Iden. May Iden live to merit such a bounty, And never live but true unto his liege.

K. Hen. See, Buckingham! Somerset comes with the queen:

Go, bid her hide him quickly from the duke.

Enter Queen MARGARET, and SOMERSET.

Q. Mar. For thousand Yorks he shall not hide his head,

But boldly stand, and front him to his face.

York. How now! is Somerset at liberty? Then, York, unloose thy long-imprison'd thoughts, And let thy tongue be equal with thy heart.

Shall I endure the sight of Somerset ?-
False king, why hast thou broken faith with me,
Knowing how hardly I can brook abuse?
King did I call thee? no, thou art not king;
Not fit to govern and rule multitudes,
Which dar'st not, no, nor canst not rule a traitor.
That head of thine doth not become a crown;
Thy hand is made to grasp a palmer's staff,
And not to grace an awful princely sceptre.
That gold must round engirt these brows of mine,
Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles' spear,
Is able with the change to kill and cure.
Here is a hand to hold a sceptre up,

And with the same to act controlling laws.
Give place: by heaven, thou shalt rule no more
O'er him whom heaven created for thy ruler.

Som. O monstrous traitor!-I arrest thee, York,
Of capital treason 'gainst the king and crown.
Obey, audacious traitor: kneel for grace.

York. Would'st have me kneel? first let me ask of these,

If they can brook I bow a knee to man?
Sirrah, call in my sons to be my bail;
[Exit an Attendant.
I know, ere they will have me go to ward,
They'll pawn their swords for my enfranchisement.
Q. Mar. Call hither Clifford; bid him come amain,
To say, if that the bastard boys of York
Shall be the surety for their traitor father.
York. O! blood-bespotted Neapolitan,

We are thy sovereign, Clifford, kneel again;
For thy mistaking so, we pardon thee.

Clif. This is my king, York: I do not mistake;
But thou mistak'st me much, to think I do.-
To Bedlam with him! is the man grown mad?
K. Hen. Ay, Clifford; a bedlam and ambitious
humour

Makes him oppose himself against his king.

Clif. He is a traitor: let him to the Tower, And chop away that factious pate of his.

Q. Mar. He is arrested, but will not obey: His sons, he says, shall give their words for him. York. Will you not, sons?

Edw. Ay, noble father, if our words will serve. Rich. And if words will not, then our weapons shall.

Clif. Why, what a brood of traitors have we here!

York. Look in a glass, and call thy image so; I am thy king, and thou a false-heart traitor.Call hither to the stake my two brave bears, That with the very shaking of their chains They may astonish these fell lurking curs: Bid Salisbury, and Warwick, come to me.

Enter WARWICK and SALISBURY, with Forces. Clif. Are these thy bears? we'll bait thy bears to death,

And manacle the bear-ward in their chains,
If thou dar'st bring them to the baiting place.

Rich. Oft have I seen a hot o'erweening cur Run back and bite, because he was withheld; Who, being suffer'd with the bear's fell paw, Hath clapp'd his tail between his legs, and cry'd: And such a piece of service will you do,

If you oppose yourselves to match lord Warwick. Clif. Hence, heap of wrath, foul indigested lump, As crooked in thy manners as thy shape!

York. Nay, we shall heat you thoroughly anon. Clif. Take heed, lest by your heat you burn yourselves.

K. Hen. Why, Warwick, hath thy knee forgot to bow?

Old Salisbury,-shame to thy silver hair,
Thou mad misleader of thy brain-sick son!-
What, wilt thou on thy death-bed play the ruffian,
And seek for sorrow with thy spectacles?
O! where is faith? O! where is loyalty?
If it be banish'd from the frosty head,
Where shall it find a harbour in the earth?
Wilt thou go dig a grave to find out war,
And shame thine honourable age with blood?
Why art thou old, and want'st experience?
Or wherefore dost abuse it, if thou hast it?
For shame! in duty bend thy knee to me,
That bows unto the grave with mickle age.
Sal. My lord, I have consider'd with myself
The title of this most renowned duke;
And in my conscience do repute his grace
The rightful heir to England's royal seat.

K. Hen. Hast thou not sworn allegiance unto me?
Sal. I have.

K. Hen. Canst thou dispense with heaven for

such an oath?

Sal. It is great sin to swear unto a sin,

But greater sin to keep a sinful oath.
Who can be bound by any solemn vow
To do a murderous deed, to rob a man,
To force a spotless virgin's chastity,
To reave the orphan of his patrimony,
To wring the widow from her custom'd right,

And have no other reason for this wrong,
But that he was bound by a solemn oath?

Q. Mar. A subtle traitor needs no sophister.
K. Hen. Call Buckingham, and bid him arm
himself.

York. Call Buckingham, and all the friends thou hast,

I am resolv'd for death, or dignity.

Clif. The first I warrant thee, if dreams prove

true.

War. You were best to go to bed, and dream again,

To keep thee from the tempest of the field.

Clif. I am resolv'd to bear a greater storm, Than any thou canst conjure up to-day; And that I'll write upon thy burgonet, Might I but know thee by thy household badge. War. Now, by my father's badge, old Nevil's

crest,

The rampant bear chain'd to the ragged staff,
This day I'll wear aloft my burgonet,
(As on a mountain-top the cedar shows,
That keeps his leaves in spite of any storm,)
Even to affright thee with the view thereof.

Clif. And from thy burgonet I'll rend thy bear,
And tread it underfoot with all contempt,
Despite the bear-ward that protects the bear.

Y. Clif. And so to arms, victorious father, To quell the rebels, and their 'complices.

Rich. Fie! charity! for shame! speak not in spite, For you shall sup with Jesu Christ to-night.

Y. Clif. Foul stigmatic, that's more than thou

York. So let it help me now against thy sword, As I in justice and true right express it.

Clif. My soul and body on the action both!→ York. A dreadful lay!-address thee instantly. Clif. La fin couronne les œuvres.

[They fight, and CLIFFORD falls and dies. York. Thus war hath given thee peace, for thou art still.

Peace with his soul, Heaven, if it be thy will! [Exit.

Enter Young CLIFFORD.

Y. Clif. Shame and confusion! all is on the rout: Fear frames disorder, and disorder wounds Where it should guard. O war! thou son of hell, Whom angry heavens do make their minister,

Throw in the frozen bosoms of our part
Hot coals of vengeance!-Let no soldier fly:
He that is truly dedicate to war,

Hath no self-love; nor he, that loves himself,
Hath not essentially, but by circumstance,
The name of valour.-O! let the vile world end.
[Seeing his Father's body.
And the premised flames of the last day
Knit earth and heaven together!
Now let the general trumpet blow his blast,
Particularities and petty sounds

To cease!-Wast thou ordain'd, dear father,
To lose thy youth in peace, and to achieve
The silver livery of advised age,

And, in thy reverence, and thy chair-days, thus

To die in ruffian battle?-Even at this sight,
My heart is turn'd to stone: and while 'tis mine,
It shall be stony. York not our old men spares;
No more will I their babes: tears virginal
Shall be to me even as the dew to fire;
And beauty, that the tyrant oft reclaims,
Shall to my flaming wrath be oil and flax.
Henceforth I will not have to do with pity:
Meet I an infant of the house of York,
Into as many gobbets will I cut it,
As wild Medea young Absyrtus did:
In cruelty will I seek out my fame.

Come, thou new ruin of old Clifford's house;
[Taking up the body.
As did Æneas old Anchises bear,
So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders;
But then, Æneas bare a living load,

Nothing so heavy as these woes of mine.

[Exit.

Enter RICHARD PLANTAGENET, and SOMERSET,

fighting; SOMERSET is killed.

Rich. So, lie thou there ;

For, underneath an alehouse' paltry sign,

Margaret, stay.

Q. Mar. What are you made of? you'll nor fight, nor fly:

Now is it manhood, wisdom, and defence,
To give the enemy way; and to secure us
By what we can, which can no more but fly.

[Alarum afar off If you be ta'en, we then should see the bottom Of all our fortunes; but if we haply 'scape, (As well we may, if not through your neglect.) We shall to London get; where you are lov'd, And where this breach, now in our fortunes made, May readily be stopp'd.

SCENE III.-Fields near Saint Albans. Alarum: Retreat. Flourish; then enter YORK,

RICHARD PLANTAGENET, WARWICK, and Soldiers, with drum and colours.

York. Of Salisbury, who can report of him?
That winter lion, who in rage forgets
Aged contusions and all brush of time,
And, like a gallant in the brow of youth,
Repairs him with occasion? this happy day
Is not itself, nor have we won one foot,
If Salisbury be lost.

Rich.
My noble father,
Three times to-day I holp him to his horse,
Three times bestrid him; thrice I led him off,
Persuaded him from any further act:

But still, where danger was, still there I met him;
And like rich hangings in a homely house,
So was his will in his old feeble body.

But, noble as he is, look where he comes.

Enter SALISBURY.

Sal. Now, by my sword, well hast thou fought to-day;

By the mass, so did we all.-I thank you, Richard :
God knows how long it is I have to live,

And it hath pleas'd him, that three times to-day
You have defended me from imminent death.-
Well, lords, we have not got that which we have:
Being opposites of such repairing nature.
"Tis not enough our foes are this time fled,

York. I know our safety is to follow them;
For, as I hear, the king is fled to London,
To call a present court of parliament:
Let us pursue him, ere the writs go forth.-
What says lord Warwick? shall we after them?
War. After them? nay, before them, if we can.
Now, by my hand, lords, 'twas a glorious day:
Saint Albans' battle, won by famous York,
Shall be eterniz'd in all age to come.-
Sound, drums and trumpets!-and to London all;
And more such days as these to us befall!

45

[Exeunt

44

ACT I.-SCENE I.

mine ALDERLIEVEST sovereign"-" Alderlievest" is a compound word, derived from alder, or aller, (of all,) and liefest, (an old English word, .used by Hall and others, for dearest-the superlative of lieve.) It means dearest of all. The Germans still use the word allerliebst, and the Dutch allerliefste, in precisely the same sense. In English, "alderlievest" is met with in Chaucer, in Gascoigne, and in Marston; but the latter gives it to his Dutch courtesan, who may be supposed to use it as her native word. It had become antiquated, though not yet obsolete, in Shakespeare's time.

"And was his highness in his infancy," etc. With Collier, we have substituted "was" for hath of the folio, (1623,) as preferable to the ordinary insertion of been, before "crowned," which is of course to be read as a dissyllable.

"-the poor king Reignier, whose LARGE style, Agrees not with the leanness of his purse." "King Reignier, her father, for all his long style, had too short a purse to send his daughter honourably to the king, her spouse."-HOLLINGSHED.

"-on a TICKLE point"-Old English writers, from Chaucer to Spenser and Heywood, and North, in his "Plutarch," use "tickle" for unsteady, uncertain, doubtful. We still retain ticklish, in something of the same sense, while "tickle," obsolete as an adjective in English, is still used colloquially in Scotland. I have heard a Scotch theologian call a doubtful question of divinity "a tickle point.'

"As did the fatal brand Althea burn'd, Unto the prince's heart of Calydon." According to Ovid, Meleager, prince of Calydon, died in great torments when his mother Althea threw into the flames the firebrand upon the preservation of which his life depended.

66

SCENE II.

ILL-NURTUR'D Eleanor"-i. e. Badly brought up. So, in VENUS AND ADONIS:

Were I hard-favour'd, foul, or wrinkled-old.
Ill-nurtur'd, crooked, churlish, harsh in voice.

"WHEREAS the king and queen"-"Whereas" is here used in the sense of where, as it frequently is by Shakespeare's contemporaries. Thus, in Daniel's tragedy of "Cleopatra," (1594,) we have

That I should pass whereas Octavia stands
To view my misery.

"SIR John"-i. e. Sir John Hume: he was a priest, and to persons of his profession the title of "sir" was of old frequently applied. (See TWELFTH NIGHT.) In Davenport's "New Trick to cheat the Devil," (1639.) we meet with this expression:-"Sir me no sirs: I am no knight or churchman."

"With MARGERY JOURDAIN"-It appears (says Douce, "Illustrations of Shakespeare,") from Rymer's "Fadera," that in the tenth year of King Henry the Sixth, Margery Jourdemayn, John Virley, clerk, and friar John Ashwell, were, on the 9th of May, 1433, brought from Windsor by the constable of the castle, to which they had been committed for sorcery, before the council at Westminster, and afterwards, by an order of council. delivered into the custody of the lord chancellor. The same day it was ordered by the lords of council, that whenever the said Virley and Ashwell should find security for their good behaviour, they should be set at liberty; and in like manner that Jourdemayn should be discharged on her husband's finding security. This woman was afterwards burned in Smithfield, as stated in the play, and also in the chronicles.

SCENE III.

"our supplications in the QUILL"-The commentators vary in their solution of this phrase. The more