Kneel'd at my feet, and bade me be advis'd ?
Who fpoke of brotherhood? who spoke of love?
Who told me, how the poor foul did forfake
The mighty Warwick, and did fight for me?
Who told me, in the field at Tewksbury,
When Oxford had me down, he refcu'd me,
And faid, Dear brother, live, and be a king?
Who told me, when we both lay in the field,
Frozen almoft to death, how he did lap me
Even in his garments; and did give himself,
All thin and naked, to the numb-cold night?
All this from my remembrance brutish wrath
Sinfully pluck'd, and not a man of you
Had fo much grace to put it in my mind.
But, when your carters, or your waiting-vaffals,
Have done a drunken flaughter, and defao'd
The precious image of our dear Redeemer,
You ftraight are on your knees for pardon, pardon;
And I, unjustly too, muft grant it you:-
But for my brother, not a man would speak,-
Nor I (ungracious) fpeak unto myself
For him, poor foul. The proudeft of
Have been beholden to him in his life;
Yet none of you would once plead for his life.-
O God! I fear, thy juftice will take hold
On me, and you, and mine, and
yours, for this.-

you

all

for the pardon of malefactors condemned to death, he would accuftomablie fay, and openly speake, O infortunate brother, for whofe life not one would make fuite! openly and apparently meaning by fuche words that by the means of fome of the nobilitie he was deceived, and brought to his confufion."

6

MALONE.

be advis'd?] i. e. deliberate; confider what I was about to do. So. in The Letters of the Pafion Family, Vol. II. p. 279: "Written in hafte with fhort advisement," &c. See alfo, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Vol. IV. p. 227, n. 5.

MALONE.

Come, Haftings, help me to my closet. O,
Poor Clarence!

[Exeunt King, Queen, HASTINGS, RIVERS,
DORSET, and GREY.

GLO. This is the fruit of rafhnefs !-Mark'd you
not,

How that the guilty kindred of the queen
Look'd pale, when they did hear of Clarence'

death?

O! they did urge it ftill unto the king:

God will revenge it. Come, lords; will you go, To comfort Edward with our company?

BUCK. We wait upon your grace.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

The fame.

Enter the Duchefs of York, with a Son and Daughter of Clarence.

SON. Good grandam, tell us, is our father dead? DUCH. No, boy.

DAUGH. Why do you weep fo oft? and beat your breaft;

And cry-O Clarence, my unhappy fon!

7 Come, Haftings, help me to my clofet.] Haftings was Lord Chamberlain to King Edward IV.

8 Enter the Duchefs of York,] Neville firft Earl of Westmoreland,

MALONE.

Cecily, daughter of Ralph and widow of Richard Duke

of York, who was killed at the battle of Wakefield in 1460. She furvived her husband thirty-five years, living till the year 1495. MALONE.

SON. Why do

you

head,

look on us, and shake your

And call us-orphans, wretches, caft-aways,
If that our noble father be alive?

DUCH. My pretty coufins, you mistake me both; I do lament the fickness of the king,

As loath to lose him, not your father's death;
It were loft forrow, to wail one that's loft.

SON. Then, grandam, you conclude that he is
dead.

The king my uncle is to blame for this:
God will revenge it; whom I will impórtune
With earnest prayers all to that effect.

DAUGH. And fo will I.

DUCH. Peace, children, peace! the king doth love you well:

Incapable and fhallow innocents,'

You cannot guess who caus'd your father's death.

SON. Grandam, we can: for my good uncle Glof

ter

queen,

Told me, the king, provok'd to't by the
Devis'd impeachments to imprison him :
And when my uncle told me fo, he wept,
And pitied me, and kindly kifs'd my cheek;

my pretty coufins,] The Duchefs is here addreffing her grand-children, but coufin was the term ufed in Shakspeare's time, by uncles to nephews and nieces, grandfathers to grandchildren, &c. It seems to have been ufed inftead of our kinfman, and kinfwoman, and to have fupplied the place of both. MALONE.

See note on Othello, A& I. fc. i. STEEVENS.

Incapable and shallow innocents,] Incapable is unintelligent. MALONE. So, in Hamlet:

"As one incapable of her own diftrefs." STEEVENS,

Bade me rely on him, as on my father,

And he would love me dearly as his child.

DUCH. Ah, that deceit fhould fteal fuch gentle fhapes,

And with a virtuous vifor hide deep vice!
He is my fon, ay, and therein my shame,
Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.

2

SON. Think you, my uncle did diffemble, grandam ?

DUCH, Ay, boy.

SON. I cannot think it. Hark! what noife is this?

Enter Queen ELIZABETH, diftractedly; RIVERS, and DORSET, following her.

Q. ELIZ. Ah! who fhall hinder me to wail and
weep?

To chide my fortune, and torment myself?
I'll join with black despair against my soul,
And to myself become an enemy.

DUCH. What means this fcene of rude impatience?

Q. ELIZ. To make an act of tragick violence:Edward, my lord, thy fon, our king, is dead.Why grow the branches, when the root is gone? Why wither not the leaves, that want their fap ?— If you will live, lament; if die, be brief; That our swift-winged fouls may catch the king's;

my uncle did diffemble,] Shakspeare ufes diffemble in the fenfe of acting fraudulently, feigning what we do not feel or think; though ftrictly it means to conceal our real thoughts or affections. So alfo Milton in the paffage quoted in p. 342, n. 9.

MALONE.

Or, like obedient fubjects, follow him
To his new kingdom of perpetual rest.3

DUCH. Ah, fo much intereft have I in thy for

row,

As I had title in thy noble husband!
I have bewept a worthy husband's death,
And liv'd by looking on his images :4

But now, two mirrors of his princely femblance
Are crack'd in pieces by malignant death;5
And I for comfort have but one false glass,
That grieves me when I fee my fhame in him.
Thou art a widow; yet thou art a mother,
And haft the comfort of thy children left thee:
But death hath fnatch'd my husband froin my

arms,

And pluck'd two crutches from my feeble hands, Clarence, and Edward. O, what cause have I, (Thine being but a moiety of my grief,) To over-go thy plaints, and drown thy cries? SON. Ah, aunt! you wept not for our father's death;

3

of perpetual reft.] So the quarto. The folio readsof ne'er changing night. MALONE.

4

♦ —————his images :] The children by whom he was reprefented.

JOHNSON.

So, in The Rape of Lucrece, Lucretius fays to his daughter: "O, from thy cheeks my image thou haft torn."

MALONE.

But now, two mirrors of his princely femblance Are crack'd in pieces by malignant death;] So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece :

"Poor broken glass, I often did behold

"In thy fweet femblance my old age new born, "But now, that fair fresh mirror, dim and old, "Shows me a bare-bon'd death by time out-worn." Again, in his 3d Sonnet:

"Thou art thy mother's glass," &c.

MALONE.