Enter a Priest.

Pr. Well met, my lord; I am glad to see your honor. Hast. I thank thee, good sir John,' with all my heart.

I am in your debt for your last exercise;

Come the next Sabbath, and I will content you.

Enter BUCKINGHAM.2

Buck. What, talking with a priest, lord chamberlain? Your friends at Pomfret, they do need the priest : Your honor hath no shriving work in hand.

Hast. 'Good faith, and when I met this holy man, The men you talk of came into my mind. What, go you toward the Tower?

Buck. I do, my lord; but long I cannot stay there. I shall return before your lordship thence.

Hast. Nay, like enough, for I stay dinner there. Buck. And supper too, although thou know'st it

Enter RATCLIFF, with a Guard, conducting RIvers, GREY, and VAUGHAN, to execution.

Rat. Come, bring forth the prisoners.

Riv. Sir Richard Ratcliff, let me tell thee this,

1 See note 1 on the first scene of The Merry Wives of Windsor. 2 From the continuation of Harding's Chronicle, 1543, where the account given originally by sir Thomas More is transcribed with some ad ditions, it appears that the person who held this conversation with Hastings was sir Thomas Howard, who is introduced in the last act of this play as earl of Surrey.

3 Queen Elizabeth Grey is deservedly pitied for the loss of her two sons; but the royalty of their birth has so engrossed the attention of historians, that they never reckon into the number of her misfortunes the murder of this her second son, sir Richard Grey. It is remarkable how

To-day shalt thou behold a subject die,
For truth, for duty, and for loyalty.

Grey. God keep the prince from all the pack of you!

A knot you are of damned blood-suckers.

Vaugh. You live, that shall cry woe for this here

after.

Rat. Despatch; the limit of your lives is out. Riv. O, Pomfret, Pomfret! O, thou bloody prison, Fatal and ominous to noble peers!

Within the guilty closure of thy walls,

Richard the Second here was hacked to death;

And, for more slander to thy dismal seat,

We give thee up our guiltless blood to drink.

Grey. Now Margaret's curse is fallen upon their heads,

When she exclaimed on Hastings, you, and I,
For standing by when Richard stabbed her son.
Riv. Then cursed she Hastings, then cursed she
Buckingham,

Then cursed she Richard :-O, remember, God,
To hear her prayers for them, as now for us!
And for my sister, and her princely sons,-
Be satisfied, dear God, with our true bloods,
Which, as thou know'st, unjustly must be spilt!
Rat. Make haste, the hour of death is expiate.1
Riv. Come, Grey,-come, Vaughan,-let us here
embrace :

Farewell, until we meet again in heaven.

[Exeunt.

slightly the death of earl Rivers is always mentioned, though a man invested with such high offices of trust and dignity; and how much we dwell on the execution of the lord chamberlain Hastings, a man in every light his inferior. In truth, the generality draw their ideas of English story from the tragic rather than the historic authors.-Walpole.

1 We have this word in the same sense again in Shakspeare's twentysecond sonnet:

"Then look I death my days should expiate." Steevens thinks it an error of the press for expirate.

SCENE IV. London. A Room in the Tower.

BUCKINGHAM, STANLEY, HASTINGS, the BISHOP of ELY, CATESBY, LOVEL, and others, sitting at a table: Officers of the Council attending.

Hast. Now, noble peers, the cause why we are met Is to determine of the coronation :

In God's name, speak, when is the royal day?
Buck. Are all things ready for that royal time?
Stan. They are; and wants but nomination.
Ely. To-morrow then I judge a happy day.
Buck. Who knows the lord protector's mind, here-
in ?

Who is most inward3 with the noble duke?

Ely. Your grace, we think, should soonest know his mind.

Buck. We know each other's faces; for our hearts,He knows no more of mine, than I of yours;

Nor I of his, my lord, than you of mine:
Lord Hastings, you and he are near in love.

Hast. I thank his grace, I know he loves me well; But for his purpose in the coronation,

I have not sounded him, nor he delivered
His gracious pleasure any way therein :
But you, my noble lord, may name the time
And in the duke's behalf I'll give my voice,
Which, I presume, he'll take in gentle part.

Enter GLOSter.

;

Ely. In happy time, here comes the duke himself. Glo. My noble lords and cousins, all, good morrow: I have been long a sleeper; but, I trust,

1 Dr. John Morton, who was elected to the see of Ely in 1478. He was advanced to the see of Canterbury in 1486, and appointed lord chancellor in 1487. He died in the year 1500.

2 The appointment of a particular day for the ceremony.

3 Intimate, confidential.

My absence doth neglect no great design,
Which by my presence might have been concluded.
Buck. Had you not come upon your cue, my lord,
William lord Hastings had pronounced your part,—
I mean your voice,-for crowning of the king.

Glo. Than my lord Hastings, no man might be bolder;

His lordship knows me well, and loves me well.
Hast. I thank your grace.

2

Glo. My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn, I saw good strawberries in your garden there;3 I do beseech you, send for some of them.

Ely. Marry, and will, my lord, with all my heart.

Exit ELY.

Glo. Cousin of Buckingham, a word with you.

[Takes him aside.

Catesby hath sounded Hastings in our business;
And finds the testy gentleman so hot,
That he will lose his head, ere give consent,
His master's child, as worshipfully he terms it,
Shall lose the royalty of England's throne.
Buck. Withdraw yourself awhile; I'll
go with
[Exeunt GLOSTER and BUCKINGHAM.
Stan. We have not yet set down this day of triumph.
To-morrow, in my judgment, is too sudden;

For I myself am not so well provided,

As else I would be, were the day prolonged.

Re-enter BISHOP of ELY.

Ely. Where is my lord protector? I have sent For these strawberries.

1 See note on Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 2. Vol. VII. p. 307.

you.

2 This sentence Malone restored from the original quarto; it was omitted in the folio.

3 This circumstance of asking the bishop for some of his strawberries originates with sir Thomas More, who mentions the protector's entrance to the council" fyrste about ix of the clocke, saluting them curtesly, and excusing himself that he had ben from them so long, saieng merily that he had been a slepe that day. And after a little talking with them he said unto the bishop of Elye, my lord, you have very good strawberries at your gardayne in Holberne, I require you let us have a messe of them."

Hast. His grace looks cheerfully and smooth this

morning;

There's some conceit or other likes him well,
When he doth bid good morrow with such spirit.
I think there's ne'er a man in Christendom,
Can lesser hide his love, or hate, than he ;
For by his face, straight shall you know his heart.
Stan. What of his heart perceive you in his face,
By any likelihood he showed to-day?

Hast. Marry, that with no man here he is offended For, were he, he had shown it in his looks.

Re-enter GLOSTER and BUCKINGHAM.

Glo. I pray you all, tell me what they deserve
That do conspire my death with devilish plots
Of damned witchcraft, and that have prevailed
Upon my body with their hellish charms?

Hast. The tender love I bear your grace, my lord,
Makes me most forward in this noble presence
To doom the offenders. Whosoe'er they be,
I say, my lord, they have deserved death.

Glo. Then be your eyes the witness of their evil.
Look how I am bewitched; behold mine arm
Is, like a blasted sapling, withered up.

And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,
Consorted with that harlot, strumpet Shore,
That by their witchcraft thus have marked me.
Hast. If they have done this deed, my noble lord,-
Glo. If thou protector of this damned strumpet,
Talk'st thou to me of ifs ?-Thou art a traitor :-
Off with his head: now, by saint Paul, I swear,
I will not dine until I see the same.-
Lovel, and Catesby, look that it be done;
The rest that love me, rise, and follow me.

[Exeunt Council, with GLO. and Buck.
Hast. Woe, woe, for England, not a whit for me:
For I, too fond, might have prevented this:
Stanley did dream the boar did rase his helm ;
But I disdained it, and did scorn to fly.