And kill the innocent gazer with thy fight;
For in the shade of death I thall find joy,

In life but double death now Glo'fter's dead.

Q. Mar. Why do you rate my Lord of Suffolk thus Although the Duke was enemy to him,

Yet he, moft Chriftian-like, laments his death.
And for myself, foe as he was to me,

Might liquid tears, or heart-offending groans,
Or blood-confuming fighs recall his life;

I would be blind with weeping, fick with groans,
Look pale as primrose with blood-drinking fighs,
And all to have the noble Duke alive.

What know I, how the world may deem of me?
For, it is known, we were but hollow friends';
be judg'd, I made the Duke away ;'

It may

So fhall my name with flander's tongue be wounded,
And Princes' Courts be fill'd with my reproach.
This get I by his death. Ah, me unhappy!

To be a Queen, and crown'd with infamy.

K. Henry. Ah, woe is me for Glofter, wretched man!

Q. Mar. 4 Be woe for me, more wretched than he is,
What, doft thou turn away and hide thy face?
I am no loathfome leper; look on me.

What, art thou like the adder waxen deaf?
Be pois'nous too, and kill thy forlorn Queen.
Is all thy comfort shut in Glo'fter's tomb ?
Why, then, dame Margaret was ne'er thy joy.
Erect his ftatue, and do worship to it,
And make my image but an ale-houfe fign.
Was I for this nigh wreckt upon the fea,
And twice by adverfe winds from England's bank
Drove back again unto my native clime?
What boaded this? but well-fore-warning winds
Did feem to fay, feek not a fcorpion's neft,

• Be woe for me.] That is, let not woe be to thee for Gloucefter, but for me.

Nor fet no footing on this unkind shore.

What did I then? but curft the gentle gufts,
And he that loos'd them from their brazen caves,
And bid them blow towards England's bleffed fhore,
Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock.

Yet Eolus would not be a murderer;
But left that hateful office unto thee.

The pretty vaulting fea refus'd to drown me,
Knowing, that thou wouldst have me drown'd on shore
With tears as falt as fea, through thy unkindness.
The fplitting rocks cow'r'd in the finking fands,
And would not dash me with their ragged fides;
Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they,
Might in thy Palace perifh Margaret.

As far as I could ken the chalky cliffs,
When from thy fhore the tempeft beat us back,
Iftood upon the hatches in the ftorm;
And when the dusky fky began to rob
My earneft-gaping fight of thy Land's view,
I took a coftly jewel from my neck,

A heart it was, bound in with diamonds,

And threw it tow'rds thy Land; the fea receiv'd it,
And fo, I wish'd, thy body might my heart.
And ev❜n with this I loft fair England's view,
And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart,
And call'd them blind and dufky fpectacles,

5 The Splitting rocks cow'r'd in
the finking fands,
And would not dash me with

their ragged fides.] Sinking fands and Splitting rocks are the two destroyers of fhips, but they are not otherwife allied to one another, and act their mischief by very different powers. I believe here is a tranfpofition, and fhould read,

The finking fands, the splitting rocks cow'r'd in.

Our poet mentions them toge ther, as in Othello,

The gutter'd rocks and congre“ gated fands.

But finding no commodious al-
lufion for the fands, he let that
idea pafs without any correfpon-
dent, and proceeds to the rocks.

The Splitting rocks cow'r'din,
And would not dafh me with
their ragged fides,
Because thy flinty beart

For

For lofing ken of Albion's wifhed Coaft.
How often have I tempted Suffolk's tongue, i
The agent of thy foul inconftancy,

6

To fit and witch me, as Afcanius did,

When he to madding Dido would unfold

His father's acts, commenc'd in burning Troy?

Am I not witcht like her? or thou not falfe like him? Ah me, I can no more: die, Margaret!

For Henry weeps, that thou doft live fo long.

Noife within. Enter Warwick, Salisbury, and many

Commons.

War. It is reported, mighty Sovereign,
That good Duke Humphry traiterously is murder'd
By Suffolk, and the Cardinal Beauford's means..
The Commons, like an angry hive of bees
That want their leader, fcatter up and down;
And care not whom they fting in their revenge.
Myfelf have calm'd their fpleenful mutiny,.
Until they hear the order of his death.

K. Henry. That he is dead, good Warwick, 'tis too true;
But how he died, God knows, * not Henry,
Enter his chamber, view his breathlefs corps,
And comment then upon his fudden death...,

• To fit and watch me, as Afca

nius did, When be to madding Dido would unfold

His Father's Acts, commenc'd in burning Troy The Poet bere is unquestionably alluding to Virgil, Anzid. 1.) but he frangely blends Fact with Fiction. In the firft Place, it was Cupid, in the Semblance of Ajcanius, who fat in Dido's Lap, and was fondled by her. but then it was not Cupid, who related to her the Procefs of Troy's deftruction, but it was Eneas himfelf who related this Hif

*

tory: Again, how did the fuppoled Afcanius fit and watch her? Cupid was ordered, while Dido mistakenly careffed him, to bewitch and infect her with Love. To this Circumftance the Poet certainly alludes; and, unless he had wrote, as I have reftored to the Text;

To fit and witch me,→ Why should the Queen immedi.» ately draw this Inference.

Am I not witch'd like her?

THEOBALD. *Not Henry.] The poet commonly ufes Henry as a word of three fyllables.

War.

War. That I fhall do, my Liege.-Stay, Salisbury, With the rude multitude, till I return.

[Warwick goes in.

K. Henry. O thou, that judgeft all things, ftay my

thoughts,

My thoughts, that labour to perfuade my foul,
Some violent hands were laid on Humphry's life.
If my fufpect be falfe, forgive me, God!
For judgment only doth belong to thee.
Fain would I go to chafe his paly lips
With twenty thousand kiffes, and to drain
Upon his face an ocean of falt tears;
To tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk,
And with my fingers feel his hand unfeeling.
But all in vain are thefe mean obfequies.

4

[Bed with Glo’ster's body put forth. And to furvey his dead and earthly image,

What were it, but to make my forrow greater? War. Come hither, gracious Sovereign, view this body.

K. Henry. That is to fee how deep my grave is made, For, with his foul fled all my worldly folace ;

7 For feeing him, bfee my life in death.

War. As furely as my foul intends to live
With that dread King, that took our state upon him,
To free us from his father's wrathful curse,

I do believe, that violent hands were laid
Upon the life of this thrice-famed Duke."

Suf. A dreadful oath, fworn with a folemn tongue! What inftance gives Lord Warwick for his vow?

War. See, how the blood is fettled in his face. * Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,

Of afhy femblance, meager, pale, and bloodless
Being all defcended to the lab'ring heart,
Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,
Attracts the fame for aidance 'gainst the enemy;
Which with the heart there cools, and ne'er returneth
To blush and beautify the cheek again.

But fee, his face is black and full of blood;
His eye-balls further out, than when he liv'd;
Staring full-ghaftly, like a ftrangled man;
His hair up-rear'd, his noftrils ftretch'd with ftruggling
His hands abroad difplay'd, as one that grafpt
And tugg'd for life, and was by ftrength fubdu'd.
Look on the sheets; his hair, you fee, is fticking;.
His well-proportion'd beard made rough and rugged,
Like to the fummer's corn by tempeft lodg'd.
It cannot be, but he was murder'd here;
The leaft of all thefe figns were probable.

Suf. Why, Warwick, who fhould do the Duke to death?

Myfelf and Beauford had him in protection;

And we, I hope, Sirs, are no murderers.

War. But both of you have vow'd Duke Humphry's death,

And you, forfooth, had the good Duke to keep.

8 Oft have I feen a timely parted ghost, Of afby femblance, meager, pale, and bloodless.] All that is true of the body of a dead man is here faid by Warwick of the foul. I would read,

Oft have I feen a timely-parted coarfe,

But of two common words how or why was one changed for the other? I believe the tranfcriber thought that the epithet, timely

parted could not be used of the body, but that, as in Hamlet there is mention of peace-parted fouls, fo here timely parted must have the fame fubftantive. He removed one imaginary difficulty and made many real. If the foul is parted from the body, the body is likewife parted from the soul.

I cannot but ftop a moment to obferve that this horrible defeription is fcarcely the work of any pen but Shakespeare's..

Julty son's
"subjectivity"

'Tis