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Hold you his hands, whilft I do fet it on.

[Putting a paper Crown on his Head.

Putting a paper crown on his Head.] Shakspeare has on this occafion deviated from hiftory, if such of our English Chronicles as I have occafionally looked into, may be believed. According to these, the paper crown was not placed on the Duke of York's head till after it had been cut off. Rutland likewife was not killed by Clifford, till after his father's death. STEEVENS.

The ingenious commentator is most certainly mistaken. Shakspeare, fo far from having deviated from history, has followed it with the utmost precision. Whethamstede expressly tells us, that the Lancastrians, in direct breach of a mutual agreement, and before the day appointed for the battle, fell fuddenly upon the Duke's army, and took him and the Earl of Salisbury prifoners; treating both, but especially the Duke, in the most shameful manner: Nam, says he, statuentes eum fuper unum parvum formicarium colliculum, et quoddam fertum vile, ex palufiri gramine confectum, imponentes, per modum coronæ, fuper caput fuum, non aliter quam Judæi coram domino incurvaverunt genua fua coram ipfo, dicentes illuforie: Ave rex, fine regimine; ave rex, absque hereditate; ave dux et princeps, absque omni populo penitus et poffessione. Ex hiis una cum aliis variis, in eum probrose opprobriofeque dictis, coegerunt ipfum demum per capitis alfciffionem clameum relinquere fuæ jufticicæ vendicacionis, p. 489. Not a single circumstance is omitted, or varied in the scene. It is not, however, imagined that Shakspeare had ever confulted Whethamstede: he found the same story no doubt in fome old black letter Chronicle, or he might possibly have it from a popular tradition. RITSON.

According to Hall the paper crown was not placed on York's head till after he was dead; but Holinshed after giving Hall's narration of this business almost verbatim, adds :-" Some write, that the Duke was taken alive, and in derifion caused to stand upon a mole-hill, on whose heade they put a garland instead of a crowne, which they had fashioned and made of segges or bulrushes, and having so crowned him with that garlande, they kneeled downe afore him, as the Jewes did to Chrifte in scorne, saying to him, hayle king without rule, hayle king without heritage, hayle duke and prince without people or poffeffions. And at length having thus fcorned hym with these and dyverse other the like despitefull woordes, they stroke off his heade, which (as yee have heard) they presented to the queen."

Both the chroniclers say, that the Earl of Rutland was killed

Ay, marry, fir, now looks he like a king!
Ay, this is he that took king Henry's chair;
And this is he was his adopted heir.-
But how is it that great Plantagenet
Is crown'd fo foon, and broke his folemn oath?
As I bethink me, you should not be king,
Till our king Henry had fhook hands with death.
And will you pale your head in Henry's glory
And rob his temples of the diadem,
Now in his life, against your holy oath ?
O, 'tis a fault too too unpardonable!-
Off with the crown; and, with the crown, his head;
And, whilst we breathe, take time to do him dead.3

CLIF. That is my office, for my father's fake.
Q. MAR. Nay, stay; let's hear the orifons he

makes.

YORK. She-wolf of France, but worse than wolves

of France,

'Whose tongue more poisons than the adder's tooth! How ill-beseeming is it in thy fex, To triumph like an Amazonian trull,

by Clifford during the battle of Wakefield; but it may be prefumed that his father had first fallen. The Earl's tutor probably attempted to save him as foon as the rout began. MALONE.

* Tillour king Henry had shook hands with death.] On York's return from Ireland, at a meeting of parliament it was settled, that Henry should enjoy the throne during his life, and that York should fucceed him. See Hall, Henry VI. fol. 98. MALONE.

2 And will you pale-] i. e. impale, encircle with a crown. MALONE.

So, in Antony and Cleopatra : "Whate'er the ocean pales, or sky inclips." STEEVENS.

3

- to do him dead,] To kill him. See Vol. VI. p. 170, n. 3. MALONE.

See this play, p. 53, n. 9. STEEVENS.

• Upon their woes, whom fortune captivates ? But that thy face is, visor-like, unchanging, Made impudent with use of evil deeds,

I would assay, proud queen, to make thee blush: To tell thee whence thou cam'st, of whom deriv'd, Were shame enough to shame thee, wert thou not

shameless.

Thy father bears the types of king of Naples,
Of both the Sicils, and Jerufalem;
Yet not so wealthy as an English yeoman.
Hath that poor monarch taught thee to insult?
It needs not, nor it boots thee not, proud queen ;
Unless the adage must be verified,-

That beggars, mounted, run their horse to death.
'Tis beauty, that doth oft make women proud;
But, God he knows, thy share thereof is small :
'Tis virtue, that doth make them most admir'd;
The contrary doth make thee wonder'd at :
'Tis government, that makes them seem divine;"
The want thereof makes thee abominable :
Thou art as opposite to every good,
As the Antipodes are unto us,
Or as the fouth to the septentrion."

Upon their woes,] So, the folio. The quarto reads-Upon his woes. STEEVENS.

5

-the type-] i. e. the diftinguishing mark; an obsolete use of the word. So again, in King Richard III:

"The high imperial type of this earth's glory."

STEEVENS.

'Tis government, that makes them feem divine;] Government, in the language of that time, signified evenness of temper, and decency of manners. JOHNSON.

So, in King Henry IV. P. I. Falstaff says:

"Let men say, we be men of good government."

STEEVENS. Septentrion.] i. e. the North. Septentrio, Lat. Milton

uses the fame word as an adjective:

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-cold feptentrion blasts."

STEEVENS.

O, tiger's heart, wrapp'd in a woman's hide !8
How could'ft thou drain the life-blood of the child,

To bid the father wipe his eyes withal,
And yet be seen to bear a woman's face?
Women are soft, mild, pitiful, and flexible;

Thou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless. • Bid'st thou me rage? why, now thou hast thy

wish:9

• Would'st have me weep? why, now thou hast thy

will:

2

For raging wind blows up incessant showers, And, when the rage allays, the rain begins. These tears are my sweet Rutland's obsequies;

8 O, tiger's heart, wrapp'd in a woman's hide!] We find almost the fame line in Acolastus his Afterwitte, 1600:

"O woolvish heart, wrapp'd in a woman's hide!"

MALONE. - thy with: &c.] So the folio: The quarto readsthy will in the first line, and thy wish in the second. STEEVENS.

* For raging wind blows up inceffant showers,] Thus the folio. The quartos read

For raging winds blow up a storm of tears. STEEVENS.

* Wouldst have me weep? why, now thou hast thy will:
For raging wind blows up inceffant showers,
And, when the rage allays, the rain begins.] We meet with

the same thought in our author's Rape of Lucrece :
"This windy tempest, till it blows up rain,
"Held back his forrow's tide, to make it more;
"At last it rains, and busy winds give o'er.
"Then fon and father weep with equal ftrife,
"Who should weep most for daughter or for wife."

Again, in Macbeth :

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-that tears shall drown the wind."

Again, in Troilus and Creffida :

"Where are my tears? rain, rain, to lay this wind?"

Again, in King John :

"This shower, blown up by tempeft of the foul-."

MALONE.

' And every drop cries vengeance for his death, 3''Gainst thee, fell Clifford, and thee false French

woman.

NORTH. Beshrew me, but his paffions move me so, That hardly can I check my eyes from tears.

YORK. That face of his the hungry cannibals Would not have touch'd, would not have stain'd

with blood :4

But you are more inhuman, more inexorable,

And every drop cries vengeance for his death,] So the folio. The quarto thus :

And every drop begs vengeance as it falls,
On thee, &c. STEEVENS.

1

- would not have ftain'd with blood:] Thus the first folio. STEEVENS.

- would not have ftain'd the roses just with blood:] So the second folio nonfenfically reads the passage; but the old quarto, &c. of better authority, have it thus :

That face of his the hungry cannibals

Would not have touch'd, would not have ftain'd with blood. And this is sense. Could any one now have believed that an editor of common understanding should reject this, and fasten upon the nonsense of the later edition, only because it afforded matter of conjecture? and yet Mr. Theobald will needs correct, rofes just with blood, to rofes juic'd with blood, that is, change one blundering editor's nonsense for another's. But if there ever was any meaning in the line, it was thus expressed :

Would not have ftain'd the rofes just in bud.
And this the Oxford editor hath espoused. WARBURTON.

As, without correction, the words the roses just, do not make good sense, there is very little reason to fufpect their being interpolated, and therefore it is most probable they were preserved among the players by memory. The correction is this: That face of his the hungry cannibals Would not have touch'd:

Would not have stain'd the roses just i' th' bloom. The words [the roses just] were, I suppose, left out by the first editors, in order to get rid of the superfluous hemiftich.

MUSGRAVE.

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