And let thy Suffolk take his heavy leave.

Q.Mar. Fye, coward woman, and soft-hearted wretch! Hast thou not spirit to curse thine enemies?

Suf. A plague upon them! wherefore should I curse them?

Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan,"
I would invent as bitter-searching terms,
As curst, as harsh, and horrible to hear,
Deliver'd strongly through my fixed teeth,
With full as many signs of deadly hate,
As lean-fac'd Envy in her loathsome cave:
My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words:
Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint ;
My hair be fix'd on end, as one distract;
Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban:
And even now my burden'd heart would break,
Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink!
Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste!
Their sweetest shade, a grove of cypress trees !7
Their chiefest prospect, murdering basilisks!
Their softest touch, as smart as lizard's stings !
Their music, frightful as the serpent's hiss ;
And boding screech-owls make the concert full !
All the foul terrors in dark-seated hell-

Q.Mar. Enough, sweetSuffolk; thou torment'st thyself;
And these dread curses-like the sun 'gainst glass,
Or like an overcharged gun,-recoil,

And turn the force of them upon thyself.

Suf. You bade me ban, and will you bid me leave ?9

[6] The fabulous accounts of the plant called a Mandrake give it an infe rior degree of animal life, and relate, that when it is torn from the ground it groans, and that this groan being certainly fatal to him that is offering such unwelcome violence, the practice of those who gather mandrakes is to tie one end of a string to the plant and the other to a dog, upon whom the fatal groan discharges its malignity. JOHNS.

Bulleine in his Bulwarke of Defence against Sicknesse, &c. fol. 1579, p. 41, speaking of Mandragora, says: "They doe affyrme that this herbe cometh of the seed of some convicted dead men: and also without the death of some lyvinge thinge it cannot be drawn out of the earth to man's use. Therefore they did tye some dogge or other living beast unto the roote thereof wyth a corde, and digged the earth in compass round about, and in the meane time stopped their own eares for feare of the terr eble shriek and cry of this Mandrack. In which cry it doth not only dye itself, but the feare thereof kylieth the dogge or beast which pulleth it out of the earth "REED. [7] Cypress was employed in the funeral rites of the Romans, and hence is always mentioned as an ill-boding plant. STEEV

[8] It has been said of the basilisk that it has the power of destroying by a single glance of the eye. A lizard has no sting, but is quite inoffensive. STEEV.

[9] This inconsistency is very common in real life. Those who are vexed to impatience, are angry to see others less disturbed than themselves, but

Now, by the ground that I am banish'd from,
Well could I curse away a winter's night,
Though standing naked on a mountain top,
Where biting cold would never let grass grow,
And think it but a minute spent in sport.

Q.Mar. O, let me entreat thee, cease! Give me thy

hand,

That I may dew it with my mournful tears;
Nor let the rain of heaven wet this place,
To wash away my woeful monuments.
O, could this kiss be printed in thy hand;

[Kisses his hand. That thou might'st think upon these by the seal, Through whom a thousand sighs are breath'd for thee! So, get thee gone, that I may know my grief; 'Tis but surmis'd whilst thou art standing by, As one that surfeits thinking on a want.

I will repeal thee, or, be well assur'd,
Adventure to be banished myself:

And banished I am, if but from thee.

Go, speak not to me; even now be gone.

O, go not yet!-Even thus two friends condemn'd
Embrace, and kiss, and take ten thousand leaves,
Loather a hundred times to part than die.
Yet now farewell; and farewell life with thee !

Suf. Thus is poor Suffolk ten times banished,
Once by the king, and three times thrice by thee.
'Tis not the land I care for, wert thou hence ;
A wilderness is populous enough,

So Suffolk had thy heavenly company:
For where thou art, there is the world itself,
With every several pleasure in the world;
And where thou art not, desolation.

I can no more :-Live thou to joy thy life;
Myself no joy in nought, but that thou liv'st.

Enter VAUX.

Q.Mar. Whither goes Vaux so fast? what news, I pr'ythee?

Vaux. To signify unto his majesty,

That cardinal Beaufort is at point of death :'

when others begin to rave, they immediately see in them what they could not find in themselves, the deformity and folly of useless rage. JOHNS. [2] That by the impression of my kiss for ever remaining on thy hand thou mightest think on those lips through which a thousand sighs will be breathed for thee. JOHNS.

For suddenly a grievous sickness took him,
That makes him gasp, and stare, and catch the air,
Blaspheming God, and cursing men on earth.
Sometime, he talks as if duke Humphrey's ghost
Were by his side; sometime, he calls the king,
And whispers to his pillow, as to him,
The secrets of his overcharged soul :
And I am sent to tell his majesty,
That even now he cries aloud for him.

Q.Mar. Go, tell this heavy message to the king.

[Exit VAUX.
Ah me what is this world? what news are these?
But wherefore grieve I at an hour's poor loss,
Omitting Suffolk's exile, my soul's treasure?
Why only, Suffolk, mourn I not for thee,

And with the southern clouds contend in tears;
Theirs for the earth's increase, mine for my sorrows?
Now, get thee hence: The king, thou know'st, is coming?
If thou be found by me, thou art but dead.

Suf. If I depart from thee, I cannot live :
And in thy sight to die, what were it else,
But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap ?
Here could I breathe my soul into the air,
As mild and gentle as the cradle-babe,
Dying with mother's dug between its lips:
Where, from thy sight, I should be raging mad,
And cry out for thee to close up mine eyes,
To have thee with thy lips to stop my mouth;
So should'st thou either turn my flying soul,
Or I should breathe it so into thy body,
And then it liv'd in sweet Elysium.
To die by thee, were but to die in jest ;

From thee to die, were torture more than death:

O, let me stay, befall what may befall.

Q.Mar. Away! though parting be a fretful corrosive, It is applied to a deathful wound.

To France, sweet Suffolk: Let me hear from thee;
For wheresoe'er thou art in this world's globe,

[3] She means, I believe, at a loss which any hour spent in contrivance and deliberation will enable her to supply. Or perhaps she may call the sickness of the Cardinal the loss of an hour, as it may put some stop to her schemes. JOHNS.

[4] Perhaps Mr. Pope was indebted to this passage in his Eloisa to Abelard, where he makes that votarist of exquisite sensibility say:

"See my lips tremble, and my eye-balls roll,

Suck my last breath, and catch my flying soul."

STEEV

I'll have an Iris5 that shall find thee out.

Suf. I go.

Q.Mar. And take my heart with thee.
Suf. A jewel, lock'd into the woeful'st cask
That ever did contain a thing of worth.
Even as a splitted bark, so sunder we;
This way fall I to death.

Q.Mar. This way for me.

[Exeunt, severally,

SCENE III.

Enter King

London. Cardinal BEAUFORT'S Bed-chamber.
HENRY, SALISBURY, WARWICK, and others.

in bed; Attendants with him.

The Cardinal

K.Hen. How fares my lord? speak, Beaufort, to thy sovereign.

Car. If thou be'st death, I'll give thee England's treasure,6

Enough to purchase such another island,
So thou wilt let me live, and feel no pain.
K.Hen. Ah, what a sign it is of evil life,
When death's approach is seen so terrible!

War. Beaufort, it is thy sovereign speaks to thee.
Car. Bring me unto my trial when you will.
Died he not in his bed? where should he die?
Can I make men live, whe'r they will or no?—
O! torture me no more, I will confess.-
Alive again? then show me where he is; /
I'll give a thousand pound to look upon him.-
He hath no eyes, the dust hath blinded them.-
Comb down his hair; look! look! it stands upright,
Like lime-twigs set to catch my winged soul
Give me some drink; and bid the apothecary

Iris was the messenger of Juno. JOHNS.

"During these doynges, Henry Beaufford, byshop of Winchester, and called the riche Cardynall, departed out of this world -This man was -haut in stomach and hygh in countenance, ryche above measure of all men, and to fewe liberal; disdaynful to his kynne, and dreadful to his lovers. His covetous insaciable and hope of long lyfe made hym bothe to forget God, his prynce, and hymselfe, in his latter dayes; for Doctor John Baker, his pryvie counsailer and his chapellayn, wrote, that lying on his death-bed, he said these words: Why should I dye, having so muche riches? If the whole realme would save my lyfe, I am able either by pollicie to get it, or by riches to buy it. Fye will not death be hyred, nor will money do no. thynge? When my nephew of Bedford died, I thought myselfe half up the whele, but when I saw myne other nephew of Gloucester disceased, then I thought my selfe able to be equal with kinges, and so thought to increase But I se nowe the my treasure in hope to have worne a trypple croune. world fayleth me, and so I am deceyved; praying you all to pray for me." Hall's Chronicle.

Cardinal Beaufort. Comb down his hair; look! look! it stands upright, like lime-twigs set to catch my winged soul.