Now they believe it; and withal whet me
To be reveng❜d on Rivers, Vaughan, Grey:
But then I sigh, and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them-that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villainy

With old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
Enter Two Murderers.

But soft, here come my executioners.How now, my hardy, stout resolved mates? Are you now going to dispatch this thing *6 ? 1 MURD. We are, my lord; and come to have the warrant,

That we may be admitted where he is.

GLO. Well thought upon, I have it here about

me:

[Gives the Warrant.

When you have done, repair to Crosby-place.

But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,
Withal obdurate, do not hear him plead;
For Clarence is well spoken, and, perhaps

May move your hearts to pity, if you mark him.
1 MURD. Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to
prate,

Talkers are no good doers; be assur'd,

We go to use our hands, and not our tongues. GLO. Your eyes drop mill-stones, when fools' eyes drop tears':

6

* Quarto 1597, this deed.

-to despatch THIS THING?] Seagars in his Legend of Richard the Third, speaking of the murder of Gloster's nephews, makes him say:

"What though he refused, yet be sure you may,

"That other were as ready to take in hand that thing." The coincidence was, I believe, merely accidental. MALONE. 7 Your eyes drop mill-stones, when fools' eyes drop tears:] This, I believe, is a proverbial expression. It is used again in the tragedy of Cæsar and Pompey, 1607:

"Men's eyes must mill-stones drop, when fools shed tears."

STEEVENS.

I like you, lads ;-about your business straight;

Go, go, despatch.

1 MURD.

We will, my noble lord.

SCENE IV.

[Exeunt.

London.

A Room in the Tower.

Enter CLARENCE and BRAKENBURY.

BRAK. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day? CLAR. O, I have pass'd a miserable night, So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights, That, as I am a christian faithful man 9, I would not spend another such a night, Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days; So full of dismal terror was the time.

BRAK. What was your dream, my lord? I pray
you, tell me *.

CLAR. Methought, that I had broken from the
Tower †,

And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy';

* Quarto 1597, What was your dream? I long to hear you tell it. † Quarto 1.597 omits this line.

Quarto 1597, Methought I was embarked.

8 So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,] Thus the folio. The quarto 1597:

9

1

"So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams." MAlone. faithful man,] Not an infidel. JOHNSON.

to Burgundy ;] Clarence was desirous to assist his sister Margaret against the French king, who invaded her jointurelands after the death of her husband, Charles Duke of Burgundy, who was killed at the siege of Nancy, in January 1476-7. Isabel the wife of Clarence being then dead, (taken off by poison, administered by the Duke of Gloster, as it has been conjectured,) he wished to have married Mary the daughter and heir of the Duke of Burgundy; but the match was opposed by Edward, who hoped to have obtained her for his brother-in-law, Lord Rivers; and this circumstance has been suggested as the principal cause of the breach between Edward and Clarence. Mary of Burgundy however chose a husband for herself, having married in August 1477, Maximilian, son of the Emperor Frederick.

MALONE.

And, in my company, my brother Gloster:
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk

Upon the hatches; thence we look'd toward England,
And cited up a thousand heavy times,

During the wars of York and Lancaster
That had befall'n us. As we pac'd along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,

Methought, that Gloster stumbled; and, in falling,
Struck me, that thought to stay him, over-board,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.

O Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of water in mine ears 2!
What sights of ugly death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
A thousand men, that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels*,

All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea*:

Some lay in dead men's skul's; and, in those holes Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept (As 'twere in scorn of eyes,) reflecting gems, That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep, And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by. BRAK. Had you such leisure in the time of death, * Quarto 1597 omits this line.

2 What dreadful noise of water in mine ears!] See Mr. Warton's note on Milton's Lycidas, v. 157. Milton's Poems, second edit. 1791. STEEVENS.

3 What sights of ugly death] Thus the folio. The quarto has-What ugly sights of death. MALONE.

• Inestimable stones, UNVALUED jewels-] Unvalued is here used for invaluable. So, in Lovelace's Posthumous Poems, 1659: the unvalew'd robe she wore,

66

"Made infinite lay lovers to adore." MALONE.

Again, in Chapman's version of the first Iliad :

66

-to buy,

"For presents of unvalued price, his daughter's libertie." Again, in the 15th Iliad:

"Still shaking Jove's unvalewed shield." STEevens. That woo'd the slimy bottom-] By seeming to gaze upon it; or, as we now say, to ogle it. JOHNSON.

To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?

CLAR. Methought I had; [and often did I strive
To yield the ghost *:] but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
To seek the empty, vast, and wand'ring air';
But smother'd it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.
BRAK. Awak'd you not with this sore agony ?
CLAR. O, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life;
O, then began the tempest to my soul!

I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that grim ferryman 9 which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.

The first that there did greet my stranger soul,
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick;
Who cried aloud,-What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?
And so he vanish'd: Then came wand'ring by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood'; and he shriek'd out aloud,-

* Quarto 1597 omits the words between brackets.
KEPT in my soul,] Thus the quarto. The folio-Stopt in.
MALONE.

7 TO SEEK the empty, vast, and wand'ring air;] Seek is the reading of the quarto 1598: the folio has find. MALONE.

66

empty, vast, and wand'ring air;] Vast, is waste, desolate -vastum per inane. STEEVENS.

8 within my panting BULK,] Bulk is often used by Shakspeare and his contemporaries for body. So again, in Hamlet : it did seem to shatter all his bulk,

66

"And end his being." MALONE.

Bouke is used for the trunk of the body, by Chaucer in the Knighte's Tale, 2748:

"The clotered blood, for any leche-craft,

66

Corrumpeth, and is in his bouke ylaft.”

Bouke (i. e. bulk) is from the Saxon buce, venter. STEEVENS. See vol. vii. p. 261, n. 1.

BOSWELL.

GRIM ferryman -] The folio reads-sour ferryman.

with bright hair

STEEVENS.

Dabbled in blood;] Lee has transplanted this image into his Mithridates, Act IV. Sc. I.:

Clarence is come, false, fleeting, perjur'd Cla

That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury ;
Seize on him, furies, take him to your torments!.
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Environ'd me* 3, and howled in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that, with the very noise,
I trembling wak'd, and, for a season after,
Could not believe but that I was in hell;
Such terrible impression made my dream.
BRAK. No marvel, lord, though it affrighted you;
I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.

CLAR. O, Brakenbury, I have done those thingsThat now give evidence against my soul,

For Edward's sake; and, see, how he requites me!—
O God! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee*,
But thou wilt be aveng'd on my misdeeds,
Yet execute thy wrath on me alone:

2

* Quarto 1597, Environ'd me about.

+ Quarto 1597, I promise you, I am afraid.

"I slept; but oh, a dream so full of terror,
"The pale, the trembling midnight ravisher

"Ne'er saw, when cold Lucretia's mourning shadow
"His curtains drew, and lash'd him in his eyes

"With her bright tresses, dabbled in her blood." STEEVENS. ·FLEETING, perjur'd Clarence,] Fleeting is the same as changing sides. JOHNSON.

So, in Antony and Cleopatra :

66

now the fleeting moon

"No planet is of mine."

Clarence broke his oath with the Earl of Warwick, and joined the army of his brother King Edward IV. See vol. xviii. p. 517.

STEEVENS.

Environ'd me, &c.] Milton seems to have thought on this passage where he is describing the midnight sufferings of our Saviour, in the 4th Book of Paradise Regain'd:

- nor yet stay'd the terror there,

"Infernal ghosts, and hellish furies, round

"Environ'd thee, some howl'd, some yell'd, some shriek'd―."

STEEVENS.

4 O God! if my deep prayers, &c.] The four following lines have been added since the first edition. POPE.

They are found in the folio, but not in the quarto. MALONE.