She hath had too much wrong, and I repent Queen. I never did her any, to my knowledge. I was too hot to do fome body good, Enter Catesby. Cates. Madam, his majesty doth call for you, And for your grace, and you, my noble lords. Queen. Catesby, I come :-Lords, will you go with me? Riv. Madam, we will attend your grace. I [Exeunt all but Glofter. Glo. I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl. The secret mischiefs that I fet abroach, 7 He is frank'd up to fatting for his pains ;-) A frank is an old English word for a hog-fty. 'Tis possible he uses this metaphor to Clarence, in allusion to the crest of the family of York, which was a boar. Whereto relate those famous old verses on Richard III: The cat, the rat, and Lovel the dog, He uses the fame metaphor in the last scene of act IV. POPE. A frank was not a common hog-ftye, but the pen in which thofe hogs were confined of whom brawn was to be made. 8-done scathe to us.] Scathe is harm, mischief. So, in Soliman and Perfeda: Again : I lay unto the grievous charge of others. Enter two Murderers. But foft, here come my executioners.- : 1 Mur. We are, my lord; and come to have the warrant, That we may be admitted where he is. Glo. Well thought upon, I have it here about me: When you have done, repair to Crosby-place. But, firs, be fudden in the execution, Withal obdurate, do not hear him plead; For Clarence is well spoken, and, perhaps, May move your hearts to pity, if you mark him. 1 Mur. Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to prate, Talkers are no good doers; be assur'd, We go to use our hands, and not our tongues. Glo. Your eyes drop mill-stanes, when fools' eyes drop tears?: • Your eyes drop mill-ftones, when fools' eyes drop tears;] This, I believe, is a proverbial expreffion. It is used again in the tragedy of Cafar and Pompey, 1607: • Men's eyes mult mill-ftones drop, when fools shed tears. STEEVENS. I like I like you, lads;-about your business straight; 1 Mur. We will, my noble lord. SCENE IV. An apartment in the Tower. Enter Clarence, and Brakenbury. [Exeunt. Brak. Why looks your grace fo heavily to-day? Clar. O, I have past a miferable night, So full of fearful dreams', of ugly fights, That, as I am a chriftian faithful man, I would not spend another fuch a night, Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days; So full of dismal terror was the time. Brak. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you, tell me. Clar. Methought, that I had broken from the Tower, And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy; And, in my company, my brother Glofter: Who from my cabin tempted me to walk Upon the hatches; thence we look'd towards Eng land, And cited up a thousand heavy times, Upon the giddy footing of the hatches, Methought, that Gloster stumbled; and, in falling, Struck me, that thought to stay him, over-board, Into the tumbling billows of the main. O Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown! 1 So full of fearful dreams,] The 4to. 1613, has-ghasily dreams. MALONE. faithful man,) Not an infidel. JOHNSON. D4 What What dreadful noise of water in mine ears! Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes, Clar. Methought, I had; and often did I strive To yield the ghost: but still the envious flood Kept in my foul, and would not let it forth To feek the empty, vast, and wand'ring air; But fmother'd it within my panting bulk, Which almost burst to belch it in the fea. Brak. 3 What fights of ugly death] The 4to. of 1613, reads What ugly fights of death. MALONE. * Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,] Unvalu'd is here used for invaluable. So, in Lovelace's Posthumous Poems, 1659: Again: "the unvalew'd robe the wore " Made infinite lay lovers to adore." " And what substantial riches I possess, "I must to these unvalew'd dreams confess." MALONE. That woo'd the flimy bottom) By feeming to gaze upon it; or, as we now say, to ogle it. JOHNSON. reads: but still the envious flood Keft in my foul, and would not let it forth Stopp'd in my foul and instead of to seek the empty &c. has to find the empty, &c. The quarto of 1613, evidently by a mistake of the compofitor, reads: To keep the empty, &c. Brak. Awak'd you not with this fore agony? Clar. O, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life; O, then began the tempeft to my foul! I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood, With that grim ferryman which poets write of, Unto the kingdom of perpetual night. The first that there did greet my stranger foul, Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick; Who cry'd aloud, -What Scourge for perjury Can this dark monarchy afford falfe Clarence? And so he vanish'd: Then came wand'ring by A shadow like an angel, with bright hair Dabbled in blood; and he shriek'd out aloud, Clarence is come, false, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence, That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury;Seize on him, furies, take him to your torments!ー With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends Environ'd me, and howled in mine ears Such This line would, I think, be improved by a different punetuation: To find the empty vast, and wandring air. To find the immense vacuity &c. Vast is used as a substantive, by our author, in other places. So, in Pericles: "Thou God of this great vast, rebuke the furges-" Again, in The Winter's Tale: "they have seemed to be together though absent; shook hands over a vast" MALONE. 1-grim ferryman.] The folio reads-four ferryman. STEEVENS. 8-fleeting, perjur'd Clarence,] Fleeting is the fame as changing fides. JOHNSON. So, in Antony and Cleopatra: -now the fleeting moon No planet is of mine. Clarence broke his oath with the earl of Warwick, and joined the army of his brother king Edward IV. STEEVENS. a legion of foul fiends Environ'd me, &c.] Milton seems to have thought on this passage where he is describing the midnight fufferings of Our Saviour, in the 4th book of Paradife Regain'd: -nor |