They, that stabb'd Cæsar shed no blood at all,
Did not offend, nor were not worthy blame,
If this foul deed were by to equal it:
He was a man: this, in respect, a child;
And men ne'er spend their fury on a child.
What's worse than murderer, that I may name it?
No, no; my heart will burst, an if I speak ;
And I will speak, that so my heart may burst.-
Butchers and villains! bloody cannibals!
How sweet a plant have you untimely cropp'd!
You have no children, butchers! if you had,
The thought of them would have stirr'd up remorse:
But, if you ever chance to have a child,
Look in his youth to have him so cut off,

As, deathsmen, you have rid this sweet young prince!

K. Edw. Away with her! go, bear her hence perforce.

Q. Mar. Nay, never bear me hence, despatch me here;

Here sheath thy sword, I'll pardon thee my death. What! wilt thou not ?-then, Clarence, do it thou. Clar. By heaven I will not do thee so much ease. Q. Mar. Good Clarence, do; sweet Clarence, do thou do it.

Clar. Didst thou not hear me swear I would not do it?

Q. Mar. Ay, but thou usest to forswear thyself: 'Twas sin before, but now 'tis charity.

What! wilt thou not? where is that devil's butcher, Richard,

Hard-favour'd Richard? Richard, where art thou? Thou art not here: murder is thy alms-deed; Petitioners for blood thou ne'er put'st back.

K. Edw. Away, I say! I charge ye, bear her hence.

Q. Mar. So come to you, and yours, as to this prince!

K. Edw. Where's Richard gone?
Clar. To London, all in post; and, as I
To make a bloody supper in the Tower.

[Exil.

guess,

K. Edw. He's sudden, if a thing comes in his head.

Now march we hence: discharge the common sort
With pay and thanks, and let's away to London,
And see our gentle queen how well she fares:
By this, I hope, she hath a son for me. [Exeunt.
SCENE VI.-London.

The Walls of the Tower.

K. Hen. Ay, my good lord: my lord, I should say rather:

'Tis sin to flatter; good was little better: Good Gloster, and good devil, were alike, And both preposterous; therefore, not good lord. Glo. Sirrah, leave us to ourselves: we must confer. [Exit Lieutenant.

K. Hen. So flies the reckless shepherd from the wolf:

So first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece, And next his throat unto the butcher's knife.What scene of death hath Roscius now to act? Glo. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind: The thief doth fear each bush an officer.

K. Hen. The bird, that hath been limed in a bush, With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush; And I, the hapless male to one sweet bird,

Have now the fatal object in my eye, Where my poor young was lim'd, was caught, and kill'd.

Glo. Why, what a peevish fool was that of Crete,
That taught his son the office of a fowl?
And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown'd.
K. Hen. I, Dædalus; my poor boy, Icarus;
Thy father, Minos, that denied our course;
The sun, that sear'd the wings of my sweet boy,
Thy brother Edward; and thyself, the sea,
Whose envious gulf did swallow up his life.
Ah! kill me with thy weapon, not with words.
My breast can better brook thy dagger's point,
Than can my ears that tragic history.

But wherefore dost thou come? is't for my life?
Glo. Think'st thou I am an executioner?
K. Hen. A persecutor, I am sure, thou art:
If murdering innocents be executing,
Why, then thou art an executioner.

Glo. Thy son I kill'd for his presumption.
K. Hen. Hadst thou been kill'd, when first thou
didst presume,

Thou hadst not liv'd to kill a son of mine.
And thus I prophesy,—that many a thousand,
Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear;
And many an old man's sigh, and many a widow's,
And many an orphan's water-standing eye,-
Men for their sons', wives for their husbands',
Orphans for their parents' timeless death,
Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.
The owl shriek'd at thy birth, an evil sign;
The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;
Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempest shook down trees:
The raven rook'd her on the chimney's top,
And chattering pies in dismal discords sung.
Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain,
And yet brought forth less than a mother's hope;
To wit, an indigested and deformed lump,
Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree.
Teeth hadst thou in thy head, when thou wast born,
To signify, thou cam'st to bite the world:
And, if the rest be true which I have heard,
Thou cam'st-

Glo. I'll hear no more;-Die, prophet, in thy
speech:
[Stabs him.

For this, amongst the rest, was I ordain'd.
K. Hen. Ay, and for much more slaughter after

this.

O! God forgive my sins, and pardon thee. [Dies.
Glo. What! will the aspiring blood of Lancaster
Sink in the ground? I thought it would have
mounted.

See, how my sword weeps for the poor king's death!
O, may such purple tears be always shed
From those that wish the downfall of our house!—
If any spark of life be yet remaining,
Down, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither,
[Stabs him again.

I, that have neither pity, love, nor fear.
Indeed, 'tis true, that Henry told me of;
For I have often heard my mother say,
I came into the world with my legs forward.
Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste,
And seek their ruin that usurp'd our right?
The midwife wonder'd; and the women cried,
"O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!"
And so I was; which plainly signified
That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.
Then, since the heavens have shap'd my body so,
Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.
I have no brother, I am like no brother;

ACT I.-SCENE I.

THIRD PART OF KING HENRY VI.-"This play is only divided from the former for the convenience of exhibition; for the series of action is continued without interruption, nor are any two scenes of any play more closely connected than the first scene of this play with the last of the former."-JOHNSON.

"BUT, is your grace dead"-"So the folio. In the 'True Tragedy' we have what, which is the ordinary reading. There is a contemptuous force in But,' which is hardly given by what. The word is similarly employed in TWELFTH NIGHT: But are you not mad indeed, or do you but counterfeit ?'"-KNIGHT.

"The proudest HE that holds up Lancaster,

Dares stir a wing, if Warwick shake his bells." The allusion is to falconry. Hawks had sometimes little bells hung on them, perhaps to dare the birds; that is, to fright them from rising. The allusion is more direct in the old tragedy, which has "the proudest

bird."

"I am thine"-This is the reading of the folio: the "True Tragedy" places "Thon art deceived" before the words "I am thine," and Malone and succeeding editors have inserted them here; but they lessen the force of the passage, and do not amend the metre. In the next line but one, the "True Tragedy" has kingdom for "earldom."

"'Twas my inheritance, as the earldom was." That is, the earldom of March, through which, by inheritance from his mother, he claimed the crown; the dukedom being from his father. He says in the old play, more directly, "as the kingdom is."

"What title hast thou, traitor, to the crown?

Thy father was, as thou art, duke of York," etc. Malone notes here a small historical error, the father of York having been earl of Cambridge, and never duke of York, though he would have inherited the title had he outlived his elder brother.

"PREJUDICIAL to his crown"-i. e. Detrimental to the general rights of hereditary royalty.

they have been conquered, and seek to be revenged. They are not influenced by principle, but passion."JOHNSON.

"NEITHER by treason"-Malone asserts that "neither," either, brother, and many similar words, were used by Shakespeare as monosyllables. Stevens denies this, and observes that the versification of this and the preceding play, has many lines as unmetrical as this.

"-whose looks BEWRAY her anger"-i. e. Discover. Douce says that "bewray" is simply to disclose, while betray is to disclose treacherously. 'Bewray" is thus used in LEAR.

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"Stern Faulconbridge commands the narrow seas," etc. "The person here meant was Thomas Nevil, bastard son to the Lord Faulconbridge:- A man (says Hall) of no less courage than audacity; who, for his cruel conditions, was such an apt person, that a more meter could not be chosen to set all the world in a broil, and to put the estate of the realm on an ill hazard.' He had been appointed by Warwick vice-admiral of the seas, and had in charge so to keep the passage between Dover and Calais, that none which either favoured King Henry or his friends should escape untaken or undrowned: such, at least, were his instructions with respect to the friends and favourers of King Edward, after the rupture between him and Warwick. On Warwick's death, Faulconbridge fell into poverty, and robbed. both by sea and land, as well friends as enemies. He once brought his ships up the Thames; and, with a considerable body of the men of Kent and Essex, made a spirited assault on the city, with a view to plunder and pillage, which was not repelled but after a sharp conflict. He was finally taken at Southampton, and beheaded."-RITSON.

"Will COST my crown"-Warburton and Stevens maintain that the true word is coast-"Will coast the crown"-will hover about the crown. It is unnecessary to turn a plain expression into a metaphor.

"TIRE ON the flesh of me"-To"tire on" is to peck at. It is from the Saxon tiran, and is generally used in the sense of ravenously devouring. No word is more common in our old writers, when they wish to express the manner in which a bird of prey tears and consumes its food.

SCENE II.

"An oath is of no moment, being not took Before a true and lawful magistrate," etc. "The obligation of an oath is here avoided by a very despicable sophistry. A lawful magistrate alone has the power to exact an oath, but the oath derives no part of its force from the magistrate. The plea against the obligation of an oath obliging to maintain a usurper, (taken from the unlawfulness of the oath itself,) in the foregoing play, was rational and just."-JOHNSON.

"The queen, with all the northern earls and lords, Intend here to besiege you in your castle."

"I know not whether the author intended any moral instruction: but he that reads this has a striking admonition against precipitancy, by which we often use unlawful means to do that which a little delay would put honestly in our power. Had York stayed but a few moments, he had saved his cause from the stain of perjury."-JOHNSON.

SCENE III.

"Dii faciant, laudis summa sit ista tuæ!” This scrap of Latin is from Ovid's" Epistles"-Phyllis to Demophoon. It is not found in the "True Tragedy," (1595,) and was therefore introduced by Shakespeare in the revision; and consequently alone overthrows Malone's argument against the authenticity of the first part, founded on the use of Latin quotations.

SCENE IV.

"With purple falchion, painted to the hill

In blood of those that had encounter'd him," etc. These lines, as well as the substance of this characteristic speech, are in the old tragedy. The figure, like many other Shakespearian indications of the same kind, scattered through the old plays, is one that occurs again, slightly varied, in HENRY V.:

With pennons painted in the blood of Harfleur.

"We BODG'D again"-Collier thinks this is "we botch'd again," as Nash, in his "Pierce Penniless," (1592,) has bodgery for botchery. But I agree with Nares, that "bodg'd" is here the same as budge, which word, Coles, in his contemporary Latin Thesaurus, translates, pedem referre, (to retreat.) Stevens thought that it was the same as boggled-i. e. made bad or bungling work of the attempt to rally. But the passage in which Coriolanus speaks of his army, who had fled from their adversaries, seems decisive:

The mouse ne'er shunn'd the cat, as they did budge
From rascals worse than they.

" at the noontide PRICK"-i. e. At the point or "prick" of noon, on the dial.

"RAUGHT at mountains"-i. e. Reached at mountains. "will you PALE your head"-i. e. Impale, encircle.

"O, tiger's heart, wrapp'd in a woman's hide!" "How can it be doubted, (asks Mr. Hallam,) that Greene was the author of the True Tragedy,' when he claims it, if not in express words, yet so as to leave no doubt of his meaning?" To this an excellent critic, in the Edinburgh Review," (July, 1840,) thus replies:"The passage referred to is that in which Greene charges Shakespeare with plagiarism, identifying him by a punning nickname, and by a parody from the line occurring both in the True Tragedy' and in the altered play. We doubt the conclusiveness of the inference. A probability of the writer's intention would indeed be raised by the words, if they occurred in Shakespeare's admitted work, and were not to be found in the old play; but as the fact really stands, in the supposition of Mr. Hallam, the lines are Greene's own. The quotation of them, therefore, thus wanted the point which he wished to give to his epigrammatic attack,and, besides, self-parody was very unlikely to occur to

one like him, whose irritable self-love discovers itself in all that he ever wrote. But we venture to go something further. Greene's reference to the 'True Tragedy' is, as we view it, a proof that it was considered as Shakespeare's own; for here again the epigram would have wanted its sting, if the line parodied had not been one of those of the very writer attacked. We do not say that this is by any means decisive, but it is worth something in a question where all proofs of this sort are so very scanty."

The author of this able and eloquent article has no hesitation in believing, with Tieck, that the three parts of HENRY VI. are Shakespeare's, through every one of their changes. He remarks: "That the three plays, in both their shapes, (for the first part must have been recast, as well as the other two, though probably to a less extent,) emanate from one mind, and are designed to form portions of the same whole, appears to be demonstrable from considerations without number."

"For raging wind blows up incessant showers, And, when the rage allays, the rain begins." These lines, as well as the whole context, are a very slight variation of the parallel lines in the old tragedy of the "Second Part of the Contention." It adds somewhat to the evidence of the Shakespearian character of these dramas, in their first and ruder state, that the leading idea here was one to which Shakespeare often recurs, in his other undisputed writings. Thus, in the RAPE OF LUCRECE:

This windy tempest, till it blow up rain,

Held back his sorrow's tide, to make it more:

At last it rains, and busy winds give o'er,
Then son and father weep with equal strife,
Who should weep most for daughter or for wife.

And again, in KING JOHN:

This shower blown up by tempest of my soul. So in MACBETH:

"Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun," etc.

Both Hall and Hollingshed mention this circumstance:-" At which time the sun (as some write) appeared to the Earl of March like three suns, and suddenly joined altogether in one. Upon which sight he took such courage, that he, fiercely setting on his enemies, put them to flight; and for this cause men imagined that he gave the sun, in his full brightness, for his badge or cognizance."-HOLLINGSHED.

"Enter a Messenger, tired and panting"-" Enter one blowing" is the simple stage-direction of the folio. "Muster'd my soldiers, gather'd flocks of friends," etc. After this line, modern editors have added another, from the "True Tragedy:"

And very well appointed, as I thought,which is not at all necessary to the sense, but weakens the effect of the speech. Collier rightly rejects the line, because, (as he remarks,) " If we were to adopt it, we should have no excuse for not inserting more which we may presume were rejected by Shakespeare, when he made his alterations in, and additions to the True Tragedy.'"

"Why, VIA!-to London will we march," etc. The old play adds, at the end of this line, amain, which is replaced by most modern editors, though evidently expunged by the revising author, as lessening the spirited effect of the line as spoken.

"then it SORTS"-i. e. It turns out as we desire, or it agrees or assorts with our wishes-a use of the word frequent in writers of the time.

SCENE II.

"as APPARENT"-i. e. As the apparent heir; "apparent" being used here substantively, as a title. The word is rightly printed in the old editions, with a capital, which later editions change.

"DARRAIGN your battle"-i. e. Range your host; the word is found in this sense in Spenser, as well as in older authors. It is curious that the older quartos have a word which sounds more modern-prepare. Chaucer thus uses the word:

Full prively two harneis hath he dight,
Both suffisant and mete to darreine

The bataille in the feld betwix hem tweine.

"if a CHANNEL should be call'd the sea"-" Channel," according to Malone, is equivalent to what we now call a kennel.

"To let thy tongue DETECT"-i. e. Display, or discover; taking "detect" in its etymological sense.

"A wisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns,” etc. The annotators give many authorities on this passage, of which the substance is-" A wisp of straw was often applied as a mark of opprobrium to an immodest woman, a scold, or similar offenders; even showing it to a woman was, therefore, considered as a grievous affront."

"—this shameless CALLAT"-"Callat" was a term of contempt in frequent use, and we meet with it in the WINTER'S TALE.

SCENE III.

"FORESLOW no longer"-i. e. Delay no longer. "Foreslow" occurs in Peele's "Battle of Alcazar," and is also used in the same sense by Whetstone, Marlowe, and other earlier writers.

SCENE IV.

"For I myself will hunt this wolf to death." Two similar lines occur in HENRY VI., Part II. (act iv. scene 2:)

Hold, Warwick, seek thee out some other chase;
For I myself must hunt this deer to death.

In the "True Tragedy" no corresponding lines are found; and the stage-direction there is, "Alarums: they fight; then enters Warwick and rescues Richard, and then exeunt omnes."

SCENE V.

"This battle fares like to the morning's war,

When dying clouds contend with growing light," etc. Henry's soliloquy certainly has more of the Poet's manner about the date of MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, than of his earlier style. Yet the character of Henry is just as well marked in the old play as in the enlarged one, as well as the incidents of the unhappy son and father:

Hen. O gracious God of heaven, look down on us,
And set some ends to these incessant griefs.
How like a mastless ship upon the seas
This woeful battle doth continue still,
Now leaning this way, now to that side driven,
And none doth know to whom the day will fall.
Oh, would my death might stay these civil jars!
Would I had never reign'd, nor ne'er been king.
Margaret and Clifford chide me from the field,
Swearing they had best success when I was thence.
Would God that I were dead, so all were well:
Or would my crown suffice, I were content
To yield it them, and live a private life.

"O God! methinks, it were a happy life," etc. "This speech is mournful and soft, exquisitely suited to the character of the king, and makes a pleasing interchange, by affording, amidst the tumult and horror of

the battle, an unexpected glimpse of rural innocence and pastoral tranquillity."-JOHNSON.

There are some verses preserved of Henry VI. which are in a strain of the same pensive, moralizing charac ter. The reader may not be displeased to have them here subjoined, that he may compare them with the congenial thoughts the Poet has attributed to him:Kingdoms are but cares; State is devoid of stay; Riches are ready snares, And hasten to decay.

Pleasure is a privy [game,]
Which vice doth still provoke;
Pomp unprompt; and fame a flame;
Power a smouldering smoke.

Who meaneth to remove the rock
Out of his slimy mud,

Shall mire himself, and hardly scape
The swelling of the flood.

“So minutes, hours, days, months and years,” etc.

This is the reading of the folio; but Rowe added weeks after days, without authority. If any change were necessary, we ought to alter months' into weeks, months not having been before mentioned."-COLLIER. "— with the dead Body"-According to the stagedirection of the folio, the son with the dead body of his father, and the father with the dead body of his son, enter at the same time :-"Enter a Son that hath killed his Father at one door; and a Father that hath killed his Son at another door." However, the latter does not enter until afterwards, and we have then a new stagedirection, in these words:-"Enter Father, bearing of his Son." The modern stage-direction has been, "Enter a Son, etc., dragging in the dead body.”

"And let our hearts, and eyes, like civil war,

Be blind with tears, and break o'ercharg'd with grief." This passage is obscure from compression, and from its conformity to the old poetical usage of the day, applying all the predicates to all the foregoing substantives; as in HAMLET

The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword. Johnson well interprets it:-" The king intends to say that the state of their hearts and eyes shall be, like that of the kingdom, in a civil war; all shall be destroyed by power formed within themselves."

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"What STRATAGEMS"-M. Mason has shown that stratagems" here means disastrous events; not merely the events of war, its surprises and snares.

"O boy! thy father gave thee life too soon,
And hath bereft thee of thy life too late."

Of these obscure lines, the following explanation, by Henley, is the most probable which has been offered :Had the son been younger, he would have been precluded from the levy which brought him to the field; and had the father recognized him before their mortal encounter, it would not have been too late to have saved him from death." Johnson, however, may perhaps have got the intended meaning, in referring "too late" to the father, "by living himself too long." lone maintains that "too late" means too lately, as a quaintness similar to that in the Poet's own RAPE OF LUCRECE:

son.

-I did give that life Which she too early and too late hath spilled.

Ma

"MAN, for the loss of thee"-The folio reads, "Men, for the loss of thee." The father is addressing his dead Rowe (who is followed in the ordinary printed text) substituted sad. "Obsequious," in the preceding line, refers to funeral obsequies. Dyce conjectures, that it should be " E'en for the loss of thee."