not?

ANNE.

Why then, they are not dead :*

But dead they are, and, devilish flave, by thee.

GLO. I did not kill your

ANNE.

husband.

Why, then he is alive.

GLO. Nay, he is dead; and flain by Edward's

hand.

ANNE. In thy foul's throat 3 thou lieft; queen Margaret faw

Thy murderous faulchion fmoking in his blood; The which thou once didft bend against her breast, But that thy brothers beat afide the point.

GLO. I was provoked by her fland'rous tongue, That laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.

ANNE. Thou waft provoked by thy bloody mind, That never dreamt on aught but butcheries : Didit thou not kill this king?

2

Why then, they are not dead :] Thus the quarto. The folio reads: Then say, they are not flain. MALONE.

3

thy foul's throat-] The folio-thy foul throat.

STEEVENS.

That laid their guilt-] The crime of my brothers. He has just charged the murder of Lady Anne's husband upon Edward. JOHNSON,

GLO.

I grant ye.5

ANNE. Doft grant me, hedge-hog? then, God grant me too,

Thou may'st be damned for that wicked deed!
O, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous.

GLO. The fitter for the King of heaven that hath him."

ANNE. He is in heaven, where thou fhalt never

come.

GLO. Let him thank me, that holp to fend him thither;

For he was fitter for that place, than earth.
ANNE. And thou unfit for any place but hell.

GLO. Yes, one place elfe, if you will hear me

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GLO. So will it, madam, till I lie with you.
-ANNE. I hope fo.

s I grant ye.] Read, to perfect the measure :

I grant ye, yea. RITSON.

One of the quartos, inftead of-ye, reads-yea. STEEVens.

60, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous.

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Glo. The fitter for the King of heaven &c.] So, in Pericles Prince of Tyre, 1609:

"I'll do't: but yet fhe is a goodly creature.

"Dion. The fitter then the gods should have her." STEEVENS.

7 Some dungeon.] As moft of the measure throughout this feene is regular, I cannot help suspecting that our author originally wrote:

Some dungeon, perhaps.

Your bed-chamber. STEEVENS.

GLO.

I know fo.-But, gentle lady Anne,To leave this keen encounter of our wits, And fall fomewhat into a flower method;8 Is not the caufer of the timeless deaths Of thefe Plantagenets, Henry, and Edward, As blameful as the executioner?

ANNE. Thou waft the cause, and moft accurs'd effect.9

GLO. Your beauty was the cause of that effect; Your beauty, which did haunt me in my fleep, To undertake the death of all the world,

So I might live one hour in your sweet bofom.

8

a flower method;] As quick was used for fpritely, fo Lower was put for ferious. In the next scene Lord. Grey defires the Queen to

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cheer his grace with quick and merry words." STEEVENS.

9 Thou waft the caufe, and most accurs'd effect.] Effect, for executioner. He afks, was not the caufer as ill as the execu tioner? She answers, Thou waft both. But, for caufer, ufing the word caufe, this led her to the word effect, for execution, or executioner. But the Oxford editor, troubling himself with nothing of this, will make a fine oratorical period of it:

Thou waft the caufe, and most accurs'd the effect.

WARBURTON.

I cannot but be rather of Sir T. Hanmer's opinion than Dr. Warburton's, because effect is used immediately in its common fense, in answer to this line. JOHNSON.

I believe the obvious sense is the true one. So, in The Yorkfhire Tragedy, 1608:

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thou art the cause,

"Effect, quality, property; thou, thou."

Again, in King Henry IV. P. II: "I have read the cause of his effects in Galen."

Again, in Sidney's Arcadia, Book II :

"Both caufe, effect, beginning, and the end,

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"Are all in me.' STEEVENS.

Our author, I think, in another place ufes effect, for efficient caufe. MALONE.

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ANNE. If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide, These nails fhould rend that beauty from my

cheeks.

GLO. Thefe eyes could not endure that beauty's wreck,

You should not blemish it, if I ftood by :
As all the world is cheered by the fun,
So I by that; it is my day, my life.

ANNE. Black night o'erfhade thy day, and death thy life!

GLO. Curfe not thyfelf, fair creature; thou art both.

ANNE. I would I were, to be reveng'd on thee. GLO. It is a quarrel moft unnatural,

To be reveng'd on him that loveth thee.

ANNE. It is a quarrel juft and reasonable,
To be reveng'd on him that kill'd my husband.

GLO. He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband, Did it to help thee to a better husband.

ANNE. His better doth not breathe upon the earth.

GLO. He lives, that loves you better than he could.

ANNE. Name him.

GLO.

ANNE.

Plantagenet.

Why, that was he.

GLO. The felf-fame name, but one of better

nature.

ANNE. Where is he?

GLO.

Here: [She Spits at him.] Why

doft thou spit at me?

ANNE. 'Would it were mortal poifon, for thy

fake!

GLO. Never came poifon from fo fweet a place.

ANNE. Never hung poifon on a fouler toad. Out of my fight! thou doft infect mine eyes.

GLO. Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine. ANNE. 'Would they were bafilifks, to ftrike thee dead!!

GLO. I would they were, that I might die at once; For now they kill me with a living death.2

'Would they were bafilifks, to strike thee dead!]

Among

the ferpents the Bafilifke doth infecte, and kill people with his looke." Summary of Secret Wonders, &c. bl. 1. by John Alday, no date. STEEVENS.

So, in The Winter's Tale:

"Make me not fighted like the bafilifk;

"I have look'd on thousands, who have sped the better By my regard, but kill'd none fo."

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See alfo, King Henry VI. P. II. Vol. XIII. p. 281, n. 1.

MALONE.

In Cornucopia, &c. 1596, Sign. B. 4: "The eye of the Bafilifke is fo odious to man, that it fleeth man before he come nere him, even by looking upon him." REED.

2

-they kill me with a living death.] In imitation of this paffage, and, I fuppofe, of a thousand more, Pope writes: a living death I bear,

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"Says Dapperwit, and funk befide his chair."

JOHNSON.

The fame conceit occurs in The trimming of Thomas Nash, 1597: "How happy the rat, caught in a trap, and there dies a living death?"

Again, in Phineas Fletcher's, Locufts, or Apollyonists, 4to. 1627:

"It lives, yet's death: it pleases full of paine;
"Monster! ah who, who can thy beeing faigne ?
"Thou fhapeleffe fhape, live death, paine pleasing,
fervile raigne." STEEVENS.

So, in Watson's Sonnets, printed about 1580:
"Love is a fowre delight, a fugred griefe,

"A living death, an ever-dying life."

We have again the fame expreflion in Venus and Adonis:

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