Or if it be, 'tis with falfe forrow's eye,
Which, for things true, weeps things imaginary.
QUEEN. It may be fo; but yet my inward foul
Perfuades me, it is otherwife: Howe'er it be,
I cannot but be fad; fo heavy fad,

As, though, in thinking, on no thought I think,'-
Makes me with heavy nothing faint and fhrink.
BUSHY. 'Tis nothing but conceit,' my gracious

lady.

QUEEN. 'Tis nothing lefs: conceit is ftill de-
riv'd

From fome fore-father grief; mine is not so;
For nothing hath begot my fomething grief;
Or fomething hath the nothing that I grieve: +

2 As, though, in thinking, on no thought I think,] thought I think,] Old copy-on thinking; but we should read-As though in thinking; that is, though, mufing, I have no diftinct idea of calamity. The involuntary and unaccountable depreffion of the mind, which every one has sometime felt, is here very forcibly described. JOHNSON.

3 'Tis nothing but conceit,] Conceit is here, as in K. Henry VIII. and many other places, used for a fanciful conception. MALONE. 4 For nothing hath begot my fomething grief;

Or fomething hath the nothing that I grieve:] With these lines I know not well what can be done. The queen's reafoning as it now ftands, is this: my trouble is not conceit, for conceit is fill derived from fome antecedent cause, some fore-father grief; but with me the cafe is, that either my real grief hath no real caufe, or fome real caufe has produced a fancied grief. That is, my grief is not canceit, because it either has not a canfe like conceit, or it has a caufe like conceit. This can hardly ftand. Let us try again, and read

thus:

For nothing hath begot my fomething grief;

Not fomething hath the nothing that I grieve:

That is, my grief is not conceit; conceit is an imaginary uneasiness from fome paft occurrence. But, on the contrary, here is real grief without a real caufe; not a real cause with a fanciful forrow. This, I think, must be the meaning; harsh at the beft, yet better than contradiction or abfurdity. JOHNSON,

'Tis in reverfion that I do poffefs;

But what it is, that is not yet known; what
I cannot name; 'tis nameless woe, I wot.

Enter GREEN.

GREEN. God fave your majesty !-and well met, gentlemen:

I hope, the king is not yet shipp'd for Ireland. QUEEN. Why hop'st thou fo? 'tis better hope, he is;

For his defigns crave hafte, his hafte good hope; Then wherefore doft thou hope, he is not shipp'd? GREEN. That he, our hope, might have retir'd his power,

6

'Tis in reverfion that I do poffefs;

But what it is, that is not yet known; &c.] I am about to propofe an interpretation which many will think harfh, and which I do not offer for certain. To poffefs a man, in Shakspeare, is to inform him fully, to make him comprehend. To be possessed, is to be fully informed. Of this fenfe the examples are numerous:

"I have poffefs'd him my moft stay can be but short." Meafure for Meafure.

Is he yet poffefs'd

"What fum you would?" Merchant of Venice.

I therefore imagine the queen fays thus:

'Tis in reverfion that I do poffefs ;

The event is yet in futurity- -that I know with full convictionbut what it is, that is not yet known. In any other interpretation fhe must say that he poffeffes what is not yet come, which, though it may be allowed to be poetical and figurative language, is yet, I think, lefs natural than my explanation. JOHNSON.

As the grief the Queen felt, was for fome event which had not yet come to pafs, or at leaft yet come to her knowledge, fhe expreffes this by faying that the grief which the then actually poffeffed, was ftill in reverfion, as fhe had no right to feel the grief until the event should happen which was to occafion it.

6

M. MASON. might have retir'd his power,] Might have drawn it back. A French fenfe. JOHNSON.

And driven into defpair an enemy's hope,
Who ftrongly hath fet footing in this land:
The banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself,
And with uplifted arms is safe arriv'd
At Ravenfpurg.

QUEEN.

Now God in heaven forbid! GREEN. O, madam, 'tis too true: and that is

worfe,

The lord Northumberland, his young fon Henry Percy,

The lords of Rofs, Beaumond, and Willoughby, With all their powerful friends, are fled to him. BUSHY. Why have you not proclaim'd Northumberland,

And all the rest of the revolting faction

Traitors?

GREEN. We have: whereon the earl of Worcester Hath broke his ftaff, refign'd his stewardship, And all the household fervants fled with him To Bolingbroke.

QUEEN. So, Green, thou art the midwife to my

woe,

And Bolingbroke my forrow's dismal heir:"

So, in The Rape of Lucrece:

7

"Each one, by him enforc'd, retires his ward." MALONE. my forrow's difmal heir:] The author feems to have used heir in an improper fenfe, an heir being one that inherits by fucceffion, is here put for one that fucceeds, though he fucceeds but in order of time, not in order of defcent. JOHNSON.

Johnfon has miftaken the meaning of this paffage alfo. The Queen does not in any way allude to Bolingbroke's fucceffion to the crown, an event, of which she could at that time have had no idea. She had faid before, that " fome unborn forrow, ripe in fortune's womb, was coming towards her." She talks afterwards of her unknown griefs" being begotten;" fhe calls Green" the midwife of her woe;" and then means to fay, in the fame metaphorical jargon, that the arrival of Bolingbroke was the difmal offspring that her foreboding forrow was big of; which fhe expreffes by calling him her

Now hath my foul brought forth her prodigy ;
And I, a gasping new-deliver'd mother,
Have woe to woe, forrow to forrow join'd."
BUSHY. Despair not, madam.

QUEEN.

Who fhall hinder me?

I will defpair, and be at enmity

With cozening hope; he is a flatterer,
A parafite, a keeper-back of death,

Who gently would diffolve the bands of life,
Which falfe hope lingers in extremity.

Enter YORK.

GREEN. Here comes the duke of York.

QUEEN. With figns of war about his aged neck; O, full of careful bufinefs are his looks!

Uncle,

For heaven's fake, speak comfortable words.

YORK. Should I do fo, I fhould belie my thoughts:* Comfort's in heaven; and we are on the earth, Where nothing lives, but croffes, care, and grief. Your husband he is gone to fave far off,

Whilft others come to make him lofe at home:
Here am I left to underprop his land;

Who, weak with age, cannot fupport myfelf:-
Now comes the fick hour that his furfeit made;
Now shall he try his friends that flatter'd him.

"forrow's difmal heir," and explains more fully and intelligibly in the following line:

7

Now hath my foul brought forth her prodigy. M. MASON. thou art the midwife to my woe,

And I a gafping new-deliver'd mother,

Have woe to woe, forrow to forrow join'd.] So, in Pericles:

"I am great with woe, and shall deliver weeping."

MALONE. Should I do fo, I should belie my thoughts:] This line is found in the three eldest quartos, but is wanting in the folio, STEEVENS.

Enter a Servant.

SERV. My lord, your fon was gone before I

came.

YORK. He was?-Why, fo!-go all which way it will!

The nobles they are fled, the commons cold,"
And will, I fear, revolt on Hereford's fide.
Sirrah,

Get thee to Plashy,' to my fifter Glofter;

---

Bid her fend me presently a thousand pound :-
Hold, take my ring.

SERV. My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship:

To-day, as I came by, I called there ;

But I fhall grieve you to report the rest.

YORK. What is it, knave?

SERV. An hour before I came, the duchefs died. YORK. God for his mercy! what a tide of woes Comes rushing on this woeful land at once! I know not what to do:-I would to God, (So my untruth3 had not provok'd him to it,) The king had cut off my head with my brother's.*———

The nobles they are fled, the commons cold,] The old copies, injuriously to the metre, read

The nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold.

STEEVENS. * Get thee to Plafhy,] The lordship of Play, was a town of the duchefs of Glofter's in Effex. See Hall's Chronicle, p. 13. THEOBALD.

3 untruth-] That is, disloyalty, treachery. JOHNSON. 4 The king had cut off my head with my brother's.] None of York's brothers had his head cut off, either by the King or any one elfe. The Duke of Glofter, to whofe death he probably alludes, was fecretly murdered at Calais, being smothered between two beds. RITSON.