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man of an invincible spirit: But it shall be convenient, master Hume, that you be by her aloft, * while we be busy below; and so, I pray you, go in God's name, and leave us. [Exit HUME.] • Mother Jourdain, be you prostrate, and grovel on the earth; John Southwell, read you; and let * us to our work.

* all.

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Enter Duchess, above.

*Duch. Well said, my masters; and welcome To this geer; the sooner the better. * Boling. Patience, good lady; wizards know

their times:

Deep night, dark night, the silent3 of the night, • The time of night when Troy was set on fire; • The time when screechowls cry, and ban-dogs howl,

2 Matter or business.

3 The old quarto reads the silence of the night.' The variation of the copies is worth notice :

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Dark night, dread night, the silence of the night,

Wherein the furies mask in hellish troops,

Send up, I charge you, from Cocytus' lake
The spirit of Ascalon to come to me,
To pierce the bowels of this centrick earth,
And hither come in twinkling of an eye!
Ascalon, ascend, ascend!-

Warburton, in a learned but erroneous note, wished to prove that an interlunar night was meant. Steevens has justly observed that silent is here used by the poet as a substantive. So, in The Tempest, the vast of night is used for the greatest part of it.. The silence of the night,' muta silentia noctis,' is a common expression of our elder poetry. Thus in The Faithful Sheperdess of Fletcher:

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Through still silence of the night

Guided by the glowworm's light.'

And in the ancient Interlude of Nature, blk 1.:—

.

'Who taught the nightingall to record besyly

Her strange entunes in silence of the night.'

Ban-dog, or band-dog, any great fierce dog which required to be tied or chained up. Canis molossus, a mastive, beare-dog, or bull-dog.' It is sometimes called in the dictionaries canis catenarius.

And spirits walk, and ghosts break up their graves, That time best fits the work we have in hand. 'Madam, sit you, and fear not; whom we raise, • We will make fast within a hallow'd verge. [Here they perform the Ceremonies appertaining, and make the Circle; BOLINGBROKE, or SOUTHWELL, reads, Conjuro te, &c. thunders and lightens terribly; then the Spirit riseth.

*

* Spir. Adsum.

*M. Jourd. Asmath,

By the eternal God, whose name and power * Thou tremblest at, answer that I shall ask;

*

It

*For, till thou speak, thou shalt not pass from hence. Spir. Ask what thou wilt:-That I had said and done 5!

become?

Boling. First, of the king. What shall of him [Reading out of a Paper. Spir. The duke yet lives, that Henry shall depose; But him outlive, and die a violent death.

[As the Spirit speaks SOUTHWELL writes the

answer.

Boling. What fate awaits the duke of Suffolk? Spir. By water shall he die, and take his end. Boling. What shall befall the duke of Somerset?

5 It was anciently believed that spirits, who were raised by incantations, remained above ground, and answered questions with reluctance. See both Lucan and Statius. The Apparition in Macbeth says:

'Dismiss me-Enough!'

In the quarto of 1600 it is concerted that Bolingbroke should frame a circle, &c. and that she should fall prostrate' to whisper with the devils below.' [Southwell is not in that piece.] Accordingly, as soon as the incantations begin, Bolingbroke reads the questions out of a paper, as here. Shakspeare, in a preceding part of this scene, has expressly said that Southwell was to read them. He has here inadvertently followed his original, forgetting that, consistently with what he had already written, he should have deviated from it.

Spir. Let him shun castles;

Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains

Than where castles mounted stand.

'Have done, for more I hardly can endure.

Boling. Descend to darkness, and the burning lake:
False fiend, avoid!

[Thunder and Lightning. Spirit descends.

Enter YORK and BUCKINGHAM, hastily, with their Guards, and Others.

"York. Lay hands upon these traitors, and their trash.

"Beldame, I think, we watch'd you at an inch.What, madam, are you there? the king and commonweal

• Are deeply indebted for this piece of pains; My lord protector will, I doubt it not,

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'See you well guerdon'd for these good deserts. *Duch. Not half so bad as thine to England's king, Injurious duke; that threat'st where is no cause. * Buck. True, madam, none at none. What call you this? [Showing her the papers. Away with them; let them be clapp'd up close, And kept asunder:-You, madam, shall with us :Stafford, take her to thee.

[Exit Duchess from above.

'We'll see your trinkets here all forth-coming; All.-Away!

[Exeunt Guards, with SOUTH. BOLING. &c.

* York. Lord Buckingham, methinks, you watch'd her well:

* A pretty plot, well chosen to build upon! Now, pray, my lord, let's see the devil's writ. What have we here?

The duke yet lives, that Henry shall depose;

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[Reads.

But him outlive, and die a violent death. *Why, this is just,

*Aio te, Eacida, Romanos vincere posse.
Well, to the rest :

Tell me, what fate awaits the duke of Suffolk?
By water shall he die, and take his end.-
What shall betide the duke of Somerset?
Let him shun castles;

Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains,
Than where castles mounted stand.
* Come, come, my

lords;

*These oracles are hardily attain'd,

* And hardly understood.

The king is now in progress toward Saint Albans, With him the husband of this lovely lady:

Thither go these news, as fast as horse can carry

them;

A sorry breakfast for my

lord protector.

Buck. Your grace shall give me leave,

of York,

To be the post, in hope of his reward.

my lord

York. At your pleasure, my good lord.-Who's 'within there, ho!

Enter a Servant.

• Invite my lords of Salisbury, and Warwick, sup with me to-morrow night.-Away!

• To

[Exeunt.

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ACT II.

SCENE I. Saint Albans.

Enter KING HENRY, QUEEN MARGARET, GLOSTER, Cardinal, and SUFFOLK, with Falconers hollaing.

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Q. Mar. Believe me, lords, for flying at the brook1,

I saw not better sport these seven years' day:

Yet, by your leave, the wind was very high; And, ten to one, old Joan had not gone out2.

K. Hen. But what a point, my lord, your falcon made,

And what a pitch she flew above the rest!— To see how God in all his creatures works! * Yea, man and birds, are fain3 of climbing high.

1 The falconer's term for hawking at water-fowl.

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2 Johnson was informed that the meaning here is, the wind being high, it was ten to one that the old hawk had flown quite away; a trick which hawks often play their masters in windy weather.' But surely not going out cannot signify not coming home. Dr. Percy's interpretation is entirely opposed to this: he explains it-The wind was so high it was ten to one that old Joan would not have taken her flight at the game.' Steevens says 'The ancient books of hawking do not enable him to decide on the merits of such discordant explanations.' I think if he had looked into Latham's Falconry he would have found that Dr. Percy's is the right explanation. When you shall come afterward to fly her, she must be altogether guided and governed by her stomacke; yea she will be kept and also lost by the same: for let her faile of that never so little, and every puff of wind will blow her away from you; nay, if there be no wind stirring, yet she will wheele and sinke away from him and from his voice, that all the time before had lured and trained her up.' Booke i. p. 60, Ed. 1633. 3 i. e. fond or glad. Thus Spenser:

And in her hand she held a mirror bright,
Wherein her face she often viewed fain.'

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