which, after mentioning Green's return to Richard at Warwick from Brakenbury with the refusal of the latter to murder the princes, goes on to say: "that the same night he said vnto a secrete page of his: Ah, whome shall a man trust: those that I haue broughte vp my selfe, those that I had went would most surely serue me, euen those fayle me, and at my commaundemente wyll do nothyng for me. Sir quod his page, there lyeth one on your paylet with out that I dare well say, to do your grace pleasure the thyng were right harde that he wold refuse, meaning this by sir James Tyrel, which was a man of ryght goodly parsonage, and for natures gyftes woorthy to haue serued a muche better prince, if he had well serued God, and by grace obtayned to haue as muche trouthe and good wil, as he had strength and witte. The man had an high harte and sore longed vpwarde, not rising yet so fast as he had hoped, being hindered and kept vnder by the meanes of sir Richarde Ratclife and sir William Catesby, which longing for no moo parteners of the Princes fauour, and namely not for him, whose pride thei wist woulde beare no pere, kept him by secrete driftes out of al secrete trust: whiche thyng this page wel had marked and knowen: wherefore this occasion offered, of very speciall frendship he toke his tyme to put him forward, and by such wyse do him good, that al the enemies he had (except the deuil) could neuer haue done him so muche hurte. For vpon this pages wordes, king Richard arose (for this communicacion had he sitting at the draught, a conuenient carpet for suche a counsail) and came out into the pailet chamber, on which he found in bed sir James and sir Thomas Tyrels, of person like and brethren of blood, but nothing of kin in condicions."

31. TRESSELL AND BERKELEY, two gentlemen attending on Lady Anne. The former of these was probably, as French suggests (p. 251), one of the Trussel family, an old Staffordshire and Northamptonshire family. One, Sir William Trussel, was sheriff of the county of Warwick in the sixteenth year of Edward IV. He, or his brother Edmund Trussel, may be the person intended in this play. The latter was probably one of the sons of James, sixth Lord Berkeley, who were all Lancastrians.

32. ELIZABETH, QUEEN TO KING EDWARD IV.-See III. Henry VI. note 31. Miss Strickland says of her, "there never was a woman who contrived to make more personal enemies." So opposed was the Duchess of York, mother of Edward IV., to the marriage of her son, that, driven to desperation, she brought forward the plea of a precontract with the Lady Elizabeth Lucy (see below, note 408). A long account will be found in Hall and Holinshed's Chronicles, mostly taken from Sir Thomas More, of the arguments by which this unhappy lady was induced to give up the custody first of her sons and then of her daughter to their villainous uncle. It is difficult to understand how Queen Elizabeth could have been induced to give up the charge of her eldest daughter and allow her to appear at the court of her brother's murderer. But great allowance must be made for her on the ground of the marvellous talent for hypocrisy and singular powers of persuasion which Richard possessed, and also for the

pressure which was put upon her. After the infamous act of parliament passed by Richard, which bastardized his brother's children, the queen was known as "Dame Elizabeth Grey late calling herself Queen of England." She retired to the monastery at Bermondsey, which seems to have been a favourite refuge for royal personages, and died there June 8th, 1492. She was buried in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, where, as French says (p. 244), “on a flat stone, at the foot of her royal husband's tomb, is inscribed:

King Edward and his Queen Elizabeth_Midbile.”

33. MARGARET OF ANJOU. See I. Henry VI. note 27. She died, according to French, August 25th, 1481, "in the château of Dampierre, near Saumur, belonging to an old officer of King René's household, François Vignolles, lord of Moreans" (p. 245).

34. DUCHESS OF YORK. This was Cicely Neville, eighteenth daughter of Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmoreland. (See II. Henry VI. note 4.) She was known as "The Rose of Raby." French says (pp. 245, 246): "She had a throneroom in her baronial residence, Fotheringay Castle. where she held receptions with the state of a queen, a title which she had at one time a reasonable hope to enjoy, as the consort of her princely husband, who had been declared heir to Henry VI. This great lady survived all her sons, and also outlived all her daughters excepting Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy; and though she had not, at the time of her son Richard's usurpation, in 1483, arrived at the age she ascribes to herself in the play,

Eighty odd years of sorrow have I seen,

the Duchess of York must have reached an advanced period when, twelve years later, she died at Berkhamp stead in 1495; her will, made on the first of April in that year, was proved August 27, following. She was buried at Fotheringay beside her husband and their son Edmund.” There is not the slightest ground for the infamous charge which Richard brought against his mother's reputation, when he declared that he only of all the sons of the Duke of York was legitimate. Richard directs Buckingham to touch the scandal lightly:

Yet touch this sparingly, as 't were far off;
Because, my lord, you know my mother lives.

-iii. 5. 93, 94

35. LADY ANNE is the name given by Shakespeare to the unhappy widow of Edward Prince of Wales (see III. Henry VI. note 2), who afterwards became the wife of Richard. Anne Neville was the youngest daughter and. co-heir of the King Maker, and was born at Warwick Castle, June 11th, 1452. French says (p. 246): "She was in her seventeenth year when she visited the court of Louis XI. in company with her father, mother, and Clar ence, then married to her sister Isabel; and whilst at the court which was held at Angers, the treaty of marriage was contracted between herself and the Prince of Wales, to whom she was united at Amboise, in July or August, 1470." Richard is said to have been, early in his life, attached to Lady Anne. It was said that she died of consumption, which was aggravated by grief at the loss of her son, and there seems to be no reason for attributing to

Richard III. the additional crime of having hastened her death. There is no doubt that he was ready to console himself as soon as possible for that sad event, which took place March 16th, 1485.

36. YOUNG DAUGHTER OF CLARENCE. This was Margaret, born August 14th, 1473. Eventually she became sole heir of her grandfather, Richard Neville, the King Maker. In 1513 she was created Countess of Salisbury. She married Sir Richard Pole, chamberlain to Prince Arthur, sou of Henry VII, by whom she had four sons and one daughter. The youngest of these sons, Reginald, was the famous Cardinal Pole, Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Queen Mary. One daughter, Ursula, married Henry Lord Stafford, son of the Duke of Buckingham in Henry VIII Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, came to an untimely end. She was one of the many victims of the partiality of Henry VIII for executions, and was beheaded on Tower Hill, May 27th, 1541, when she was nearly sixtyeight years old.

ACT I. SCENE 1.

But

37. The events of the first act belong historically to very various periods. In the first scene we see Clarence being led to imprisonment. This happened late in 1477. The physicians, we hear, are much perturbed about Edward's health; a matter appertaining to the year 1483. from Gloster's opening speech we must understand that these events happened not long after the death of Henry and Prince Edward, and the other events represented in III Henry VI. act v. Following this indication we find, in the second scene, that Henry's body has not yet been removed from St. Paul's to its last resting-place at Chertsey: hardly three months, Gloster says, have passed since the battle at Tewkesbury; many men of low birth have lately been ennobled (sc. 3, lines 81-83): some, we may suppose, being men advanced for service against Warwick and the Lancastrians. These marks of time will account also for Queen Margaret's appearance in scene 3. The sentence of banishment against her is to be taken as of very recent date, and rather than obey it, as she herself says (lines 169, 170), she has preferred to brave death and remain in England. That she should make her way into the palace and interfere in a discussion as she does is indeed very unlikely; but there is a much greater improbability, apart from the historical impropriety, if we are to suppose, as has commonly been done, that Margaret has returned into England from banishment, for no purpose whatever that can be conceived, and has by some marvellous means been able to get to London, and find her way into the palace, without hindrance.

S8 Lines 1, 2:

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this SUN of York. The allusion to Edward's badge, the rose en soleil, or the half-faced sun, has occurred before. See II. Henry VI. note 236, and III. Henry VI. note 114. These two lines are quoted by Philomusus, when asked by Burbage to act a little of Richard III. in The Return from Parnassus, iv. 3. (Reprint, p. 141).

39 Line 5: Now are our brows bound with victorious

WREATHS.- Compare iii. 2. 40; iv. 4. 333 infra; and III. Henry VI. ii. 3. 52, 53, and v. 3. 2. The laurel crown or wreath of victory seems to have been a favourite image, borrowed no doubt from the classic poets, or their imitators. At Rome the corona triumphalis, made of laurel, was worn by a victorious general in his triumph: cf. Coriolanus, i. 9. 58-60; Julius Cæsar, v. 3. 82; Lucrece, 108, 109.

40. Lines 7-13:

Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures,
Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now-instead of mounting barbed steeds,
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries-
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
Reed compares Lyly, Campaspe, ii. 2:

Is the warlike sound of drum and trump turned to the soft noise of lyre and lute? the neighing of barbed steeds, whose lowdnes filled the air with terrour, and whose breathes dimmed the sun with smoake, converted to delicate tunes and amorous glarces?

-Works, vol. i. p. 110. Steevens noticed that in the edition of The Mirror for Magistrates of 1610, when that work was "newly enlarged with a last part called a Winter Night's Vision," the present passage, with others in this play, was imitated in The Trajicall Life and Death of Richard III., a legend substituted by Niccols for Segar's Tragedy of King Richard which appeared in the previous editions. Niccols's part is thought to have been written as early as 1603. For another reference to these lines, in a poem attributed to Marlowe, see Introduction, p. 477.

41. Line 17: a wanton AMBLING nymph.-Compare the description of Richard II. in I. Henry IV. iii. 2. 60; The skipping king, he ambled up and down. Romeo and Juliet, i. 4. 11: "I am not for this ambling.". Baret says (Alvearie, sub voce): "An ambling horseaidgomos. qui molli gradu & sine succussura gestat The word means "going smoothly." (Sine succussura = without jolting.)

42. Line 19; Cheated of feature by DISSEMBLING nature. -Dissembling means here almost the same as "false." Nature, Richard complains, was treacherous and unfair to him. Warburton said (Var. Ed. vol. xix. pp. 9, 10): "By dissembling is not meant hypocritical nature, that pretends one thing and does another; but nature that puts together things of a dissimilar kind, as a brave soul and that "nature had made for Richard features unlike those a deformed body." Douce, p. 332, thinks the meaning is of other men. To dissemble," he says, "signifies the reverse of to resemble, in its active sense." Singer interprets the word by "disfiguring," "distorting." But there is no satisfactory evidence that resemble ever had this transitive meaning of "make like," which Douce assumes. Malone instanced the following passage from The Troublesome Raigne of King John:

Can Nature so dissemble in her frame,
To make the one so like as like may be,

And in the other print no character

To challenge any marke of true descent?

-Hazlitt, Shakespeare's Library, pt. 2, vol. i. p. 235

I believe the meaning here to be merely "act deceitfully" or "misleadingly." "Cloke," "faine," are the meanings which Baret gives: (Alvearie, sub voce). Sometimes we find the word signifying "give or exhibit a false appearance," as in the following passage, where Singer thinks the sense to be "distort:"

What wicked and dissembling glass of mine
Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?

-A Midsummer Night's Dream, ii. 2. 98, 99.

43. Line 22: 80 lamely and UNFASHIONABLE.-The collocation of adverb with adjective is not uncommon. Compare iii. 4. 50, infra, and Richard II. note 59.

44. Line 24: this weak PIPING time of peace. -The war is done, says Richard, and there is no place for me in this peaceful time of weakness and piping; i.e. among feeble, shrill-voiced women or old men. Otherwise, there may be a contrast intended between the pipe and tabor, which were signs of peace, and the drum and fife, which symbolized war. Compare Much Ado, ii. 3. 13-15.

45. Line 26: Unless to SPY my shadow in the sun.This is the reading of Qq. Ff. have see, which seems a corruption.

46. Line 32: Plots have I laid, INDUCTIONS dangerous. -Marston has "conveyed" this line in the Fawne, ii. 1: Plots ha you laid? Inductions, daungerous?

-Works, ii. 32. Shakespeare's authority for the statement in this and the following lines is Hall, who got it from Polydore Virgil. See note 4, where the passage is quoted. An allusion to this has already occurred in III. Henry VI. v. 6. 86. The story is given in The Mirror for Magistrates (vol. ii. 232), in the Legend of Clarence, stanzas 24 to 50. Baldwin, who wrote that legend, doubtless, took the story from Hall. Induction, which seems to mean here "the ground" or "framework" of a plot, is used again in this play (iv. 4. 5) in much the same sense, where Margaret says:

A dire induction am I witness to.

47. Lines 49, 50:

O, belike his majesty hath some intent

That you shall be new-christen'd in the Tower. Pope omitted 0,-which is extra metrum, --in line 49. But this makes the transition of thought from line 48 somewhat too abrupt. In line 50 shall is the reading of Qq. Ff. have should, which, however, has occurred in line 48.

48. Lines 52-54:

Yea, Richard, when I know; FOR 1 protest As yet I do not: but, as I can learn, He hearkens after prophecies and dreams. Ff. read but instead of for in line 52, wrongly. Perhaps it was introduced from the next line by mistake.

49. Line 55: cross-row.-This name for the alphabet is an abbreviation of Christ cross row, which in the form criss cross row is yet preserved in nursery rhymes. One of the first lessons taught to a child at school was the prayer "Christ cross me speed in all my work!" which is found in a school lesson contained in Bodl. MS. Rawlinson 1032 (referred to by Halliwell). The sentence is coupled

with the alphabet, which no doubt would be the next thing learnt, in the following title of a poem: "Cryste Crosse me spede. A. B. C.," which was printed by Wynkyn de Worde. The prayer and the alphabet seem to have been said together. I have been told that in dame-schools in the North of England it used, not long ago, to be a custom for children to say their letters thus: "Christës cross be my speed! A, B, C," &c. Either because of this connection, or, possibly, because the alphabet (as some say) was preceded in old primers by a cross, the name cross row or Christ's cross row came to denote the alphabet. Skelton, Against Venemous Tongues, says: For before on your brest, and behind on your back In Romaine letters I never founde lack; In your crosse row nor Christ crosse you spede.

-Works, ed. Dyce, i. 133

Cotgrave has: "La croix de par Dieu. The Christscrosse-row; or, the hornebooke wherein a child learnes it. And "Abecé. An Abece, the Crosse-row, an alphabet, or orderly list, of all the letters." Compare Heywood's epigram Of the letter H:

H, is worst among letters in the crosse row.

50. Line 65: That tempers him to this extremity.-This, the reading of Q. 1, has been generally accepted as right. The other Quartos, by the common misprint of t for 7, have tempts or temps for tempers, and this appears to have been the source of the line as it is found in Ff.: That tempts him to this harsh Extremity.

51. Line 67: Antony Woodvile.-Qq. here read Anthony Wooduile; F. 1 has Woodeulle, which may have been meant to indicate that the word should be made a trisyllable in pronunciation, as Capell suggested. This is the only passage where the word occurs in the play, excepting in Ff., in the dubious line ii. i. 68. (See note 224)

52. Line 68: That made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower.—I have been unable to find any authority for this statement, which seems based on some misconception; perhaps, as suggested in the Clar. Press edn., of the passage of More quoted infra, note 344.

53. Line 71: By heaven, I think there's no man is secure. -Q. 1, Q. 2, Q. 3 read:

By heauen I thinke there is no man is securde. The others omit is after man. Ff. read:

By heauen, I thinke there is no man secure. This looks rather like an attempted emendation of the line in Qq., which we have retained, following Capell, for the text, with his slight alterations of there's for there is. and secure for securde.

54. Line 75: Lord Hastings was to her for his delivery -Thus Q4.

F. 1 has

Lord Hastings was, for her deliuery. The other Folios have his instead of her.

55. Line 81: The jealous o'erworn widow. --O'erworn = worn out; compare Venus and Adonis, 135, Sonnet 63. 1. 2. Elizabeth Woodvile was born in 1437, so that even if we take 1477 as the date of the present act, her age would be no more than forty. But Richard is sneering at the fact that she had been married before she became Ed

ward's wife. Compare iii. 7. 185, 186 infra, and the note

thereon.

56 Line 83: Are mighty gossips in THIS monarchy.—Ff. read our. The text is from Qq.

57. Line 84: BESEECH your graces both to pardon me.This is Dyce's correction. Qq. and Ff. have I beseech.

58. Line 87: with HIS brother.-We have retained the reading of Qq. Ff. give your.

59. Line 92: Well struck in years, fair, and not jealous. -Years and fair are each pronounced as dissyllables. The expression "well struck in years" appears to have been strange to Steevens. It occurs, however, in Taming of the Shrew, ii. 1. 362; and "stricken in years" is a common enough expression; Cotgrave, sub voce Aage (quoted in Clar. Pr. ed.) has "avoir de l'aage. . . to be well in yeares, or well stricken in yeares." We find it also in the Authorized Version of the Bible; compare, for instance, 1 Kings i. 1.

60. Line 94: A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleas ing tongue.—It is most likely that the author did not intend to keep in both phrases, a cherry lip, a bonny eye. Though we have not altered the text, it would be perhaps better, with Pope, to omit the latter phrase.

61. Line 95: And that the queen's KIN are made gentlefolks.-Qq. Ff. have kindred, which makes a very awkward line.

Rowe amended it by omitting and, and Steevens by omitting that. But the simple emendation we have adopted seems preferable. It is very probable that kindred may have been written by an oversight. Compare below, iii. 7. 212:

Which we have noted in you to your kindred; where Qq. read kin and Ff. kindred. For the use of kin, in this sense, in Shakespeare, compare King John, i. 1. 273: "I will show thee to my kin;" and Richard II. iv. 1. 141: Shall kin with in and kind with kind confound.

62. Line 97: nought to do.-See Midsummer Night's Dream, note 243.

63. Line 103: BESEECH your grace.-This is Dyce's correction. Qq. read I beseech (as they do also in line 84 above); Ff. have I do beseech.

64 Line 105: We know thy charge, BRAKENBURY, and will obey.-This line gives colour to the suggestion that originally a keeper had assigned to him some, if not all, of Brakenbury's speeches. Keeper, if substituted here for Brakenbury, would make the line rhythmical. At present it is incurably inharmonious.

65. Line 124: Well are you welcome to THE open air.This is the reading of Q. 1, Q. 2. Ff. have this, following the other Quartos.

66 Lines 132, 133:

More pity that the EAGLE should be mew'd,
WHILE kites and buzzards PREY at liberty.

These lines are given from Qq. Ff. read eagles, whiles, and play.

67. Lines 130-140.-Hall, sub anno 1483, says, "whether it was with the melencoly, and anger that he toke with VOL. III.

the Frenche king, for his vntruthe and vnkyndnes, or were it by any superfluous surfet (to the which he was muche geuen) he sodainly fell sicke, and was with a greuous maledy taken" (pp. 338, 339). More says that Richard "forethought to be king in case that the king his brother (whose life hee looked that euil dyete shoulde shorten) should happe to decease. . while his children wer yonge" (p. 10).

68. Line 138: Now, by Saint Paul.-Ff. have S. John, but, in common with most editors, we have adopted the reading of Qq. Gloster's favourite oath appears to have been by Saint Paul.

69. Line 153: Warwick's youngest daughter.-Anne is here rightly described: but in III. Henry VI. iii. 3. 242, &c., she is always referred to as the elder of Warwick's daughters.

ACT I. SCENE 2.

70. This scene represents Anne as present in London at the funeral of King Henry; a thing which, historically, would be impossible, for Queen Margaret carried her away with her from the battle of Tewksbury, and, after that, Clarence kept her in concealment till 1473, when Richard discovered her in London, disguised, and conveyed her to St. Martin's le Grand, to sanctuary. Holinshed, who copies Hall, gives the following account of the funeral. "The dead corps on the Ascension euen was conueied with billes and glaues pompouslie (if you will call that a funerall pompe) from the Tower to the church of saint Paule, and there laid on a beire or coffen bare faced, the same in presence of the beholders did bléed; where it rested the space of one whole daie. From thense he was caried to the Blackfriers, and bled there likewise: and on the next daie after, it was conueied in a boat, without priest or clerke, torch or taper, singing or saieng, vnto the monasterie of Cherteseie, distant from London fiftéene miles, and there was it first buried: but after, it was remooued to Windesor" (iii. p. 324). Holinshed's authority for the incident of the corpse bleeding was Warkworth's Chronicle. Hall omits it, as did the Croyland Chronicle, Fabyan, and Polydore Virgil. It was commonly believed that a murdered person's body would bleed at the touch of the murderer. Staunton quotes from the Demonologie by King James VI. (afterwards James I. of England), a passage in which his majesty treats the matter as an undoubted fact. He also refers to a case in the fourth year of Charles I., where the clergyman of a parish in Hertfordshire deposed to a corpse having sweated and opened its eyes and shed blood from its fingers, on being touched by a suspected person. Another case, cited by Grey (Notes on Shakespeare, vol. ii. pp. 54, 55), is also referred to by Sir Walter Scott in The Fair Maid of Perth, note U (chap. xxiii.). The case is that of Philip Stansfield, who, in 1688, was accused before the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh of the murder of his father. The indictment against him stated that the body bled when Stansfield raised up the shoulder to lift it up to the coffin; and, though rejected by Stansfield's counsel as a superstitious observation, the occurrence was insisted on as a link in the evidence, and commented 97 60

on as such by the king's counsel in charging the jury. Scott makes use of the belief in the course of his story.

Ff. make a second scene at this place, otherwise we might have supposed that the second scene was only a continuation of the foregoing; for the locality (which is not designated in the old editions) is, evidently, still in some street.

71. Lines 19, 20:

Than I can wish to ADDERS, spiders, toads,

Or any creeping venom'd thing that lives!

The supposed poisonous qualities of spiders and toads are frequently alluded to. See Richard II. note 202; and concerning the adder, note 203 of same play. In line 19 we have adopted the reading of Qq.; Ff. have

Than I can wish to Wolnes, to Spiders, Toades,

a reading which suggests that an alteration had been intended, but left incomplete.

72. Line 25: And that be heir to his unhappiness!--Qq. omit this line.

73. Lines 27, 28:

MORE miserable by the death of him

THAN I am made by my young lord and thee! These words are quoted by Anne, with alterations, in iv. 1. 76, 77, where she uses the word life, instead of death which occurs here. The reason for the variety is obvious. In both places Qq. read As miserable and As I am made. We have retained the reading of Ff.

74 Line 29.-Chertsey is in Surrey near the Thames, not far below Staines. There was a very ancient abbey there, having a mitred abbot with a seat in the House of Lords. The convent buildings have long since been demolished, and only a very few fragments are now remaining.

75. Line 31: And still, as you are weary of THE weight. -The is the reading of Qq.; Ff. have this.

76. Line 39: stand thou.-So Qq.; Ff. read stand'st thou. 77. Line 42: And SPURN UPON thee, beggar.—“ Elsewhere in Shakespeare," the Clarendon Press editor observes, spurn is followed by at or against," as indeed it appears generally to be in other writers. The following instance of the use of spurn on is given in that edition from Gower, Confessio Amantis, book iv.:

So that within a while I gesse
She had on suche a chaunce sporned
That all her mod was overtorned.

-Works, vol. ii. p 44.

78. Line 60: Thy DEED, inhuman and unnatural.-So Qq.; Ff. have deeds.

79. Line 70: Villain, thou know'st No law of God nor man.-Ff. have nor for no. We have followed Qq.

80. Line 76: Of these supposed CRIMES. Many editors adopt the reading of Qq., which have evils instead of crimes. But surely crimes is the more appropriate word in Gloster's mouth to describe the heinous deeds (line 53) which Anne has just been laying to his charge, and of which he now seeks to acquit himself. Grant White observes that the opposition is between known evils and

supposed crimes; "and the evils which Anne actually suffered, and for which she claims the right to curse, were the direct consequence of crimes which Richard calls supposed." And further, if we retain the reading of Qq. we exchange a rhythmical for an unrhythmical line. It may be that the word evils was introduced here by some careless transcriber, whose eye was caught by it in line 79.

81. Line 78: DEFUS'D infection of A man.-F. 1 omits a. Anne calls Richard, if we are to take her words literally, "a wide-spread pestilence," i.e. a plague to his kind, whose powers for evil are not confined within a limited space, but are spread far abroad. But as Anne's words are, both here and elsewhere, antithetic to those of Richard, who has just addressed her as "divine perfection of a woman," many commentators follow Johnson, who believed that here defus'd meant “irregular," "uncouth." It is true that this word, whose original meaning is "scattered," "disordered," frequently is used to describe anything-especially dress-which is irregular, wild, or uncouth. Thus in Henry V. v. 2. 61, 62:

defus'd attire

And everything that seems unnatural.

And as that which is diffused thereby in many cases becomes vague and indistinct, we find the word often with the meaning "shapeless," a sense which the Clarendon Press editor and Schmidt would give it in the present instance. Compare the following passage which Dyce (Glossary, sub voce) quotes from Greene's Farewell to Folly, 1591: "He that marketh our follies in being pass ing humorous for the choise of apparell, shall find Ouids confused chaos to affoorde a multitude of defused inuentions" (Works-Huth Library Reprint-vol. ix. p. 231) in The only other instance of the word, in such a sense, Shakespeare is in King Lear, i. iv. 1, 2:

If but as well I other accents borrow
That can my speech diffuse.

FOR these known evils, but to give me leave, By circumstance, to CURSE thy cursed self. Qq. read For in line 79; Ff. of Mr. Spedding's suggestion is that perhaps curse was intended to have been changed into accuse. "In some respects," he says, "it fits the place better. 'Accuse' answers better to 'acquit' in the speech before, and 'excuse' in those after" (New Shak. Soc. Transactions, 1875, p. 6).

83. Line 86: by despairing, SHOULDST thou stand excus'd.-Ff. have shalt; the text is from Qq.

84. Line 89: Why, then, they are not dead. So Qq.; Ff Then say they were not slain.

have:

85. Line 92: slain by Edward's hand. This is the reading of Qq.; Ff. have hands.

86. Line 100: That never dreamt on aught but butcheries. -This is from Qq.; Ff. read dream'st.