ار Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen, More than your lord's departure weep not; more's not seen : Or if it be, 'tis with false sorrow's eye, I BUSHY. 'Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady. QUEEN. 'Tis nothing less: conceit is still deriv'd From some fore-father grief; mine is not fo; For nothing hath begot my fomething grief; Or something hath the nothing that I grieve:2 9 As, though, in thinking, on no thought I think,] Old copy -on thinking; but we should read-As though in thinking; that is, though, musing, I have no distinct 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 conception. MALONE. * For nothing hath begot my fomething grief; Or Something hath the nothing that I grieve:] With these lines I know not well what can be done. The Queen's reafoning as it now stands, is this: my trouble is not conceit, for conceit is still derived from fome antecedent cause, some fore-father grief; but with me the case is, that either my real grief hath no real cause, or some real cause has produced a fancied grief. That is, my grief is not conceit, because it either has not a cause like conceit, or it has a cause like conceit. This can hardly stand. Let us try again, and read thus : For nothing hath begot my fomething grief; That is, my grief is not conceit; conceit is an imaginary uneafi 'Tis in reverfion that I do possess ; Enter GREEN. GREEN. God fave your majesty!-and well met, gentlemen : I hope, the king is not yet shipp'd for Ireland. QUEEN. Why hop'st thou so? 'tis better hope, he is; For his defigns crave haste, his hafte good hope; Then wherefore dost thou hope, he is not shipp'd? ness from some past occurrence. But, on the contrary, here is real grief without a real cause; not a real cause with a fanciful forrow. This, I think, must be the meaning; harsh at the best, yet better than contradiction or absurdity. JOHNSON. 3 'Tis in reverfion that I do possess; But what it is, that is not yet known; &c.] I am about to propose an interpretation which many will think harsh, and which I do not offer for certain. To possess a man, in Shakspeare, is to inform him fully, to make him comprehend. To be possessed, is to be fully informed. Of this sense the examples are numerous: "I have poffefs'd him my most stay can be but short." Measure for Measure. - Is he yet poffefs'd I therefore imagine the Queen says thus : 'Tis in reverfion that I do poffefs;- 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 she must say that she poffefsses 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 pass, or at least not yet come to her knowledge, she expresses this by saying that the grief which she then actually poffeffed, was still 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 set footing in this land : The banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself, And with uplifted arms is safe arriv'd At Ravenspurg. 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 Ross, 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 GREEN. We have: whereon the earl of Worcefter Hath broke his staff, resign'd his stewardship, QUEEN. SO, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe, And Bolingbroke my forrow's dismal heir :5 4 might have retir'd his power, Might have drawn it back. A French sense. JOHNSON. So, in The Rape of Lucrece : "Each one, by him enforc'd, retires his ward." MALONE. my forrow's dismal heir:] The author feems to have used heir in an improper sense, an heir being one that inherits by Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy; BUSHY. Despair not, madam. QUEEN. Who shall hinder me? I will despair, 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 false 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, speak comfortable words. fuccession, is here put for one that fucceeds, though he fucceeds but in order of time, not in order of descent. JOHNSON. Johnson has mistaken the meaning of this passage also. The Queen does not in any way allude to Bolingbroke's succession to the crown, an event, of which the could at that time have had no idea. She had said before, that " some unborn forrow, ripe in fortune's womb, was coming towards her." She talks afterwards of her unknown griefs "being begotten;" she calls Green "the midwife of her woe;" and then means to say, 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 : 6 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 shall deliver weeping." MALONE. YORK. Should I do fo, I should belie my thoughts:7 Comfort's in heaven; and we are on the earth, Where nothing lives but crosses, care, and grief. Your husband he is gone to save far off, Whilft others come to make him lofe at home: Here am I left to underprop his land; Who, weak with age, cannot support myself: Now comes the fick hour that his furfeit made; Now shall he try his friends that flatter'd him. Enter a Servant. SERV. My lord, your fon was gone before I came. it will! 8 The nobles they are fled, the commons cold, Get thee to Plashy, to my fister Glofter; SERV. My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship: YORK. What is it, knave? SERV. An hour before I came, the duchess died. Should I do fo, I should 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, injurioufly to the metre, read: The nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold. STEEVENS. 9 Get thee to Plashy,] The lordship of Plashy, was a town of the duchess of Glofter's in Effex. See Hall's Chronicle, p. 13. THEOBALD. |