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Gaunt. When, Harry? when? Obedience bids, I fhould not bid again.

K. Rich. Norfolk, throw down; we bid; there is no boot 4.

Mowb. Myfelf I throw, dread fovereign, at thy foot :

My life thou fhalt command, but not my fhame;
The one, my duty owes; but my fair name,
(Defpight of death, that lives upon my grave)
To dark difhonour's ufe thou shalt not have.
I am difgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffled here";
Pierc'd to the foul with flander's venom'd spear;

The

3 When, Harry?] This obfolete exclamation of impatience, is likewife found in Heywood's Silver Age, 1613:

"Fly into Africk; from the mountains there,

"Chufe, me two venomous ferpents: thou shalt know them

"By their fell poifon and their fierce afpect.

"When, Iris?

Iris. I am gone."

Again, in Look about you, 1600:

66

I'll cut off thy legs,

"If thou delay thy duty. When, proud John?"

STEEVENS.

4 no boot.] That is, no advantage, no use, in delay or refufal. JOHNSON.

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my fair name, &c.] That is, my name that lives on my grave in defpight of death. This eafy paflage moft of the editors feem to have mistaken. JOHNSON.

6 -and baffled bere;] Baffled in this place means treated with the greatest ignominy imaginable. So, Holinfhed, vol. III. p. 827, and 1218, or annis 1513, and 1570, explains it:

Bafulling, fays he, is a great difgrace among the Scots, and it is used when a man is openlie perjured, and then they make of him an image painted, reverfed, with his heels upward, with his name, woondering, crieing, and blowing out of him with horns." Spenfer's Faery Queen, b. v. c. 3. ft. 37; and b. vi. c.7. ít. 27. has the word in the fame fignification. TOLLET.

The fame expreffion occurs again in Twelfth Night, fc. ult, "Alas, poor fool! how have they baffled thee?" Again, in K. Hen. IV. P. I. act I. fc. ii:

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an I do not, call me villain, and baffle me."

The which no balm can cure, but his heart-blood
Which breath'd this poison.

K. Rich. Rage must be withstood:

Give me his gage :-Lions make leopards tame. Mowb. Yea, but not change their pots: take but my fhame,

And I refign my gage. My dear dear lord,
The pureft treasure mortal times afford,
Is-fpotlefs reputation; that away,

Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay.
A jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up cheft
Is-a bold spirit in a loyal breast.

Mine honour is my life; both grow in one;
Take honour from me, and my life is done:
Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;
In that I live, and for that will I die.

K. Rich. Coufin, throw down your gage; do you begin.

Boling. Oh, heaven defend my foul from fuch foul fin!

Shall I feem creft-fallen in my father's fight?
Or with pale beggar face impeach my height
Before this out-dar'd daftard? Ere my tongue
Shall wound mine honour with fuch feeble wrong,
Or found fo bafe a parle, my teeth fhall tear
The flavish motive of recanting fear;

Again, in The London Prodigal, 1605: "chil be abaffelled and down the town, for a messel." i, e. for a beggar, or rather a leper. STEEVENS.

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7 Or with pale beggar face] i. e. with a face of fupplication. But this will not fatisfy the Oxford editor, he turns it to baggard fear, WARBURTON.

-beggar fear is the reading of the first folio and one of the quartos. STEEVENS.

The flavish motive] Motive, for inftrument.

WARBURTON.

Rather that which fear puts in motion. JOHNSON.

And

And fpit it bleeding, in his high difgrace,
Where fhame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face.
[Exit Gaunt.
K. Rich. We were not born to fue, but to command:
Which fince we cannot do to make you friends,
Be ready, as your lives fhall answer it,
At Coventry, upon faint Lambert's day;
There fhall your fwords and lances arbitrate
The fwelling difference of your fettled hate;
Since we cannot atone you, you shall fee
Juftice decide the victor's chivalry.-
Lord marshal, command our officers at arms
Be ready to direct thefe home-alarms,

SCENE II.

The duke of Lancaster's palace.

Enter Gaunt, and dutchess of Glofter.

[Exeunt.

Gaunt. Alas! the part I had in Glofter's blood Doth more folicit me, than your exclaims, To ftir against the butchers of his life. But, fince correction lieth in those hands, Which made the fault that we cannot correct, Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven; Who, when they fee the hours ripe on earth, Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads. Dutch. Finds brotherhood in thee no fharper fpur? Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?

Juftice decide] The old copies concur in reading-Juftice defign. Mr. Pope made the alteration, which may be unneceffary. Defigno, Lat. fignifies to mark out, to point out: "Notat defignatque oculis ad cædem unumquemque noftrum." Cicero in Catilinam. STEEVENS.

-the part I had-] That is, my relation of confanguinity

to Glofter.

2

HANMER.

in Glofter's blood] The three elder quartos read: in Woodstock's blood. STEEVENS.

Edward's

Edward's feven fons, whereof thyself art one,
Were as seven phials of his facred blood,

Or seven fair branches, fpringing from one root:
Some of those seven are dry'd by nature's course,
Some of those branches by the deftinies cut:
But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Glofter,-
One phial full of Edward's facred blood,
One flourishing branch of his moft royal root,-
Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor fpilt;
Is hack'd down, and his fummer leaves all faded,
By envy's hand, and murder's bloody axe.

Ah, Gaunt! his blood was thine; that bed, that womb,
That metal, that felf-mould, that fashion'd thee,
Made him a man; and though thou liv'ft, and breath'ft,
Yet art thou flain in him: thou doft confent
In fome large measure to thy father's death,
In that thou feeft thy wretched brother die,
Who was the model of thy father's life.
Call it not patience, Gaunt, it is despair:
In fuffering thus thy brother to be slaughter'd,
Thou fhew'ft the naked path-way to thy life,
Teaching ftern murder how to butcher thee:
That which in mean men we entitle-patience,
Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.

What fhall I fay? to fafeguard thine own life,
The best way is-to 'venge my Glofter's death.
Gaunt. Heaven's is the quarrel; for heaven's fub-
ftitute,

His deputy anointed in his fight,

3 One phial &c.] Though all the old copies concur in the prefent regulation of the following lines, I would rather read:

One phial full of Edward's facred blood

Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spill'd;
One flourishing branch of his moft royal root

Is hack'd down, and his fummer leaves all faded.

Some of the old copies in this inftance, as in many others, read vaded, a mode of fpelling practifed by feveral of our ancient writers. After all, I believe the tranfpofition to be needless.

STEEVENS.

Hath

Hath caus'd his death: the which if wrongfully,
Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift
An angry arm against his minifter.

Dutch. Where then, alas! may I complain myself +?
Gaunt. To Heaven, the widow's champion and de-
fence.

Dutch. Why then, I will. Farewel, old Gaunt: Thou go'ft to Coventry, there to behold

Our coufin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight:
O, fit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's fpear,
That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breaft!
Or if misfortune mifs the first career,

Be Mowbray's fins fo heavy in his bosom,
That they may break his foaming courfer's back,
And throw the rider headlong in the lifts,

5 A caitiff recreant to my coufin Hereford!
Farewel, old Gaunt; thy fometime brother's wife,
With her companion grief muft end her life.

Gaunt. Sifter, farewel: I muft to Coventry
As much good stay with thee, as go with me!
Dutch. Yet one word more ;-Grief boundeth where
it falls,

Not with the empty hollownefs, but weight
I take my leave before I have begun;

For forrow ends not, when it feemeth done.
Commend me to my brother, Edmund York.

may I complain myself?] To complain is commonly a verb neuter, but it is here ufed as a verb active. Dryden employs the word in the fame fenfe in his Fables:

"Gaufride, who couldít fo well in rhime complain

"The death of Richard with an arrow flain." STEEVENS. 5 A caitiff recreant-] Caitiff originally fignified a prifoner ; next a flave, from the condition of prifoners; then a fcoundrel, from the qualities of a flave.

Ημισυ τῆς ἀρετῆς αποαίνυται δέλιον ἦμαρ,

In this paffage it partakes of all thefe fignifications. JoHNSON.
I do not believe that caitiff in our language ever fignified a pri
foner. I take it to be derived, not from captif, but from chetif,
Fr. poor, miferable. TYRWHITT,

Lo,

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