Q. Eliz. My words are dull, O, quicken them with thine!

Q. Mar. Thy woes will make them sharp, and pierce like mine. [Exit Q. MARgaret. Duch. Why should calamity be full of words? Q. Eliz. Windy attorneys to their client woes, Airy succeeders of intestate joys,

Poor breathing orators of miseries!

Let them have scope: though what they do impart Help nothing else, yet do they ease the heart.

Duch. If so, then be not tongue-ty'd: go with me, And in the breath of bitter words let's smother My damned son, that thy two sweet sons smother'd. [Drum, within. I hear his drum,-be copious in exclaims.

Enter King RICHARD, and his Train, marching. K. Rich. Who intercepts me in my expedition? Duch. O, she, that might have intercepted thee, By strangling thee in her accursed womb, From all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done. Q. Eliz. Hid'st thou that forehead with a golden

crown,

Where should be branded, if that right were right, The slaughter of the prince that ow'd that crown,' And the dire death of my poor sons, and brothers? Tell me, thou villain-slave, where are my children? Duch. Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother Clarence?

And little Ned Plantagenet, his son?

Q. Eliz. Where is the gentle Rivers, Vaughan, Grey?

Duch. Where is kind Hastings?

K. Rich. A flourish, trumpets!-strike alarum, drums!

that ow'd that crown,] i. e. that possessed it.

Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women
Rail on the Lord's anointed: Strike, I say.-
[Flourish. Alarums.

Either be patient, and entreat me fair,
Or with the clamorous report of war
Thus will I drown your exclamations.
Duch. Art thou my son?

K. Rich. Ay; I thank God, my father, and yourself.

Duch. Then patiently hear my impatience.

K. Rich. Madam, I have a touch of your condi

tion,2

That cannot brook the accent of reproof.

Duch. O, let me speak.

K. Rich.

Do, then; but I'll not hear. Duch. I will be mild and gentle in my words. K. Rich. And brief, good mother; for I am in haste. Duch. Art thou so hasty? I have staid for thee, God knows, in torment and in agony.

K. Rich. And came I not at last to comfort you? Duch. No, by the holy rood, thou know'st it well, Thou cam'st on earth to make the earth my hell. A grievous burden was thy birth to me;

Tetchy' and wayward was thy infancy;

Thy school-days, frightful, desperate, wild, and furious;

Thy prime of manhood, daring, bold, and venturous;
Thy age confirm'd, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody,
More mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred:
What comfortable hour canst thou name,
That ever grac'd me' in thy company?

2

a touch of your condition,] A spice or particle of your temper or disposition.

Tetchy] Is touchy, peevish, fretful, ill-tempered. That ever grac'd me-] To grace seems here to mean the same as to bless, to make happy. So, gracious is kind, and graces are favours. JOHNSON.

Q. Eliz. My words are dull, O, quicken them with

thine!

Q. Mar. Thy woes will make them sharp, and
pierce like mine. Exit Q. MARGaret.
Duch. Why should calamity be full of words?
Q. Eliz. Windy attorneys to their client woes,
Airy succeeders of intestate joys,

Poor breathing orators of miseries!

Let them have scope: though what they do impart
Help nothing else, yet do they ease the heart.

Duch. If so, then be not tongue-ty'd: go with me,
And in the breath of bitter words let's smother
My damned son, that thy two sweet sons smother'd.
[Drum, within.

I hear his drum,-be copious in exclaims.

Enter King RICHARD, and his Train, marching. K. Rich. Who intercepts me in my expedition? Duch. O, she, that might have intercepted thee, By strangling thee in her accursed womb, From all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done. Q. Eliz. Hid'st thou that forehead with a golden

crown,

Where should be branded, if that right were right, The slaughter of the prince that ow'd that crown,' And the dire death of my poor sons, and brothers? Tell me, thou villain-slave, where are my children? Duch. Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother Clarence?

And little Ned Plantagenet, his son?

Q. Eliz. Where is the gentle Rivers, Vaughan, Grey?

Duch. Where is kind Hastings?

K. Rich. A flourish, trumpets!-strike alarum, drums!

that ow'd that crown,] i. e. that possessed it.

Q. Eliz. I have no more sons of the royal blood, For thee to murder: for my daughters, Richard,They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens; And therefore level not to hit their lives.

K. Rich. You have a daughter call'd-Elizabeth, Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.

Q. Eliz. And must she die for this? O, let her live,
And I'll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty;
Slander myself, as false to Edward's bed;
Throw over her the veil of infamy:

So she may live unscarr'd of bleeding slaughter,
I will confess she was not Edward's daughter.

K. Rich. Wrong not her birth, she is of royal blood.

Q. Eliz. To save her life, I'll say-she is not so.
K. Rich. Her life is safest only in her birth.
Q. Eliz. And only in that safety died her brothers.
K. Rich. Lo, at their births good stars were oppo-

site.

Q. Eliz. No, to their lives bad friends were con

trary.

K. Rich. All unavoided is the doom of destiny. Q. Eliz. True, when avoided grace makes destiny: My babes were destin'd to a fairer death,

If grace had bless'd thee with a fairer life.

K. Rich. You speak, as if that I had slain my

cousins.

much criticism, part of it is ridiculous, and the whole improbable. JOHNSON.

I cannot agree with Dr. Johnson's opinion. I see nothing ridiculous in any part of this dialogue; and with respect to probability, it was not unnatural that Richard, who by his art and wheedling tongue, had prevailed on Lady Anne to marry him in her heart's extremest grief, should hope to persuade an ambitious, and, as he thought her, a wicked woman, to consent to his marriage with her daughter, which would make her a queen, and aggrandize her family. M. MASON.

* All unavoided, &c.] i. e. unavoidable.

Q. Eliz. Cousins, indeed; and by their uncle cozen'd

Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.
Whose hands soever lanc'd their tender hearts,
Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction:

No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt,
Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,
To revel in the entrails of my lambs.

But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,
My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys,
Till that my nails were anchor'd in thine eyes;
And I, in such a desperate bay of death,
Like a poor bark, of sails and tackling reft,
Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.

K. Rich. Madam, so thrive I in my enterprize,
And dangerous success of bloody wars,
As I intend more good to you and yours,
Than ever you or yours by me were harm'd! ́

Q. Eliz. What good is cover'd with the face of heaven,

To be discover'd, that can do me good?

K. Rich. The advancement of your children, gentle

lady.

Q. Eliz. Up to some scaffold, there to lose their heads?

K. Rich. No, to the dignity and height of fortune, The high imperial type' of this earth's glory.

Q. Eliz. Flatter my sorrows with report of it; Tell me, what state, what dignity, what honour, Canst thou demise to any child of mine?

2

K. Rich. Even all I have; ay, and myself and all, Will I withal endow a child of thine;

9

still use - i. e. constant use.

'The high imperial type-] Type is exhibition, show, display, or perhaps emblem.

2 Canst thou demise -] To demise is to grant, from demittere, to devolve a right from one to another.