And Edward, my poor fon, at Tewksbury. 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 What you have been ere now, and what you are: 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. 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? Than death can yield me here by my abode. 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? 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! 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, Deck'd in thy rights, as thou art ftall'd in mine! 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, ! 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 Thou For where I meant the king by name of bog, To Lovel's name I added more,-our dog, 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. 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, Again in this play, "Thefe over-weening rags of France." STEEVENS. Glo. |