Brak. What one, my lord?

Glo. Her husband, knave :-Would'st thou betray me? Brak. I beseech your grace to pardon me; and, withal, Forbear your conference with the noble duke.

Clar. We know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will obey.
Glo. We are the queen's abjects,4 and must obey.
Brother, farewel: I will unto the king;
And whatsoe'er you will employ me in,-
Were it, to call king Edward's widow-sister,5–
I will perform it, to enfranchise you.

Mean time, this deep disgrace in brotherhood,
Touches me deeper than you can imagine.

Clar. I know, it pleaseth neither of us well.

4the queen's abjects,] That is, not the queen's subjects whom she might protect, but her abjects whom she drives away. Johnson.

So, in The Case is altered. How? Ask Dalio and Milo, 1604:

"This ougly object, or rather abject of nature." Henderson. I cannot approve of Johnson's explanation. Gloster forms a substantive from the adjective abject, and uses it to express a lower degree of submission than is implied by the word subject, which otherwise he would naturally have made use of. The Queen's abjects, means the most servile of her subjects, who must of course obey all her commands; which would not be the case of those whom she had driven away from her.

In a preceding page Gloster had said of Shore's wife66 -I think, it is our way,

"If we will keep in favour with the king,

"To be her men, and wear her livery."

The idea is the same in both places, though the expression differs. In Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour, Puntarvolo says to Swift:

"I'll make thee stoop, thou abject!" M. Mason.

This substantive was not of Shakspeare's formation. We meet with it in Psalm xxxv, 15: " - yea the very abjects came together against me unawares, making mouths at me, and ceased not." Steevens.

5 Were it to call King Edward's widow-sister,] This is a very covert and subtle manner of insinuating treason. The natural expression would have been, were it to call king Edward's wife, sister. I will solicit for you, though it should be at the expence of so much degradation and constraint, as to own the low-born wife of King Edward for a sister. But by slipping, as it were casually, widow, into the place of wife, he tempts Clarence with an oblique proposal to kill the King. Johnson.

King Edward's widow is, I believe, only an expression of contempt, meaning the widow Grey, whom Edward had chosen for his queen. Gloster has already called her, the jealous o'er-worn widow.

Steevens.

Glo. Well, your imprisonment shall not be long;
I will deliver you, or else lie for you:6

Mean time, have patience.
Clar.

I must perforce; farewel. [Exeunt CLAR. BRAK. and Guard. Glo. Go, tread the path that thou shalt ne'er return, Simple, plain Clarence!-I do love thee so, That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven, If heaven will take the present at our hands. But who comes here? the new-deliver'd Hastings? Enter HASTINGS.

Hast. Good time of day unto my gracious lord!
Glo. As much unto my good lord chamberlain !
Well are you welcome to this open air.

How hath your lordship brook'd imprisonment?
Hast. With patience, noble lord, as prisoners must:
But I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks,
That were the cause of my imprisonment.

Glo. No doubt, no doubt; and so shall Clarence too;
For they, that were your enemies, are his,'
And have prevail'd as much on him, as you.

8

Hast. More pity, that the eagle should be mew'd,3

While kites and buzzards prey at liberty.

Glo. What news abroad?

Hast. No news so bad abroad, as this at home ;The king is sickly, weak, and melancholy,

And his physicians fear him mightily.

9

Glo. Now, by saint Paul, this news is bad indeed. O, he hath kept an evil diet1 long,

And over-much consum'd his royal person;

6 lie for you:] He means to be imprisoned in your stead. To lie was anciently to reside, as appears by many instances in these

volumes. Reed.

7 I must perforce;] Alluding to the proverb, "Patience perforce, is a medicine for a mad dog." Steevens.

8

should be mew'd,] A mew was the place of confinement where a hawk was kept till he had moulted. So, in Albumazar÷ "Stand forth, transform'd Antonio, fully mew'd "From brown soar feathers of dull yeomanry, "To the glorious bloom of gentry.' Steevens.

9 Now, by saint Paul,] The folio reads:

Now, by saint John,

Steevens.

an evil diet-] i. e..a bad regimen. Steevens..

'Tis very grievous to be thought upon. What, is he in his bed?

Glo. Go you before, and I will follow you.

He cannot live, I hope; and must not die,

[Exit HAST.

Till George be pack'd with posthorse up to heaven.
I'll in, to urge his hatred more to Clarence,
With lies well steel'd with weighty arguments;
And, if I fail not in my deep intent,
Clarence hath not another day to live:

Which done, God take king Edward to his mercy,
And leave the world for me to bustle in!

For then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter: 3
What though I kill'd her husband, and her father?
The readiest way to make the wench amends,
Is to become her husband, and her father:
The which will I; not all so much for love,
As for another secret close intent,

By marrying her, which I must reach unto.
But yet I run before my horse to market:

Clarence still breathes; Edward still lives, and reigns;
When they are gone, then must I count my gains.

SCENE II.

The same. Another Street.

[Exit.

Enter the Corpse of King HENRY the Sixth, borne in an open Coffin, Gentlemen bearing Halberds, to guard it; and Lady ANNE as mourner.

Anne. Set down, set down your honourable load,— If honour may be shrouded in a hearse,~ Whilst I a while obsequiously lament* The untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.

2 He is.] Sir Thomas Hanmer very properly completes this broken verse, by reading

3

He is, my lord. Steevens.

Warwick's youngest daughter:] See Vol. X, p. 375, n. 5.

Steevens.

obsequiously lament —] Obsequious, in this instance,

means funereal. So, in Hamlet, Act I, sc. ii:

"To do obsequious sorrow." Steevens.

Poor key-cold figure of a holy king!
Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster!
Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!
Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost,
To hear the lamentations of poor Anne,
Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughter'd son,

Stabb'd by the self-same hand that made these wounds!
Lo, in these windows, that let forth thy life,
I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes:
O, cursed be the hand, that made these holes!
Cursed the heart, that had the heart to do it!
Cursed the blood, that let this blood from hence!
More direful hap betide that hated wretch,
That makes us wretched by the death of thee,
Than I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,
Or any creeping venom'd thing that lives!
If ever he have child, abortive be it,
Prodigious and untimely brought to light,
Whose ugly and unnatural aspect

May fright the hopeful mother at the view;
And that be heir to his unhappiness!
If ever he have wife, let her be made
More miserable by the death of him,

Than I am made by my young lord, and thee!
Come, now, toward Chertsey with your holy load,
Taken from Paul's to be interred there;
And, still as you are weary of the weight,
Rest you, whiles I lament king Henry's corse.

5

:

[The Bearers take up the Corpse, and advance.

key-cold-] A key, on account of the coldness of the metal of which it is composed, was anciently employed to stop any slight bleeding. The epithet is common to many old writers; among the rest, it is used by Decker in his Satiromastix, 1602: It is best you hide your head, for fear your wise brains take key-cold." Again, in The Country Girl, by T. B. 1647: "The key-cold figure of a man." Again, in our author's Rape of Lucrece :

Steevens.

"And then in key-cold Lucrece' bleeding stream

"He falls

-" Malone.

to his unhappiness!] i. e. disposition to mischief. So, in Much Ado about Nothing: "Dream'd of unhappiness, and wak’d herself with laughing." Steevens.

See Vol. VI, p. 390, n. 5.

Malone.

Enter GLOSTER.

Glo. Stay you, that bear the corse, and set it down. Anne. What black magician conjures up this fiend,. To stop devoted charitable deeds?

Glo. Villains, set down the corse; or, by saint Paul, I'll make a corse of him that disobeys."

1 Gent. My lord, stand back, and let the coffin pass. Glo. Unmanner'd dog! stand thou when I command: Advance thy halberd higher than my breast,

Or, by saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot,
And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.

[The Bearers set down the Coffin.
Anne. What, do you tremble? are you all afraid?
Alas, I blame you not; for you are mortal,
And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.—
Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!
Thou had'st but power over his mortal body,
His soul thou canst not have; therefore, be gone.
Glo. Sweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.

Anne. Foul devil, for God's sake, hence, and trouble us not;

For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,
Fill'd it with cursing cries, and deep exclaims.
If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,
Behold this pattern of thy butcheries: 8-

O, gentlemen, see, see! dead Henry's wounds
Open their congeal'd mouths, and bleed afresh !9*

7 I'll make a corse of him that disobeys.] So, in Hamlet: "I'll make a ghost of him that lets me." Johnson. pattern of thy butcheries;] Pattern is instance, or example. Johnson.

8

So, in The Legend of Lord Hastings, Mirrour for Magistrates, 1587:

"By this my pattern, all ye peers, beware " Malone. Holinshed says: "The dead corps on the Ascension even was conveied with billes and glaives pompouslie (if you will call that a funeral pompe) from the Tower to the church of saint Paule, and there laid on a beire or coffen bare-faced; the same in the presence of the beholders did bleed; where it rested the space of one whole daie. From thense he was carried to the Blackfriers, and bled there likewise;" &c. Steevens.

9

see! dead Henry's wounds

Open their congeal'd mouths and bleed afresh!] It is a tradition very generally received, that the murdered body bleeds on the