SCENE III.

The same. A Room in the Palace. Enter Queen ELIZABETH, Lord RIVERS and Lord GREY..

Riv. Have patience, madam; there's no doubt, his majesty

Will soon recover his accustom'd health.

Grey. In that you brook it ill, it makes him worse: Therefore, for God's sake, entertain good comfort, And cheer his grace with quick and merry words. Q.Eliz. If he were dead, what would betide of me? Grey. No other harm but loss of such a lord. Q.Eliz. The loss of such a lord includes all harms. Grey. The heavens have bless'd you with a goodly son, To be your comforter, when he is gone.

Q. Eliz. Ah, he is young; and his minority

Is put into the trust of Richard Gloster,
A man that loves not me, nor none of you.
Riv. Is it concluded, he shall be protector?
Q.Eliz. It is determin'd, not concluded yet :
But so it must be, if the king miscarry.

Enter BUCKINGHAM and STANLEY.

Grey.Here come the lords of Buckingham andStanley.
Buck. Good time of day unto your royal grace!
Stan. God make your majesty joyful as you have been!
Q.Eliz. The countess Richmond, good my lord of
Stanley,

To your good prayer will scarcely say, Amen.
Yet, Stanley, notwithstanding she's your wife,
And loves not me, be you, good lord, assur'd,
I hate not you for her proud arrogance.

Stan. I do beseech you, either not believe
The envious slanders of her false accusers;
Or, if she be accus'd on true report,

Bear with her weakness, which, I think, proceeds
From wayward sickness, and no grounded malice.
Q.Eliz. Saw you the king to-day, my lord of Stanley?
Stan. But now, the duke of Buckingham, and I,
Are come from visiting his majesty.

Q.Eliz. What likelihood of his amendment, lords?
Buck. Madam,good hope; his grace speaks cheerfully.
Q. Eliz. God grant him health! Did you confer with

him?

Buck. Ay, madam; he desires to make atonement

Between the duke of Gloster and your brothers,
And between them and my lord chamberlain ;
And sent to warn them to his royal presence.

Q. Eliz. 'Would all were well!-But that will never be; -I fear, our happiness is at the height.

Enter GLOSTER, HASTINGS, and DORSET.

Glo. They do me wrong, and I will not endure it :-
Who are they, that complain unto the king,
That I, forsooth, am stern, and love them not?
By holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly,
That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.
Because I cannot flatter, and speak fair,
Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,
Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,
I must be held a rancorous enemy.

Cannot a plain man live, and think no harm,
But thus his simple truth must be abus'd
By silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?

?

Grey.To whom in all this presence speaks your grace? Glo. To thee, that hath nor honesty, nor grace. When have I injur'd thee? when done thee wrong Or thee?-or thee?-or any of your faction? A plague upon you all! His royal graceWhom God preserve better than you would wish!Cannot be quiet scarce a breathing-while,

But you must trouble him with lewd complaints.2
Q.Eliz. Brother of Gloster, you mistake the matter;
The king, of his own royal disposition,

And not provok'd by any suitor else;
Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred,
That in your outward action shows itself,
Against my children, brothers, and myself,

Makes him to send; that thereby he may gather
The ground of your ill-will, and so remove it.

Glo. I cannot tell :-the world is grown so bad, That wrens may prey where eagles dare not perch: Since every Jack became a gentleman, 3

There's many a gentle person made a Jack.

Q.Eliz. Come, come, we know your meaning, brother Gloster;

[2] Lewd, rude, ignorant; from the Anglo-Saxon Laerwede, a Laick. STEEV.

[3] This proverbial expression at once demonstrates the origin of the term Jack so often used by Shakspeare. It means one of the very lowest class of people, among whom this name is of the most common and familiar kind. DOUCE.

You envy my advancement, and my friends;
God grant, we never may have need of you!

Glo. Meantime, God grants that we have need of you; Our brother is imprison'd by your means,

Myself disgrac'd, and the nobility

Held in contempt; while great promotions

Are daily given, to enoble those

That scarce, some two days since, were worth a noble. Q.Eliz. By Him, that rais'd me to this careful height From that contented hap which I enjoy'd,

I never did incense his majesty

Against the duke of Clarence, but have been

An earnest advocate to plead for him.

My lord, you do me shameful injury,

Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects.

Glo. You may deny that you were not the cause

Of my lord Hastings' late imprisonment.

Riu. She may, my lord; for

Glo. She may, lord Rivers?-why, who knows not so

She may do more, sir, than denying that:

She may help you to many fair preferments;

And then deny her aiding hand therein,

And lay those honours on your high desert.

What may she not ?-She may, ay, marry, may she,Riv. What, marry, may she?

Glo. What, marry, may she? marry with a king, A bachelor, a handsome stripling too :

I wis, your grandam had a worser match.

Q.Eliz. My lord of Gloster, I have loo long borne
Your blunt upbraidings, and your bitter scoffs:
By heaven, I will acquaint his majesty,
Of those gross taunts I often have endur'd.
I had rather be a country servant-maid,
Than a great queen, with this condition-
To be so baited, scorn'd, and stormed at:
Small joy have I in being England's queen.
Enter Queen MARGARET behind.

Q.Mar.And lessen'd be that small, God, I beseech thee! Thy honour, state, and seat, is due to me.

Glo. What threat you me with telling of the king? Tell him, and spare not; look, what I have said

I will avouch, in presence of the king:

I dare adventure to be sent to the Tower,

'Tis time to speak, my pains are quite forgot.4 [4] My labours; my toils. JOHNS.

Q.Mar. Out, devil! I remember them too well:5 Thou kill'dst my husband Henry in the Tower,

And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.

Glo. Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband king, I was a pack-horse in his great affairs; A weeder-out of his proud adversaries, A liberal rewarder of his friends;

To royalize his blood, I spilt mine own.

Q.Mar. Ay, and much better blood than his, or thine.
Glo. In all which time, you, and your husband Grey,
Were factious for the house of Lancaster ;-
And, Rivers, so were you :-Was not your husband
In Margaret's battle at Saint Alban's slain?
Let me put in your minds, if you forget,

What you have been ere now, and what you are ;
Withal, what I have been, and what I am.

Q.Mar. A murd'rous villain, and so still thou art. Glo. Poor Clarence did forsake his father Warwick, Ay, and forswore himself,-which Jesu pardon ! Q.Mar. Which God revenge!

Glo. To fight on Edward's party for the crown ;
And, for his meed, poor lord, he is mew'd up :
I would to God, my heart were flint, like Edward's,
Or Edward's soft and pitiful, like mine;

I am too childish-foolish for this world.

Q.Mar.Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave this world, Thou cacodæmon! there thy kingdom is.

Riv. My lord of Gloster, in those busy days,
Which here you urge, to prove us enemies,
We follow'd then our lord, our lawful king;
So should we you, if you should be our king.
Glo. If I should be?-I had rather be a pedlar :
Far be it from my heart the thought thereof!
Q.Eliz. As little joy, my lord, as you suppose
You should enjoy, were you this country's king ;
As little joy you may suppose in me,
That I enjoy, being the queen thereof.
Q.Mar. A little joy enjoys the queen thereof;
For I am she, and altogether joyless.

I can no longer hold me patient.

[Advancing

Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out
In sharing that which you have pill'd from me :

[5] This scene of Margaret's imprecations is fine and artful. She prepares the audience, like another Cassandra, for the following tragic revolu tions. WARB.

Which of you trembles not, that looks on me ?6
If not, that I, being queen, you bow like subjects ;
Yet that, by you depos'd, you quake like rebels?-
Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away!

Glo.Foul wrinkled witch, what mak'st thou in my sight? Q.Mar. But repetition of what thou hast marr'd; That will I make, beforel et thee go.

Glo. Wert thou not banished on pain of death? Q.Mar. I was; but I do find more pain in banishment, Than death can yield me here by my abode.

A husband, and a son, thou ow'st to me,

And thou, a kingdom;-all of you, allegiance :
This sorrow that I have, by right is your's;
And all the pleasures you usurp, are mine.

Glo. The curse my noble father laid on thee,-
When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper,
And with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes;
And then, to dry them, gav'st the duke a clout,
Steep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland ;-
His curses, then from bitterness of soul
Denounc'd against thee, are all fallen upon thee;
And God, not we, hath plagu'd thy bloody deed.7
Q. Eliz. So just is God, to right the innocent.
Hast. O, 'twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,
And the most merciless, that e'er was heard of.

Riv. Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported. Dors. No man but prophesy'd revenge for it.

Buck. Northumberland, then present, wept to see it. Q.Mar. What! were you snarling all, before I came, Ready to catch each other by the throat,

And turn you all your hatred now on me?

Did York's dread curse prevail so much with heaven,
That Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death,
Their kingdom's loss, my woeful banishment,
Could all but answer for that peevish brat?

Can curses pierce the clouds, and enter heaven ?—
Why, then give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses!-
Though not by war, by surfeit die your king,
As ours by murder, to make him a king!
Edward, thy son, that now is prince of Wales,

[6] The merits of this scene are insufficient to excuse its improbability. Margaret, bullying the court of England in the royal palace, is a circumstance as absurd as the courtship of Gloster in a public street. STEEV. [7] To plague, in ancient language, is to punish. Hence the scriptural term-"the plagues of Egypt.'

STEEV.

[8] Alluding to his luxurious life. JOHNS.

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VOL. V.