Enter BUCKINGHAM and STANLEY.

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

STAN. I do befeech 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 fickness, and no grounded malice.

2 Here come the lords of Buckingham and Stanley.] [Old copies-Derby.) This is a blunder of inadvertence, which has run through the whole chain of impressions. It could not well be original in Shakspeare, who was most minutely intimate with his history, and the intermarriages of the nobility. The person here called Derby, was Thomas Lord Stanley, Lord Steward of King Edward the Fourth's houshold. But this Thomas Lord Stanley was not created Earl of Derby till after the acceffion of Henry the Seventh; and accordingly, afterwards, in the fourth and fifth Acts of this play, before the battle of Bofworth-field, he is every where called Lord Stanley. This sufficiently juftifics the change I have made in his title. THEOBALD.

3 The countess Richmond,] Margaret, daughter to John Beaufort, first Duke of Somerset. After the death of her first hufband, Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, half-brother to King Henry VI. by whom she had only one fon, afterwards King Henry VII. the married first Sir Henry Stafford, uncle to Humphrey Duke of Buckingham. MALONE.

Q. ELız. Saw you the king to-day, my lord of

Stanley ?

STAN. But now, the duke of Buckingham, and I, Are come from visiting his majefty.

Q. ELIZ. What likelihood of his amendment, lords?

BUCK. Madam, good hope; his grace speaks cheerfully.

Q. ELIZ. God grant him health! Did you con

fer with him?

Buck. Ay, madam: he defires to make atone

ment

Between the duke of Glofter and your brothers,
And between them and my lord chamberlain;
And fent to warn them 4 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 diffentious rumours.
Because I cannot flatter, and speak fair,
Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,

4

Cafar:

to warn them] i. e. to summon. So, in Julius "They mean to warn us at Philippi here." STEEVENS.

Duck with French nods and apish courtesy, 5
I must be held a rancorous enemy.
Cannot a plain man live, and think no harm,
But thus his fimple truth must be abus'd
By filken, fly, infinuating Jacks ?

GREY. To whom in all this presence speaks your

grace?

GLO. To thee, that haft 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 lewd complaints."

Q. ELIZ. Brother of Glofter, you mistake the

matter:

The king, of his own royal difpofition,

S

Speak fair,

Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,

Duck with French nods and apish courtesy, An importation of artificial manners seems to have afforded our ancient poets a never failing topick of invective. So, in A tragical Discourse of the Hapleffe Man's Life, by Churchyard, 1593:

6

7

"We make a legge, and kisse the hand withall,
(A French deuice, nay fure a Spanish tricke)
"And speake in print, and say loe at your call
" I will remaine your owne both dead and quicke.
"A courtier so can give a lobbe a licke,

"And dress a dolt in motley for a while,

" And fo in fleeue at filly woodcocke smile."

STEEVENS.

-infinuating Jacks ?] See Vol. VI. p. 18, n. 8.

MALONE.

- with lewd complaints.] Lewd, in the present instance, fignifies rude, ignorant; from the Anglo-Saxon Laewede, a Laick. Chaucer often uses the word lewd, both for a laick and an ignorant person. See Ruddiman's Gloffary to Gawin Douglas's tranflation of the Eneid. STEEVENS.

And not provok'd by any fuitor else;
Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred,
That in your outward action shows itself,
Againft 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 tell ;-The world is grown so bad,
That wrens may prey where eagles dare not perch :
Since every Jack became a gentleman,1
There's many a gentle person made a Jack.

Q. ELIZ. Come, come, we know your meaning,
brother Glofter;

You envy my advancement, and my friends;
God grant, we never may have need of you !

GLO. Meantime, God grants that we have need

of you :

Our brother is imprison'd by your means,
Myself disgrac'd, and the nobility

* of your ill-will, &c.] This line is restored from the first edition. POPE.

By the first edition Mr. Pope, as appears from his Table of Editions, means the quarto of 1598. But that and the subsequent quartos read and to remove. The emendation was made by Mr. Steevens. The folio has only

"Makes him to fend, that he may learn the ground-." Here clearly a line was omitted: yet had there been no quarto copy, it would have been thought hardy to fupply the omiffion: but of all the errors of the press omiffion is the most frequent; and it is a great mistake to suppose that these lacune exist only in the imagination of editors and commentators. MALONE.

9

- may prey-] The quarto 1598, and the folio readmake prey. The correction, which all the modern editors have adopted, is taken from the quarto, 1602. MALONE.

I

Since every Jack became a gentleman,] This proverbial expreffion at once demonftrates 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 of the most common and familiar kind. DOUCE.,

Held in contempt; while great promotions
Are daily given, to enoble those

That scarce, some two days since, were worth a

noble.

Q. ELIZ. By Him, that rais'd me to this careful

height

From that contented hap which I enjoy'd,
I never did incense his majesty

Against the duke of Clarence, but have been
An earnest advocate to plead for him.
My lord, you do me shameful injury,
Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects.

GLO. You may deny that you were not the cause Of my lord Hastings' late imprisonment.

Riv. She may, my lord; for

GLO. She may, lord Rivers?-why, who knows

not fo?

She may do more, fir, than denying that :
She may help you to many fair preferments;
And then deny her aiding hand therein,
And lay those honours on your high defert.
What may shenot? She may, -ay, marry, may she,-

Riv. What, marry, may she ?

GLO. What, marry, may she? marry with a king, A bachelor, a handfone stripling too : I wis, your grandam had a worser match.

Q. ELIZ. My lord of Gloster, I have too long

borne
Your blunt upbraidings, and your bitter scoffs :
By heaven, I will acquaint his majesty,
Of those gross taunts I often have endur'd.
I had rather be a country servant-maid,
Than a great queen, with this condition-