But, since you teach me how to flatter you,
Imagine I have said farewell already 16

[Exeunt LADY ANNE, TRESSEL, and BERKLEY.

Glo. Sirs, take

Gent.

up the corse.

Towards Chertsey, noble lord?

Glo. No, to White Friars; there attend my coming.

[Exeunt the rest, with the Corse.

Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?

Was ever woman in this humour won ?

I'll have her,—but I will not keep her long.
What! I, that kill'd her husband, and his father,
To take her in her heart's extremest hate;
With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,

The bleeding witness of her hatred by;

With God, her conscience, and these bars against me,
And I no friends to back my suit withal,
But the plain devil, and dissembling looks,
And yet to win her,-all the world to nothing!
Ha!

Hath she forgot already that brave prince,

Edward, her lord, whom I some three months since, Stabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury 17?

16 Cibber, who altered King Richard III. for the stage, was so thoroughly convinced of the improbability of this scene, that he thought it necessary to make Tressel say:

When future chronicles shall speak of this,

They will be thought romance, not history.'

The embassy under Lord Macartney to China witnessed the representation of a play in a theatre at Tien-sing with a similar incongruous plot.

17 This fixes the exact time of the scene to August, 1471. King Edward, however, is introduced in the second act dying. That king died in April, 1483; consequently there is an interval between this and the next act of almost twelve years. Clarence, who is represented in the preceding scene as committed to the Tower before the burial of King Henry VI. was in fact not confined nor put to death till March, 1477-8, seven years afterwards..

--

A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,-
Fram'd in the prodigality of nature,

Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal,— The spacious world cannot again afford:

And will she yet abase her eyes on me,

That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince,
And made her widow to a woful bed?

On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?
On me, that halt, and am misshapen thus?
My dukedom to a beggarly denier 18,
I do mistake my person all this while :
Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,
Myself to be a marvellous proper man 19.
I'll be at charges for a looking-glass;
And entertain a score or two of tailors,
To study fashions to adorn my body:
Since I am crept in favour with myself,
I will maintain it with some little cost.
But, first, I'll turn yon fellow in 20 his grave;
And then return lamenting to my love.-
Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
That I
may see my shadow as I pass.

SCENE III.

The same. A Room in the Palace.

[Exit.

Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, LORD RIVERS, and LORD GREY.

Riv. Have patience, madam; there's no doubt, his majesty

Will soon recover his accustom'd health.

Grey. In that you brook it ill, it makes him worse:

18 A small coin, the twelfth part of a French sous.

19 Marvellous is here used adverbially. A proper man, in old language, was a well proportioned one.

20 In for into.

Therefore, for God's sake, entertain good comfort,
And cheer his grace with quick and merry words.
Q. Eliz. If he were dead, what would betide of me?
Grey. No other harm, but loss of such a lord.
Q. Eliz. The loss of such a lord includes all harms.
Grey. The heavens have bless'd you with a goodly

son,

To be your comforter when he is gone.

Q. Eliz. Ah, he is young; and his minority Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloster, A man that loves not me, nor none of you. Riv. Is it concluded, he shall be protector? Q. Eliz. It is determin'd, not concluded yet1: But so it must be, if the king miscarry.

Enter BUCKINGHAM and STANLEY2.

Grey. Here come the lords of Buckingham and
Stanley.

Buck. Good time of day unto your royal grace!
Stan. God make your majesty joyful as you have
been!

Q. Eliz. The Countess Richmond 3, good my lord of Stanley,

To your good prayer will scarcely say—amen.

1 Determin'd signifies the final conclusion of the will: concluded, what cannot be altered by reason of some act, consequent on the final judgment. See note on King Henry VI. Part I. Act iv. Sc. 6, p. 90.

2 By inadvertence in the old copies Derby is put for Stanley. The person meant was Thomas Lord Stanley, lord steward of King Edward the Fourth's household. But he was not created earl of Derby till after the accession of King Henry VII. In the fourth and fifth acts of this play he is every where called Lord Stanley.

set.

3 Margaret, daughter to John Beaufort, first duke of SomerAfter the death of her first husband, Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond, half brother to King Henry VI. by whom she had only one son, afterwards King Henry VII. She married Sir Henry Stafford, uncle to Humphry duke of Buckingham.

Yet, Stanley, notwithstanding she's your wife,
And loves not me, be you, good lord, assur'd,
I hate not you for her proud arrogance.

Stan. I do beseech you, either not believe
The envious slanders of her false accusers;
Or, if she be accus'd on true report,

Bear with her weakness, which, I think, proceeds From wayward sickness, and no grounded malice. Q. Eliz. Saw you the king to-day, my lord of Stanley ?

Stan. But now, the duke of Buckingham, and I, Are come from visiting his majesty..

Q. Eliz. What likelihood of his amendment, lords? Buck. Madam, good hope; his grace speaks cheerfully.

Q. Eliz. God grant him health! Did you confer with him?

Buck. Ay, madam: he desires to make atone

ment

Between the duke of Gloster and your brothers,
And between them and my lord chamberlain ;
And sent to warn them to his royal presence.
Q. Eliz. 'Would all were well!—But that will
never be ;-

I fear, our happiness is at the height.

Enter GLOSTER, HASTINGS, and DORSET.

Glo. They do me wrong, and I will not endure it:

Who are they, that complain unto the king,
That I, forsooth, am stern, and love them not?
By holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly,
That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.
Because I cannot flatter, and speak fair,

4 i. e. summon. Thus in Julius Cæsar:

They mean to warn us at Philippi here.'

The word is still used in that sense in Scotland.

Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,
Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,
I must be held a rancorous enemy.

Cannot a plain man live, and think no harm,
But thus his simple truth must be abus'd
By silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?

Grey. To whom in all this presence speaks your grace?

Glo. To thee, that hast nor honesty, nor grace. When have I injur'd thee? when done thee wrong?Or thee?-or thee?-or any of your faction? A plague upon you all! His royal grace,Whom God preserve better than you would wish!Cannot be quiet scarce a breathing while,

But you must trouble him with lewd5 complaints. Q. Eliz. Brother of Gloster, you mistake the

matter:

The king, of his own royal disposition,
And not provok'd by any suitor else;
Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred,
That in your outward action shows itself,
Against my children, brothers, and myself,
Makes him to send: that thereby he may gather
The ground of your ill will, and so remove it.

Glo. I cannot tell6;-The world is grown so bad, That wrens may prey where eagles dare not perch: Since every Jack became a gentleman,

There's many a gentle person made a Jack.

5 Lewd here signifies idle, ungracious; and not rude, ignorant, as Steevens asserts. 'I make as though I saw not thy leude pajantis (i. e. thy idle devices) tuis ineptiis.' Horman's Vulgaria, 1519.

6 i. e. I cannot tell what to say or think of it. See note on King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 2, p. 269; and Mr. Gifford's Ben Jonson, vol. i. p. 125.

7 This proverbial expression at once demonstrates the origin of the term Jack, so often used by Shakspeare. It means one of the very lowest class of people, among whom this name is most common and familiar.