Look here, I throw my infamy at thee: I will not ruinate my father's house,

Who gave his blood to lime the stones together, And set up Lancaster. Why, trow'st thou, Warwick,

That Clarence is so harsh, so blunt8, unnatural, To bend the fatal instruments of war

Against his brother, and his lawful king? Perhaps, thou wilt object my holy oath: To keep that oath, were more impiety *Than Jephtha's, when he sacrific'd his daughter. * I am so sorry for my trespass made, That, to deserve well at my brother's hands, I here proclaim myself thy mortal foe; With resolution, wheresoe'er I meet thee *(As I will meet thee, if thou stir abroad), To plague thee for thy foul misleading me. And so, proud-hearted Warwick, I defy thee, And to my brother turn my blushing cheeks.— Pardon me, Edward, I will make amends; And, Richard, do not frown upon my faults, For I will henceforth be no more unconstant. K. Edw. Now welcome more, and ten times more belov'd,

Than if thou never hadst deserv'd our hate. 'Glo. Welcome, good Clarence: this is brotherlike.

War. O passing9 traitor, perjur'd, and unjust! K. Edw. What, Warwick, wilt thou leave the town, and fight?

Or shall we beat the stones about thine ears?

‹ War. Alas, I am not coop'd here for defence:

I will away towards Barnet presently,

And bid thee battle, Edward, if thou dar'st.

7 i. e. To cement.

8 i. e. stupid, insensible of paternal fondness.

9i. e. exceeding, egregious.

A passing impudent fellow; in

signiter impudens.

BABE

K. Edw. Yes, Warwick, Edward dares, and leads

the way:

Lords, to the field; Saint George, and victory!

[March. Exeunt.

SCENE II. A Field of Battle near Barnet. Alarums, and Excursions. Enter KING EDWARD, bringing in WARWICK wounded.

*K. Edw. So, lie thou there: die thou, and die our fear;

*For Warwick was a bug1, that fear'd us all.— Now, Montague, sit fast; I seek for thee,

That Warwick's bones may keep thine company.

[Exit. War. Ah, who is nigh? come to me, friend, or foe, And tell me who is victor, York or Warwick ? Why ask I that? my mangled body shows, *My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows That I must yield my body to the earth, And, by my fall, the conquest to my foe. Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge, Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle, Under whose shade the ramping lion slept2; Whose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree, And kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind. These eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's black veil,

* Have been as piercing as the mid-day sun,

To search the secret treasons of the world: The wrinkles in my brows, now fill'd with blood, Were liken'd oft to kingly sepulchres;

For who liv'd king, but I could dig his grave? And who durst smile, when Warwick bent his brow? Lo, now my glory smear'd in dust and blood!

1 Warwick was the bugbear that frightened us all. Thus in The Taming of the Shrew, Act i. Sc. 2:

Tush! tush! fear boys with bugs.'

2 All the fowls of heaven made their nest in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young. Ezekiel, c. xxxi.

My parks, my walks, my manors that I had,
Even now forsake me; and, of all my lands,
Is nothing left me, but my body's length3!
Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?
And, live we how we can, yet die we must.

6

Enter OXFORD and SOMERSET.

* Som. Ah, Warwick, Warwick! wert thou as we

are,

We might recover all our loss again!

The queen from France hath brought a puissant power;

Even now we heard the news: Ah, could'st thou fly! War. Why, then I would not fly.-Ah, Montague,

If thou be there, sweet brother, take my hand, And with thy lips keep in my soul a while! Thou lov'st me not; for, brother, if thou didst Thy tears would wash this cold congealed blood, That glues my lips, and will not let me speak. Come quickly, Montague, or I am dead.

Som. Ah, Warwick, Montague hath breath'd his last;

And, to the latest gasp, cried out for Warwick, And said-Commend me to my valiant brother. And more he would have said; and more he spoke, Which sounded like a cannon in a vault4

Camden mentions in his Remaines, that Constantine, in order to dissuade a person from covetousness, drew out with his lance the length and breadth of a man's grave, adding, 'This is all thou shalt have when thou art dead, if thou canst happily get so much.'

Johnson observes that Warwick's mention of his parks and manors diminishes the pathetic of these lines. It is true that it is something in the strain of the whining ghosts of the Mirror for Magistrates; but it was the popular style of the time: Cavendish, in his Metrical Legends, introduces Wolsey's shade lamenting to leave his palaces and gardens.

The old play has this line :

Which sounded like a clamour in a vault."

That might not be distinguish'd; but, at last, I well might hear deliver'd with a groan,— เ O, farewell, Warwick!

War. Sweet rest to his soul! Fly, lords, and save yourselves: for Warwick bids. You all farewell, to meet again in heaven. [Dies. Oxf. Away, away, to meet the queen's great power! [Exeunt, bearing off WAR. Body.

SCENE III.

Another Part of the Field.

Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD in triumph; with CLARENCE, GLOSTER, and the rest.

K. Edw. Thus far our fortune keeps an upward

course,

And we are grac'd with wreaths of victory.
But, in the midst of this bright-shining day,
I spy a black, suspicious, threat'ning cloud,
That will encounter with our glorious sun,
Ere he attain his easeful western bed:

I mean, my lords,-those powers, that the queen
Hath rais'd in Gallia, have arriv'd1 our coast,
And, as we hear, march on to fight with us.

Clar. A little gale will soon disperse that cloud, And blow it to the source from whence it came: Thy very beams will dry those vapours up; For every cloud engenders not a storm.

Glo. The queen is valu'd thirty thousand strong,

I cannot but think that cannon is an error of the press in the first folio. The indistinct gabble of undertakers (says Steevens), while they adjust a coffin in a family vault, will abundantly illustrate the preceding simile. Such a peculiar hubbub of inarticulate sounds might have attracted our author's notice; it has too often forced itself on mine.'

1 Arriv'd is here used in an active form. Thus in Julius Cæsar:

But ere we could arrive the point proposed,
Cæsar cry'd, Help me, Cassius, or I sink.'

And in Coriolanus:

and now arriving

A place of potency.'

Milton uses the same structure in Paradise Lost, b. ii.

ere he arrive

The happy isle.'

Vol. VI.

15*

⚫ And Somerset, with Oxford, fled to her; If she have time to breathe, be well assur'd, Her faction will be full as strong as ours.

K. Edw. We are advértis'd by our loving friends. That they do hold their course toward Tewksbury; We having now the best at Barnet field,

Will thither straight, For willingness rids way; And, as we march, our strength will be augmented In every county as we go along.

Strike up the drum; cry-Courage! and away.

March.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. Plains near Tewksbury.

Enter QUEEN MARGARET, PRINCE EDWARD,
SOMERSET, OXFORD, and Soldiers.

Q. Mar. Great lords, wise men ne'er sit and
wail their loss1,

But cheerly seek how to redress their harms. What though the mast be now blown overboard, The cable broke, the holding anchor lost, And half our sailors swallow'd in the flood? Yet lives our pilot still: Is't meet, that he Should leave the helm, and, like a fearful lad, * With tearful eyes add water to the sea,

• And give more strength to that which hath too much2;

Whiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock, * Which industry and courage might have sav'd? Ah, what a shame! ah, what a fault were this! Say, Warwick was our anchor! What of that?

This speech in the original play is expressed in eleven lines. Malone thinks its extraordinary expansion into thirty-seven lines a decisive proof that the old play was the production of some writer who preceded Shakspeare.

Thus Jaques moralizing upon the weeping stag in As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 2:

Thou mak'st a testament

As worldlings de, giving thy sum of more

To that which had too much.'

A similar thought is found in Shakspeare's Lover's Complaint. See note on the passage in As You Like It. There is no trace of this passage in the old play.