And Edward, my poor fon, at Tewksbury.
Glo. Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband king,
I was a pack-horse in his great affairs;

A weeder out of his proud adversaries,

A liberal rewarder of his friends;

To reyalize his blood, I fpilt mine own.

2. Mar. Ay, and much better blood than his, or thine.

Glo. In all which time, you, and your husband Gray
Were factious for the houfe of Lancaster ;-
And, Rivers, fo were you :-'Was not your husband,
In Margaret's battle, at Saint Alban's flain?
Let me put in your minds, if you forget,

What you have been ere now, and what you are:
Withal, what I have been, and what I am.

2. Mar. A murd'rous villain, and so still thou art. Glo. Poor Clarence did forfake his father Warwick, Ay, and forfwore himself,-which Jefu pardon !2. Mar. Which God revenge!

Glo. To fight on Edward's party, for the crown; And, for his meed, poor lord he is mew'd up: I would to God, my heart were flint like Edward's, Or Edward's foft and pitiful, like mine;

I am too childish-foolish for this world.

2. Mar. Hie thee to hell for fhame, and leave this world,

Thou Cacodæmon! there thy kingdom is.

Riv. My lord of Glo'fter, in those busy days, Which here you urge, to prove us enemies, We follow'd then our lord, our lawful king; So fhould we you, if you should be our king. Glo. If I fhould be ?—I had rather be a pedlar :

It is faid in Henry VI. that he died in quarrel of the boufe of York.

JOHNSON.

Far

Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof!

Queen. As little joy, my lord, as you fuppofe You fhould enjoy, were you this country's king; As little joy you may fuppofe in me,

That I enjoy, being the queen thereof. 2. Mar. A little joy enjoys the

queen thereof, For I am she, and altogether joyless.

2

I can no longer hold me patient.- [She advances.
Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out
In fharing that which you have pill'd from me:
Which of you trembles not, that looks on me?
If not, that I being queen, you bow like subjects;
Yet that, by you depos'd, you quake like rebels ?-
3 Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away!

Glo. Foul wrinkled witch, what mak'st thou in my fight?

2. Mar. But repetition of what thou haft marr'd, That will I make, before I let thee go.

Glo. Wert thou not banifhed on pain of death?
2. Mar. I was; but I do find more pain in ba-
nishment,

Than death can yield me here by my abode.
A husband and a fon thou ow'ft to me,—
And thou a kingdom;-all of you allegiance:
This forrow that I have by right is yours;
And all the pleafures you ufurp are mine.

2 Hear me, you wrangling pirates, &c.] This fcene of Margaret's imprecations is fine and artful. She prepares the audience, like another Caffandra, for the following tragic revolutions. WARB. 3 Ab, gentle villain,— We fhould read,

The meaning of gentle is not, as the commentator imagines, tender or courteous, but high-born. An oppofition is meant between that and villain, which means at once a wicked and a low-born awretch. So before,

Since ev'ry Jack is made a gentleman,

There's many a gentle perfon made a Jack. JOHNSON.

Glo.

Glo. The curfe my noble father laid on thee, When thou didft crown his warlike brows with paper, And with thy fcorns drew'ft rivers from his eyes; And then, to dry them, gav'ft the duke a clout, Steep'd in the faultlefs blood of pretty Rutland; in an His curfes, then from bitterness of foul

Denounc'd against thee, are all fallen upon thee; And God, not we, hath plagu'd thy bloody deed. 4 Queen. So just is God, to right the innocent. Haft. O, 'twas the fouleft deed, to slay that babe, And the moft merciless that e'er was heard of. Riv. Tyrants themselves wept, when it was reported.

Dorf. No man but prophefy'd revenge for it. Buck. Northumberland, then prefent, wept to fee it. 2. Mar. What! were you fnarling all before I

came,

Ready to catch each other by the throat?
And turn you all your hatred now on me?
Did York's dread curfe prevail fo much with heaven,
That Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death,
Their kingdom's lofs, my woful banishment,
Could all but anfwer for that peevish brat?

Can curfes pierce the clouds, and enter heaven? Why, then give way, dull clouds, to my quick curfes !

If not by war, by furfeit die your king!
As ours by murder, to make him a king!
Edward, thŷ fon, that now is prince of Wales,
For Edward, my fon, that was prince of Wales,
Die in his youth, by like untimely violence!
Thyfelf a queen, for me that was a queen,
Out-live thy glory, like my wretched felt!

4 Q. Mar. So juft is God, &c.] This line fhould be given to Edward IVth's queen. WARBURTON.

5-by furfiit die your king,] Alluding to his luxurious life.

JOHNSON.

Long

Long may'st thou live to wail thy children's lofs,
And fee another, as I fee thee now,

Deck'd in thy rights, as thou art ftall'd in mine!
Long die thy happy days before thy death;
And, after many lengthen'd hours of grief,
Die, neither mother, wife, nor England's queen !—
Rivers, and Dorset, you were standers by,—
And fo waft thou, lord Haftings, when my fon
Was stabb'd with bloody daggers; God, I pray him,
That none of you may live your natural age,

But by fome unlook'd accident cut off!

Glo. Have done thy charm, thou hateful wither'd hag.

2. Mar. And leave out thee? ftay, dog, for thou fhalt hear me.

world's peace

If heaven have any grievous plague in store,
Exceeding thofe that I can wish upon thee,
O, let them keep it, till thy fins be ripe;
And then hurl down their indignation
On thee, thou troubler of the poor
The worm of confcience ftill be-gnaw thy foul!
Thy friends fufpect for traitors while thou liv't,
And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!
No fleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
Unless it be while fome tormenting dream
Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!
Thou elvish-mark'd abortive, rooting hog!

!

Thou

rooting bog!] The expreffion is fine, alluding (in memory of her young fon) to the ravage which hogs make, with the finett flowers, in gardens; and intimating that Elizabeth was to expect no other treatment for her fons. WARBURTON.

than

She calls him beg, as an appellation more contemptuous bar, as he is elsewhere termed from his enfigns armorial. There is no fuch heap of allufion as the commentator imagines.

JOHNSON.

In the Mirror of Magiftrotes (a book already quoted) is the Complaint of Ceilingbourne, who was cruelly executed for making a i, on which I find the following paffage:

For

Thou that was feal'd in thy nativity
7 The slave of nature, and the son of hell!
Thou flander of thy mother's heavy womb!
Thou loathed iffue of thy father's loins!
rag of honour thou detefted-

Thou

For where I meant the king by name of bog,
I only alluded to his badge the bore.

To Lovel's name I added more,-our dog,
Because moft dogs have borne that name of yore.
Thefe metaphors I us'd with other more,

As cat and rat, the half-names of the reft,

To bide the fenfe that they fo wrongly wreft. STEEVENS. 7 The flave of nature--] The expreffion is ftrong and noble, and alludes to the ancient cuftom of mafters' branding their profligate flaves: by which it is infinuated that his misshapen perfon was the mark that nature had set upon him to ftigmatize his ill conditions. Shakespeare expreffes the fame thought in The Comedy of Errors.

He is deformed, crooked, &c.
Stigmatical in making,—

But as the speaker rifes in her refentment, she expreffes this contemptuous thought much more openly, and condemns him to a ftill worfe ftate of slavery,

Sin, death, and bell, have fet their marks upon him. Only, in the first line, her mention of his moral condition infinu. ates her reflections on his deformity: and, in the laft, her mention of his deformity infinuates her reflections on his moral condition: And thus he has taught her to scold in all the elegance of figure. WARBURTON.

• Thou rag of bonour, &c ] We should certainly read,

Thou wrack of honour—————

i. e. the ruin and deftruction of honour; which, I fuppofe, was *firft writ vack, and then further corrupted to rag. WARBURTON.

Rag is, in my opinion, right, and intimates that much of his honour is torn away. Patch is, in the fame manner, a contemp. tuous appellation. JOHNSON.

This word of contempt is ufed again in Timon:

"If thou wilt curfe, thy father, that poor rag,
"Must be the subject.”

Again in this play,

"Thefe over-weening rags of France." STEEVENS.

Glo.