That thou had'st call'd me all these bitter names.
Q. Mar. Why, so I did; but look'd for no reply.
O, let me make the period to my curse.

Glo. 'Tis done by me; and ends in-Margaret.
Q. Eliz. Thus have you breath'd your curse against

yourself.

Q. Mar. Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune! Why strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider, Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about? Fool, fool! thou whet'st a knife to kill thyself. The day will come, that thou shalt wish for me To help thee curse this pois'nous bunch-back toad. Hast. False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse; Lest, to thy harm, thou move our patience.

Q. Mar. Foul shame upon you! you have all mov'd mine. Ri. Were you well serv'd, you would be taught your duty. Q. Mar. To serve me well, you all should do me duty, Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects: O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty. Dors. Dispute not with her, she is lunatic. Q. Mar. Peace, master marquis, you are malapert: Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current: O, that your young nobility could judge, What 'twere to lose it, and be miserable ! They that stand high, have many blasts to shake them; And, if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.

Glo. Good counsel, marry ;-learn it, learn it, marquis. Dors. It touches you, my lord, as much as me. Glo. Ay, and much more: But I was born so high, Our aiery buildeth in the cedar's top,

And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.

Q. Mar. And turns the sun to shade;-alas! alas!-
Witness my son, now in the shade of death ;*
Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath
Hath in eternal darkness folded up.

Your aiery buildeth in our aiery's nest :-
O God, that see'st it, do not suffer it;
As it was won with blood, lost be it so!

[3] A bottled spider is a large, bloated, glossy spider; supposed to contain venom proportionate to its size. The expression occurs again in Act IV:

"That bottled spider, that foul bunch-back'd toad." RITSON.

[4] Her distress cannot prevent her quibbling. It may be here remarked, that the introduction of Margaret in this place, is against all historical evidence. She was ransomed and sent to France soon after Tewksbury fight, and there passed the re mainder of her wretched life. RITSON.

[5] An avery is a hawk's or an eagle's uest. STEEVENS.

Buck. Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity.
Q. Mar. Urge neither charity nor shame to me;
Uncharitably with me have you dealt,
And shamefully by you my hopes are butcher'd.
My charity is outrage, life my shame,-
And in my shame still live my sorrow's rage!
Buck. Have done, have done.

Q. Mar. O princely Buckingham, I kiss thy hand,
In sign of league and amity with thee :
Now fair befall thee, and thy noble house!
Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,
Nor thou within the compass of my curse.

Buck. Nor no one here; for curses never pass
The lips of those that breathe them in the air.

Q. Mar. I'll not believe but they ascend the sky,
And there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace.
O Buckingham, beware of yonder dog;
Look, when he fawns, he bites; and, when he bites,
His venom tooth will rankle to the death :
Have not to do with him, beware of him;
Sin, death, and hell, have set their marks on him;
And all their ministers attend on him.

Glo. What doth she say, my lord of Buckingham?
Buck. Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.
Q. Mar. What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle

And sooth the devil that I warn thee from?

O, but remember this another day,

[counsel?

When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow;
And say, poor Margaret was a prophetess.-
Live each of you the subjects to his hate,

And he to yours, and all of you to God's!

[Exit.

Hast. My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses. Riv. And so doth mine; I muse, why she's at liberty. Glo, I cannot blame her, by God's holy mother;

She hath had too much wrong, and I repent

My part thereof, that I have done to her.

Q. Eliz. I never did her any, to my knowledge.
Glo. Yet you have all the vantage of her wrong.

I was too hot to do some body good,
That is too cold in thinking of it now.
Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid;
He is frank'd up to fatting for his pains ;-

[6] Possibly Milton took from hence the hint of his famous allegory. BLACKST.
[7] A frank is an old English word for a hog-sty. "Tis possible he uses this meta-

God pardon them that are the cause thereof!

Riv. A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,

To pray for them that have done scath to us.
Glo. So do I ever, being well advis'd ;-
For had I curs'd now, I had curs'd myself.

Enter CATESBY.

Cates. Madam, his majesty doth call for you,

[Aside.

And for your grace, and you, my noble lords.
Q. Eliz. Catesby, I come :-lords, will you go with me?
Riv. Madam, we will attend upon your grace.

[Exeunt all but GLOSTER.

Glo. I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.

The secret mischiefs that I set abroach,
I lay unto the grievous charge of others.
Clarence, whom I, indeed, have laid in darkness,-
I do beweep to many simple gulls ;
Namely, to Stanley, Hastings, Buckingham ;
And tell them-'tis the queen and her allies,
That stir the king against the duke my brother.
Now they believe it ; and withal whet me
To be reveng'd on Rivers, Vaughan, Grey :
But then I sigh, and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them-that God bids us do good for evil :
And thus I clothe my naked villany
With old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

Enter two Murderers.
But soft, here come my executioners.-
How now, my hardy, stout resolved mates ?
Are you now going to despatch this thing?

1 Mur. We are, my lord; and come to have the warrant, That we may be admitted where he is.

Glo. Well thought upon, I have it here about me :

[Gives the warrant.

When you have done, repair to Crosby-place.
But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,

Withal obdurate, do not hear him plead;

For Clarence is well spoken, and, perhaps,

May move your hearts to pity, if you mark him.

;

1 Mur. Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to prate,

Talkers are no good doers; be assur'd,

We go to use our hands, and not our tongues.

Glo. Your eyes drop mill-stones, when fools' eyes drop

tears:

I like you, lads ;-about your business straight;
Go, go, despatch.

1 Mur. We will, my noble lord.

SCENE IV.

[Exeunt.

The same. A room in the Tower. Enter CLARENCE and

BRAKENBURY.

Brak. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day?
Clar. O, I have pass'd a miserable night,

So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That, as I am a christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days;
So full of dismal terror was the time.

Brak. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you, tell

me.

Clar. Methought, that I had broken from the Tower,

And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;

And, in my company, my brother Gloster :
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk

Upon the hatches; thence we look'd toward England,
And cited up a thousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster
That had befall'n us. As we pac'd along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought, that Gloster stumbled; and, in falling,
Struck me, that thought to stay him, over-board,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.

O Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of water in mine ears!
What sights of ugly death within mine eyes !
Methought, I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
A thousand men, that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,1
All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea.

Some lay in dead men's sculls; and, in those holes

[9] Not an infidel. JOHNSON.

[1] Unvalued is here used for invaluable. MALONE.

Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept
(As 'twere in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems,
That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.
Brak. Had you such leisure in the time of death,
To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?

Clar. Methought, I had; and often did I strive
To yield the ghost: but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
To seek the empty, vast, and wand'ring air;
But smother'd it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.

Brak. Awak'd you not with this sore agony?
Clar. O, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life;
O, then began the tempest to my soul!
I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that grim ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
The first that there did greet my stranger soul,
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick;
Who cry'd aloud,-What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?
And so he vanish'd: Then came wand'ring by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood! and he shriek'd out aloud,-
Clarence is come, false, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence,
-That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury;
Seize on him, furies, take him to your torments!-
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Environ'd me, and howled in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that with the very noise,
I trembling wak'd, and, for a season after,
Could not believe but that I was in hell;
Such terrible impression made my dream.

Brak. No marvel, lord, though it affrighted you;
I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.

Clar. O, Brakenbury, I have done these things,'That now give evidence against my soul,

[2] By seeming to gaze upon it; or, as we now say, ogle it. JOHNSON. [3] Lee has transplanted this image into his Mithridates, Act IV. sc. i.

"I slept; but oh, a dream so full of terror,

The pale, the trembling midnight ravisher

Ne'er saw, when cold Lucretia's mourning shadow

His curtains drew, and lash'd him in his eyes

With her bright tresses, dabbled in her blood." STLEVENS.

[4] Fleeting is the same as changing sides. JOHNSON. 3

VOL, VII.

B2

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