And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave?
My brother kill'd no man, his fault was thought,
And yet his punishment was bitter death.

Who sued to me for him?2 who, in my wrath,
Kneel'd at my feet, and bade me be advis'd?3
Who spoke of brotherhood? who spoke of love?
Who told me, how the poor soul did forsake
The mighty Warwick, and did fight for me?
Who told me, in the field at Tewksbury,
When Oxford had me down, he rescu'd me,
And said, Dear brother, live, and be a king?
Who told me, when we both lay in the field,
Frozen almost to death, how he did lap me
Even in his garments; and did give himself,
All thin and naked, to the numb-cold night?
All this from my remembrance brutish wrath
Sinfully pluck'd, and not a man of you
Had so much grace to put it in my mind.
But, when your carters, or your waiting-vassals,
Have done a drunken slaughter, and defac'd
The precious image of our dear Redeemer,
You straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon;
And I, unjustly too, must grant it you:-
But for my brother, not a man would speak,-
Nor I (ungracious) speak unto myself

For him, poor soul. The proudest of you all
Have been beholden to him in his life;

litles of the dead is very natural, and no less naturally does the King endeavour to communicate the crime to others. Johnson.

2 Who sued to me for him? &c.] This pathetick speech is founded on this slight hint in Sir Thomas More's History of Edward V, inserted by Holinshed in his Chronicle: "Sure it is, that although king Edward were consenting to his death, yet he much did both lament his infortunate chance, and repent his sudden execution. Insomuch that when any person sued to him for the pardon of malefactors condemned to death, he would accustomablie say, and openly speake, O infortunate brother, for whose life not one would make suite! openly and apparently meaning by suche words that by the means of some of the nobilitie he was deceived, and brought to his confusion." Malone.

2

be advis'd?] i. e. deliberate; consider what I was about to do. So, in The Letters of the Paston Family, Vol. II, p. 279: "Written in haste with short advisement," &c. See also, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Vol. II, p. 179, n. 3. Malone.

Yet none of you would once plead for his life.—
O God! I fear, thy justice will take hold

On me, and you, and mine, and yours, for this.prithee Come, Hastings, help me to my closet. "O; & "Poor Clarence!"

[Exeunt King, Queen, HAST. RIV. DOR. and GREY. Glo. This is the fruit of rashness!-Mark'd you not How that the guilty kindred of the queen

Look'd pale, when they did hear of Clarence' death?
O! they did urge it still unto the king :

God will revenge it. Come, lords; will you go,
To comfort Edward with our company?

Buck. We wait upon your grace.

SCENE II.

The same.

5

[Exeunt.

Enter the Duchess of York, with a Son and Daughter

of Clarence.

Sun. Good grandam, tell us, is our father dead?
'Duch. No, boy.

Daugh. Why do you weep so oft? and beat your
And cry- Clarence, my unhappy son!

breast;

Son. Why do you look on us, and shake your head, And call us-orphans, wretches, cast-aways,

If that our noble father be alive?

6

Duch. My pretty cousins, you mistake me both;
I do lament the sickness of the king,

As loth to lose him, not your father's death;

4 Come, Hastings, help me to my closet.] Hastings was Lord Chamberlain to King Edward IV. Malone.

5 Enter the Duchess of York,] Cecily, daughter of Ralph Neville first Earl of Westmoreland, and widow of Richard Duke of York, who was killed at the battle of Wakefield in 1460. She survived her husband thirty-five years, living till the year 1495.

Malone.

E my pretty cousins,] The Duchess is here addressing her grand-children, but cousin was the term used in Shakspeare's time, by uncles to nephews and nieces, grandfathers to grandchildren, &c. It seems to have been used instead of our kinsman, and kinswoman, and to have supplied the place of both.

See note on Othello, Act I, sc. i. Steevens.

Malone.

It were lost sorrow, to wail one that 's lost.

Son. Then, grandam, you conclude that he is dead. The king my uncle is to blame for this:

God will revenge it; whom I will impórtune

With earnest prayers, all to that effect.

Daugh. And so will I.

Duch. Peace, children, peace! the king doth love you well:

Incapable and shallow innocents,7

You cannot guess who caus'd your father's death.
Son. Grandam, we can: for my good uncle Gloster
Told me, the king, provok'd to 't by the queen,
Devis'd impeachments to imprison him:
And when my uncle told me so, he wept,
And pitied me, and kindly kiss'd my cheek;
Bade me rely on him, as on my father,
And he would love me dearly as his child.

Duch. Ah, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,
And with a virtuous visor hide deep vice!
He is my son, ay, and therein my shame,
Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.

8

Son. Think you, my uncle did dissemble, grandam ? Duch. Ay, boy.

Son. I cannot think it. Hark! what noise is this? Enter Queen ELIZABETH, distractedly; RIVERS, and DORSET, following her.

Q. Eliz. Ah! who shall hinder me to wail and weep? To chide my fortune, and torment myself?

I'll join with black despair against my soul,

And to myself become an enemy.

Duch. What means this scene of rude impatience? Q. Eliz. To make an act of tragick violence:— Edward, my lord, thy son, our king, is dead.

7 Incapable and shallow innocents,] Incapable is unintelligent.

So, in Hamlet:

"As one incapable of her own distress." Steevens.

Malone

8 my uncle did dissemble,] Shakspeare uses dissemble in the sense of acting fraudulently, feigning what we do not feel or think; though strictly it means to conceal our real thoughts or affections. So also Milton in the passage quoted in p. 61, n 6.

Malone.

Why grow the branches, when the root is gone?
Why wither not the leaves, that want their sap?-
If you will live, lament; if die, be brief;
That our swift-winged souls may catch the king's;
Or, like obedient subjects, follow him
To his new kingdom of perpetual rest."
never than I'm thy sorrow,
Duch. Ah, so much interest have I'
As I had title in thy noble husband!
I have bewept a worthy husband's death,
And liv'd by looking on his images: 1

light

But now, two mirrors of his princely semblance
Are crack'd in pieces by malignant death;2
And I for comfort have but one false glass
That grieves me when I see my shame in him.
Thou art a widow; yet thou art a mother,
And hast the comfort of thy children left thee ;
But death hath snatch'd my husband from my arms,
And pluck'd two crutches from my feeble hands,
Clarence, and Edward. O, what cause have I,
(Thine being but a moiety of my grief)

To over-go thy plaints, and drown thy cries?

Son. Ah, aunt! you wept not for our father's death; How can we aid you with our kindred tears?

Daugh. Our fatherless distress was left unmoan'd, Your widow-dolour likewise be unwept!

Q. Eliz. Give me no help in lamentation,

I am not barren to bring forth laments:

All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,

9

of perpetual rest.] So the quarto. The folio reads-of ne'er changing night. Malone.

1

his images:] The children by whom he was represented. Johnson. So, in The Rape of Lucrece, Lucretius says to his daughter: "O, from thy cheeks my image thou hast torn." Malone.

2 But now, two mirrors of his princely semblance Are crack'd in pieces by malignant death;] So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece:

"Poor broken glass, I often did behold

"In thy sweet semblance my old age new born;
"But now, that fair fresh mirror, dim and old,
Shows me a bare-bon'd death by time out-worn.”

Again, in his 3d Sonnet:

"Thou art thy mother's glass,” &c. Malone.

That I, being govern'd by the watry moon,3
May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world!
Ah, for my husband, for my dear lord Edward!

Chil. Ah, for our father, for our dear lord Clarence! Duch. Alas, for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence! Q. Eliz. What stay had I, but Edward? and he's gone. Chil. What stay had we, but Clarence? and he's gone. Duch. What stays had I, but they? and they are gone. Q. Eliz. Was never widow, had so dear a loss. Chil. Were never orphans, had so dear a loss. Duch. Was never mother, had so dear a loss. Alas! I am the mother of these griefs; Their woes are parcell'd, mine are general. She for an Edward weeps, and so do I;

I for a Clarence weep, so doth not she:

These babes for Clarence weep, and so do I:4
I for an Edward weep, so do not they :5-

3

being govern'd by the watry moon,] That I may live hereafter under the influence of the moon, which governs the tides, and by the help of that influence drown the world. The introduction of the moon is not very natural. Johnson.

The same thought has already occurred in K. Henry IV, P. I: being governed, as the sea is, by the moon." Steevens.

4 - and so do 1:] So the quarto. The variation of the folio is remarkable. It reads-so do not they. Malone.

5 I for an Edward weep, so do not they:] The text is here made out partly from the folio and partly from the quarto. In the quarto this and the preceding line stand thus:

"These babes for Clarence weep, and so do I;

"I for an Edward weep, and so do they.'

The end of the second line is evidently corrupted. In the MS. from which the folio was printed, or in a corrected quarto copy, the two lines undoubtedly were right:

"These babes for Clarence weep, [and so do I;

"I for an Edward weep,] so do NOT they."

But the compositor's eye passing over two half lines, the passage was printed thus in the folio, in one line:

"These babes for Clarence weep, so do not they."

I have stated this matter thus particularly, because it confirms an observation that I have more than once had occasion to make in revising these plays; that there is reason to suspect that many of the difficulties in our author's works have arisen from the omission of either single words, single lines, or the latter half of one line with the half of the next: a solution which readers are very slow to admit, and generally consider as chimerical. One week's acquaintance with the business of the press (without those proofs