Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen, More than your lord's departure weep not; more's not feen:

Or if it be, 'tis with false forrow's eye,
Which, for things true, weeps things imaginary.
QUEEN. It may be fo; but yet my inward foul
Perfuades me, it is otherwife: Howe'er it be,
I cannot but be fad; fo heavy fad,

As,-though, in thinking, on no thought I think,—
Makes me with heavy nothing faint and fhrink.

BUSHY. 'Tis nothing but conceit,' my gracious,

lady.

QUEEN. "Tis nothing lefs: conceit is ftill deriv'd From fome fore-father grief; mine is not fo; For nothing hath begot my fomething grief; Or fomething hath the nothing that I grieve:2

• As, though, in thinking, on no thought I think,] Old copy -on thinking; but we should read-As though in thinking; that is, though, mufing, I have no diftinct idea of calamity. The involuntary and unaccountable depreffion of the mind, which every one has fometime felt, is here very forcibly described.

JOHNSON.

'Tis nothing but conceit,] Conceit is here, as in King Henry VIII. and many other places, used for a fanciful concep

2 For nothing hath begot my fomething_grief;

Or fomething hath the nothing that I grieve:] With these lines I know not well what can be done. The Queen's reafoning as it now ftands, is this: my trouble is not conceit, for conceit is ftill derived from fome antecedent caufe, fome fore-father grief; but with me the cafe is, that either my real grief hath no real caufe, or fome real caufe has produced a fancied grief. That is, my grief is not conceit, because it either has not a caufe like conceit, or it has a caufe like conceit. This can hardly ftand. Let us try again, and read thus:

For nothing hath begot my fomething grief; Not fomething hath the nothing that I grieve: That is, my grief is not conceit; conceit is an imaginary uneaf

"Tis in reverfion that I do poffefs;

But what it is, that is not yet known;3 what
I cannot name; 'tis nameless woe, I wot.

Enter GREEN.

GREEN. God fave your majesty !—and well met, gentlemen:

I hope, the king is not yet fhipp'd for Ireland. QUEEN. Why hop'ft thou fo? 'tis better hope, he is;

For his defigns crave hafte, his hafte good hope; Then wherefore doft thou hope, he is not shipp'd?

nefs from fome paft occurrence. But, on the contrary, here is real grief without a real caufe; not a real caufe with a fanciful forrow. This, I think, must be the meaning; harsh at the best, yet better than contradiction or abfurdity. JOHNSON.

3 'Tis in reverfion that I do poffefs;

But what it is, that is not yet known; &c.] I am about to propofe an interpretation which many will think harsh, and which I do not offer for certain. To poffefs a man, in Shakspeare, is to inform him fully, to make him comprehend. To be poffeffed, is to be fully informed. Of this fenfe the examples are numerous: "I have poffefs'd him my most stay can be but short." Meafure for Measure.

Is he yet poffefs'd

"What fum you would?" Merchant of Venice.

I therefore imagine the Queen fays thus:

'Tis in reverfionthat I do possess ;

The event is yet in futurity-that I know with full conviction -but what it is, that is not yet known. In any other interpretation fhe muft fay that he poffeffes what is not yet come, which, though it may be allowed to be poetical and figurative language, is yet, I think, less natural than my explanation. JOHNSON.

As the grief the Queen felt, was for fome event which had not yet come to pafs, or at least not yet come to her knowledge, fhe expreffes this by faying that the grief which the then actually poffeffed, was ftill in reverfion, as the had no right to feel the grief until the event should happen which was to occafion it.

M. MASON.

GREEN. That he, our hope, might have retir'd
his power,4

And driven into despair an enemy's hope,
Who ftrongly hath fet footing in this land:
The banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself,
And with uplifted arms is fafe arriv'd
At Ravenfpurg.

QUEEN.

Now God in heaven forbid !

GREEN. O, madam, 'tis too true: and that is

worse,―

The lord Northumberland, his young fon Henry

Percy,

The lords of Rofs, Beaumond, and Willoughby, With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.

BUSHY. Why have you not proclaim'd Northumberland,

And all the rest of the revolting faction
Traitors?

GREEN. We have: whereon the earl of Worcefter

Hath broke his staff, refign'd his stewardship,
And all the household fervants fled with him
To Bolingbroke.

QUEEN. So, Green, thou art the midwife to my

woe,

And Bolingbroke my forrow's difmal heir :5

4

might have retir'd his power,] Might have drawn it back. A French fenfe. JOHNSON.

So, in The Rape of Lucrece :

"Each one, by him enforc'd, retires his ward.”

MALONE.

my forrow's difmal heir:] The author feems to have ufed heir in an improper sense, an heir being one that inherits by

Now hath my foul brought forth her prodigy;
And I, a gafping new-deliver'd mother,
Have woe to woe, forrow to forrow join'd.

BUSHY. Despair not, madam.
QUEEN.

Who fhall hinder me?

I will defpair, and be at enmity

With cozening hope; he is a flatterer,
A parafite, a keeper-back of death,

Who gently would diffolve the bands of life,
Which falfe hope lingers in extremity.

Enter YORK.

GREEN. Here comes the duke of York.

QUEEN. With figns of war about his aged neck; O, full of careful business are his looks!

Uncle,

For heaven's fake, fpeak comfortable words.

fucceffion, is here put for one that fucceeds, though he fucceeds but in order of time, not in order of defcent. JOHNSON.

Johnson has mistaken the meaning of this paffage alfo. The Queen does not in any way allude to Bolingbroke's fucceffion to the crown, an event, of which fhe could at that time have had no idea. She had faid before, that "fome unborn forrow, ripe in fortune's womb, was coming towards her." She talks afterwards of her unknown griefs "being begotten;" fhe calls Green "the midwife of her woe;" and then means to fay, in the fame metaphorical jargon, that the arrival of Bolingbroke was the difmal offspring that her foreboding forrow was big of; which the expreffes by calling him her " forrow's dismal heir," and explains more fully and intelligibly in the following line:

Now hath my foul brought forth her prodigy.

thou art the midwife to my woe,

And I a gafping new-deliver'd mother,

M. MASON.

Have woe to woe, forrow to forrow join'd.] So, in Pericles: "I am great with woe, and fhall deliver weeping."

MALONE.

YORK. Should I do fo, I fhould belie my thoughts:" Comfort's in heaven; and we are on the earth, Where nothing lives but croffes, care, and grief. Your husband he is gone to fave far off,

Whilst others come to make him lofe at home:
Here am I left to underprop his land;

Who, weak with age, cannot fupport myself:
Now comes the fick hour that his furfeit made;
Now fhall he try his friends that flatter'd him.

Enter a Servant.

SERV. My lord, your fon was gone before I came. YORK. He was?-Why, fo!-go all which way it will!

The nobles they are fied, the commons cold,8
And will, I fear, revolt on Hereford's fide.-
Sirrah,

Get thee to Plashy, to my fifter Glofter;
Bid her fend me presently a thousand pound :-
Hold, take my ring.

SERV. My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship: To-day, as I came by, I called there;

But I fhall grieve you to report the rest.

YORK. What is it, knave?

SERV. An hour before I came, the duchefs died.

? Should I do fo, I fhould belie my thoughts:] This line is found in the three eldest quartos, but is wanting in the folio. STEEVENS. 8 The nobles they are fled, the commons cold,] The old copies, injuriously to the metre, read:

The nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold.
STEEVENS.

9 Get thee to Plafhy,] The lordship of Plafhy, was a town of the duchess of Glofter's in Effex. See Hall's Chronicle, p. 13. THEOBALD.