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Despatch'd this thing?

1 Mur. Ay, my good lord, he's dead.

Suf. Why, that's well said. Go, get you to my house; I will reward you for this venturous deed.

The king and all the peers are here at hand :-
Have you laid fair the bed? are all things well,
According as I gave directions?

1 Mur. 'Tis, my good lord.

Suf. Away, begone!

*

[Exeunt Murderers.

Enter King HENRY, Queen MARGARET, Cardinal BEAUFORT, SOMERSET, Lords, and others.

K. Hen. Go, call our uncle to our presence straight : Say, we intend to try his grace to-day,

If he be guilty, as 'tis published.

Suf. I'll call him presently, my noble lord.

[Exit.

K. Hen. Lords, take your places ;-And, I pray you all, Proceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Gloster, Than from true evidence, of good esteem,

He be approy'd in practice culpable.

Q. Mar. God forbid any malice should prevail, That faultless may condemn a nobleman!

Pray God, he may acquit him of suspicion!

K. Hen. I thank thee, Margaret; these words content me much.

Re-enter SUFfolk.

How now? why look'st thou pale ? why tremblest thou?
Where is our uncle? what is the matter, Suffolk ?
Suf. Dead in his bed, my lord; Gloster is dead.
Q. Mar. Marry, God forfend!

Car. God's secret judgment :-I did dream to-night, The duke was dumb, and could not speak a word.

[The King swoons, Q. Mar. How fares my lord?-Help, lords! the king is

dead.

Som. Rear up his body; wring him by the nose.3
Q. Mar. Run, go, help, help!-O, Henry, ope thine eyes!
Suf. He doth revive again ;-Madam, be patient.
K. Hen. O heavenly God!

Q. Mar. How fares my gracious lord?

[3] As nothing further is spoken either by Somerset or the Cardinal, or by any one else to show that they continue in the presence, it is to be presumed that they take advantage of the confusion occasioned by the king's swooning, and slip out unperceived. RITSON.

Suf. Comfort, my sovereign! gracious Henry, comfort! K. Hen. What, doth my lord of Suffolk comfort me? Came he right now to sing a raven's note, Whose dismal tune bereft my vital powers; And thinks he, that the chirping of a wren, By crying comfort from a hollow breast, Can chace away the first-conceived sound? Hide not thy poison with such sugar'd words. Lay not thy hands on me; forbear, I say; Their touch affrights me, as a serpent's sting. Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight! Upon thy eye-balls murderous tyranny Sits in grim majesty, to fright the world. Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding :Yet do not go away ;-Come, basilisk, And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight: For in the shade of death I shall find joy;

In life, but double death, now Gloster's dead.

Q. Mar. Why do you rate my lord of Suffolk thus ?
Although the duke was enemy to him,

Yet he, most christian-like, laments his death:
And for myself,-foe as he was to me,
Might liquid tears, or heart-offending groans,
Or blood-consuming sighs recall his life,

I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans,
Look pale as primrose, with blood-drinking sighs,
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;
It may be judg'd, I made the duke away:

So shall my name with slander'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!

Hen. Ah, woe is me for Gloster, wretched man!
Q. Mar. Be woe for me, more wretched than he is.”
What, dost thou turn away, and hide thy face?
I am no loathsome leper, look on me.

What, art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf?
Be poisonous too, and kill thy forlorn

queen. Is all thy comfort shut in Gloster's tomb ? Why, then dame Margaret was ne'er thy joy:

[4] Just now, even now. JOHNSON.

That is, Let not woe be to thee for Gloster, but for me. JOHNSON.

Erect his statue then, and worship it,
And make my image but an alehouse sign.
Was I, for this, nigh wreck'd upon the sea;

And twice by aukward wind from England's bank
Drove back again unto my native clime ?
What boded this, but well-forewarning wind
Did seem to say,-Seek not a scorpion's nest,
Nor set no footing on this unkind shore?
What did I then, but curs'd the gentle gusts,
And he that loos'd them from their brazen caves;
And bid them blow towards England's blessed shore,
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 sea refus'd to drown me ;-
Knowing, that thou would'st have me drown'd on shore,
With tears as salt as sea through thy unkindness:
The splitting rocks cower'd in the sinking sands,
And would not dash me with their ragged sides;
Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they,
Might in thy palace perish Margaret."
As far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs,
When from the shore the tempest beat us back,
I stood upon the hatches in the storm:
And when the dusky sky began to rob
My earnest-gaping sight of thy land's view,
I took a costly jewel from my neck,-

A heart it was, bound in with diamonds,—

And threw it towards thy land ;-the sea receiv'd it;
And so, I wish'd, thy body might my heart:
And even with this, I lost fair England's view,
And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart;
And call'd them blind and dusky spectacles,
For losing ken of Albion's wished coast.
How often have I tempted Suffolk's tongue
(The agent of thy foul inconstancy,)
To sit and witch me, as Ascanius did,
When he to madding Dido would unfold
His father's acts, commenc'd in burning Troy?"

[6] The verb perish is here used actively. STEEVENS.

[7] The poet here is unquestionably alluding to Virgil (Enied I.) but he strangely blends fact with fiction. In the first place, it was Cupid in the semblance of Ascanius, who sat in Dido's lap, and was fondled by her. But then it was not Cupid who related to her the process of Troy's destruction; but it was Æneas him self who related this history. MALONE

Am I not witch'd like her? or thou not false like him?

Ah me, I can no more! Die, Margaret!
For Henry weeps, that thou dost live so long.

Noise within.

Enter WARWICK and SALISBURY,
Commons press to the door.

The

War. It is reported, mighty sovereign,

That good duke Humphrey traitorously is murder'd
By Suffolk and the cardinal Beaufort's means.
The commons, like an angry hive of bees,
That want their leader, scatter up and down,
And care not who they sting in his revenge.
Myself have calm'd their spleenful mutiny,
Until they hear the order of his death.

K. Hen. That he is dead, good Warwick, 'tis too true; But how he died, God knows, not Henry :

Enter his chamber, view his breathless corpse,

And comment then upon his sudden death.

War. That I shall do, my liege :-Stay, Salisbury, With the rude multitude, till I return.

[WARWICK goes into an inner room, and SALISBURY retires.

K. Hen. O thou that judgest all things, stay my thoughts: My thoughts, that labour to persuade my soul, Some violent hands were laid on Humphrey's life! If my suspect be false, forgive me, God; For judgment only doth belong to thee! Fain would I go to chafe his paly lips With twenty thousand kisses, and to drain Upon his face an ocean of salt tears; To tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk, And with my fingers feel his hand unfeeling: But all in vain are these mean obsequies; And, to survey his dead and earthy image, What were it but to make my sorrow greater?

The folding Doors of an inner Chamber are thrown open, and GLOSTER is discovered dead in his Bed: WARWICK and others standing by it.

War. Come hither, gracious sovereign, view this body. K. Hen. That is to see how deep my grave is made: For, with his soul, fled all my worldly solace i

For seeing him, I see my life in death.

War. As surely as my soul 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, sworn with a solemn tongue!
What instance gives lord Warwick for his vow?

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

Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless,
Being all descended to the labouring heart;
Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,
Attracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy;
Which with the heart there cools, and ne'er returneth
To blush and beautify the cheek again.

But, see, his face is black, and full of blood;
His eye-balls further out than when he liv'd,
Staring full ghastly like a strangled man :

His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretch'd with struggling
His hands abroad display'd,' as one that grasp'd
And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdu'd.
Look on the sheets, his hair, you see, is sticking;
His well-proportioned beard made rough and rugged,
Like to the summer's corn by tempest lodg'd.

It cannot be, but he was murder'd here;
The least of all these signs were probable.

Suf. Why, Warwick, who should do the duke to death? Myself, and Beaufort, had him in protection;

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

War. But both of you were vow'd duke Humphrey's foes; And you, forsooth, had the good duke to keep : 'Tis like, you would not feast him like a friend; And 'tis well seen he found an enemy.

Q. Mar. Then you, belike, suspect these noblemen As guilty of duke Humphrey's timeless death.

War. Who finds the heifer dead, and bleeding fresh,

And sees fast by a butcher with an axe,

But will suspect, 'twas he that made the slaughter?

[9] All that is true of the body of a dead man, is here said by Warwick of the Soul. I would read:

Oft have I seen a timely parted corse.

I cannot but stop a moment to observe that this horrible description is scarcely the work of any pen but Shakespeare's. JOHNSON.

Our author is not chargeable here with any impropriety, or confusion. He has only used the phraseology of his time.

MALONE.

[1] That is, the fingers being widely distended. So adown, for down; areary, for weary, &c. MALONE.

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