Insulting tyranny begins to jut

Upon the innocent and awless3 throne:-
Welcome, destruction, blood, and massacre!
I see, as in a map, the end of all.

Duch. Accursed and unquiet wrangling days!
How many of you have mine eyes beheld?
My husband lost his life to get the crown;
And often up and down my sons were tost,
For me to joy, and weep, their gain, and loss:
And being seated, and domestic broils

Clean over-blown, themselves, the conquerors,
Make war upon themselves; brother to brother,
Blood to blood, self 'gainst self:-O, preposterous
And frantick outrage, end thy damned spleen;
Or let me die, to look on death no more!4

Q. Eliz. Come, come, my boy, we will to sanctuary. Madam, farewel.

Duch.

Stay, I will go with you.

Q. Eliz. You have no cause.

Arch.

My gracious lady, go,
[To the Queen.

And thither bear your treasure and your goods.
For my part, I'll resign unto your grace
The seal I keep; And so betide to me,
As well I tender you, and all of yours!
Come, I'll conduct you to the sanctuary.5

3

[Exeunt.

66 While she, the picture of pure piety,
"Like a white hind under the grype's sharp claws -"

Malone.

awless] Not producing awe, not reverenced. To jut upon is to encroach. Johnson.

4 Or let me die, to look on death no more!] Earth is the reading of all the copies, from the first edition put out by the players, downwards. But I have restored the reading of the old quarto in 1597, which is copied by all the other authentic quartos, by which the thought is finely and properly improved:

Or let me die, to look on death no more.

5 I'll resign unto your grace

Theobald.

The seal I keep; &c.] Afterwards, however, this obsequious Archbishop Rotheram] to ingratiate himself with King Richard III, put his majesty's badge, the Hog, upon the gate of the Pub. lick Library, Cambridge. Steevens.

ACT III.....SCENE I.

The same. A Street.

6

The Trumpets sound. Enter the Prince of Wales, GLosTER, BUCKINGHAM, Cardinal BOURCHIER, and Others.

Buck. Welcome, sweet prince, to London, to your chamber.?

Glo. Welcome, dear cousin, my thoughts' sovereign: The weary way hath made you melancholy. Prince. No, uncle; but our crosses on the way Have made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy: I want more uncles here to welcome me.

Glo. Sweet prince, the untainted virtue of your years Hath not yet div'd into the world's deceit:

No more can you distinguish of a man,

Than of his outward show; which, God he knows,
Seldom, or never, jumpeth with the heart.
Those uncles, which you want, were dangerous;
Your grace attended to their sugar'd words,
But look'd not on the poison of their hearts:

God keep you from them, and from such false friends!
Prince. God keep me from false friends! but they

were none.

Glo. My lord, the mayor of London comes to greet

you.

Enter the Lord Mayor, and his Train. May. God bless your grace with health and happy days!

6 Cardinal Bourchier,] Thomas Bourchier was made a Cardinal, and elected Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1464. He died in 1486. Malone.

7 —to your chamber.] London was anciently called Camera regis. Pope.

So, in Heywood's If you know not me you know Novody, 1633, Part II:

"This city, our great chamber." Steevens.

This title it began to have immediately after the Norman conquest. See Coke's 4 Inst. 243, where it is styled Camera Regis; Camden's Britannia, 374; Ben Jonson's Account of King James's Entertainment in passing to his Coronation, &c. Reed.

jumpeth with the heart.] So, in Soliman and Perseda, 1599: "Wert thou my friend, thy mind would jump with mine."

Steevens.

all.

Prince. I thank you, good my lord;-and thank you [Exeunt Mayor, &c. I thought, my mother, and my brother York, Would long ere this have met us on the way :Fy, what a slug is Hastings! that he comes not To tell us, whether they will come, or no.

Enter HASTINGS.

Buck. And, in good time, here comes the sweating

lord.

Prince. Welcome, my lord: What, will our mother

come?

Hast. On what occasion, God he knows, not I, The queen your mother, and your brother York, Have taken sanctuary: The tender prince Would fain have come with me to meet your grace, But by his mother was perforce withheld.

Buck. Fy! what an indirect and peevish course
Is this of hers?-Lord cardinal, will your grace
Persuade the queen to send the duke of York
Unto his princely brother presently?

If she deny, lord Hastings, go with him,
And from her jealous arms pluck him perforce.

Card. My lord of Buckingham, if my weak oratory

Can from his mother win the duke of York,

Anon expect him here:1 But if she be obdurate
To mild entreaties, God in heaven forbid

We should infringe the holy privilege

Of blessed sanctuary! not for all this land,
Would I be guilty of so deep a sin.

Buck. You are too senseless-obstinate, my lord,

Too ceremonious, and traditional :2

Weigh it but with the grossness of this age,3

9 in good time,] De bonne heure. Fr. Steevens.

1 Anon expect him here: &c.] The word-anon, may safely be omitted. It only serves to vitiate the measure Steevens.

2 Too ceremonious, and traditional:] Ceremonious for superstitious; traditional for adherent to old customs. Warburton.

3 Weigh it but with the grossness of this age,] But the more gross, that is, the more superstitious the age was, the stronger would be the imputation of violated sanctuary. The question, we see by what follows, is whether sanctuary could be claimed by an infant. The speaker resolves it in the negative, because it could

You break not sanctuary in seizing him.
The benefit thereof is always granted

To those whose dealings have deserv'd the place,
And those who have the wit to claim the place:
This prince hath neither claim'd it, nor deserv'd it;
And therefore, in mine opinion, cannot have it:
Then, taking him from thence, that is not there,
You break no privilege nor charter there.
Oft have I heard of sanctuary men;

But sanctuary children, ne'er till now.4

Card. My lord, you shall o'er-rule my mind for once.Come on, lord Hastings, will you go with me? Hast. I go, my lord.

Prince. Good lords, make all the speedy haste you

may.

[Exeunt Card. and HAST.

Say, uncle Gloster, if our brother come,

Where shall we sojourn till our coronation?

Glo. Where it seems best unto your royal self.

be claimed by those only whose actions necessitated them to fly thither; or by those who had an understanding to demand it; neither of which could be an infant's case: It is plain then, the first line, which introduces this reasoning, should be read thus:

Weigh it but with the greenness of his age,

i. e. the young Duke of York's, whom his mother had fled with to sanctuary. The corrupted reading of the old quarto is something nearer the true:

the greatness of his age. Warburton.

This emendation is received by Hanmer, and is very plausible; yet the common reading may stand:

Weigh it but with the grossness of this age,

You break not sanctuary,

That is, compare the act of seizing him with the gross and licentious practices of these times, it will not be considered as a violation of sanctuary, for you may give such reasons as men are now used to admit. Johnson.

The truth is, the quarto 1598, and the two subsequent quartos, as well as the folio, all read-grossness. Greatness is the corrupt reading of a late quarto of no authority, printed in 1622. Malone.

4 Oft have I heard of sanctuary men; &c.] These arguments against the privilege of sanctuary are taken from Sir Thomas_ More's Life of King Edward the Fifth, published by Stowe: And verily, I have heard of sanctuary men, but I never heard earst of sanctuary children," &c. Steevens.

More's Life of King Edward V was published also by Hall and Holinshed, and in the Chronicle of Holinshed Shakspeare found this argument. Malone.

If I may counsel you, some day, or two,
Your highness shall repose you at the Tower:

Then where you please, and shall be thought most fit
For your best health and recreation.

Prince. I do not like the Tower, of any place :—
Did Julius Cæsar build that place, my lord?

Glo. He did, my gracious lord, begin that place;
Which, since, succeeding ages have re-edify'd.3
Prince. Is it upon record? or else reported
Successively from age to age, he built it?
Buck. Upon record, my gracious lord.
Prince. But say, my lord, it were not register'd;
Methinks, the truth should live from age to age,
As 'twere retail'd to all posterity,

Even to the general all-ending day.

Glo. So wise so young, they say, do ne'er live long.7

[Aside.

5 He did &c.] I suppose, this and the following line, (the useless epithet-gracious, omitted,) should be read thus:

He did, my lord, begin that place; which, since,
Succeeding ages have re-edify'd. Steevens.

6 As 'twere retail'd to all posterity,] And so it is; and, by that means, like most other retail'd things, became adulterated. We should read:

- intail'd to all posterity;

which is finely and sensibly expressed, as if truth was the natural inheritance of our children: which it is impiety to deprive them of. Warburton.

Retailed may signify diffused, dispersed. Johnson.

Retailed means handed down from one to another.-Goods retailed, are those which pass from one purchaser to another.Richard uses the word retailed in the same sense in the fourth Act, where speaking to the Queen of her daughter, he says

"To whom I will retail my conquests won." M Mason. Minsheu in his Dictionary, 1617, besides the verb retail in the mercantile sense, has the verb "to retaile or retell, G. renombrer, a Lat. renumerare;" and in that sense, I conceive, it is employed here. Malone.

7 So wise so young, they say, do ne'er live long.]

"Is cadit ante senem, qui sapit ante diem," a proverbial line. Steevens.

Bright, in his Treatise on Melancholy, 1586, p. 52, says “I have knowne children languishing of the splene, obstructed and altered in temper, talke with gravitie and wisdome, surpassing those tender yeares, and their judgement carrying a marvellous imitation of the wisdome of the ancient, having after a sorte attained that