HAST. No news so bad abroad, as this at home ;The king is sickly, weak, and melancholy,

And his physicians fear him mightily.

GLO. Now, by Saint Paul, this news is bad indeed.

O, he hath kept an evil diet1 long,

And over-much consum'd his royal person; 'Tis very grievous to be thought upon. What, is he in his bed?

HAST. He is 2.

GLO. Go you before, and I will follow you.

[Exit HASTINGS. He cannot live, I hope; and must not die,

Till George be pack'd with posthorse up to heaven.
I'll in, to urge his hatred more to Clarence,
With lies well steel'd with weighty arguments;
And, if I fail not in my deep intent,

Clarence hath not another day to live:

Which done, God take king Edward to his mercy,
And leave the world for me to bustle in!

For then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter3:
What though I kill'd her husband, and her father?
The readiest way to make the wench amends,
Is to become her husband, and her father:
The which will I; not all so much for love,
As for another secret close intent,

By marrying her, which I must reach unto.
But yet I run before my horse to market:
Clarence still breathes; Edward still lives and reigns;
When they are gone, then must I count my gains.

9 Now, by Saint PAUL,] The folio reads:

1

Now, by Saint John." STEEVENS.

an evil diet-] i. e. a bad regimen. STEEVENS.

[Exit.

2 He is.] Sir Thomas Hanmer very properly completes this broken verse, by reading

3

He is, my lord."

STEEVENS.

Warwick's YOUNGEST daughter:] Lady Anne, the Widow of Edward Prince of Wales. See Henry VI. Part III. vol. xviii. p. 478, n. 4. MALONE.

SCENE II.

The Same. Another Street.

Enter the Corpse of King HENRY the Sixth, borne in an open Coffin, Gentlemen bearing Halberds, to guard it; and Lady ANNE as mourner.

5

ANNE. Set down, set down your honourable load,-
If honour may be shrouded in a hearse,-
Whilst I a while obsequiously lament *
The untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.-
Poor key-cold figure of a holy king!
Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster!
Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!
Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost,
To hear the lamentations of poor Anne,
Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughter'd son,
Stabb'd by the self-same hand that made these
wounds * !

Lo, in these windows, that let forth thy life,
I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes :-
O, cursed be the hand that made these holes!
Cursed the heart, that had the heart to do it!

* Quarto 1597, holes.

† Quarto 1597:

4

"Curst be the hand that made these fatal holes,
"Curst be the heart," &c.

OBSEQUIOUSLY lament -] Obsequious, in this instance, means funereal. So, in Hamlet, Act I. Sc. II. :

5

"To do obsequious sorrow." STEEVENS.

-key-cold-] A key, on account of the coldness of the metal of which it is composed, was anciently employed to stop any slight bleeding. The epithet is common to many old writers; among the rest, it is used by Decker in his Satiromastix, 1602: It is best you hide your head, for fear your wise brains take key-cold."

Again, in The Country Girl, by T. B. 1647:

"The key-cold figure of a man." Again, in our author's Rape of Lucrece :

STEEVENS.

"And then in key-cold Lucrece' bleeding stream

"He falls.

MALONE.

Cursed the blood, that let this blood from hence * !
More direful hap betide that hated wretch,
That makes us wretched by the death of thee,
Than I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,
Or any creeping venom'd thing that lives!
If ever he have child, abortive be it,
Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,
Whose ugly and unnatural aspéct

May fright the hopeful mother at the view;
And that be heir to his unhappiness"!

If ever he have wife, let her be made
More miserable by the death of him,

Than I am made by my young lord, and thee!-
Come, now, toward Chertsey with your holy load,
Taken from Paul's to be interred there;
And, still as you are weary of the weight,
Rest you, whiles I lament king Henry's corse.
[The Bearers take up the Corpse and advance.

Enter GLOSter.

GLO. Stay you, that bear the corse, and set it down.

ANNE. What black magician conjures up this fiend,

To stop devoted charitable deeds?

GLO. Villains, set down the corse; or, by Saint

Paul,

I'll make a corse of him that disobeys".

6

1 GENT. My lord, stand back, and let the coffin pass.

* Quarto 1597 omits this line.
† Folio, to wolves, to spiders.
Quarto 1597 omits this line.

to his UNHAPPINESS!] i. e. disposition to mischief. So, in Much Ado About Nothing: "Dreamed of unhappiness, and waked herself with laughing." STEEVENS.

7 I'll make a corse of him that disobeys.] So, in Hamlet :

"I'll make a ghost of him that lets me."

JOHNSON.

GLO. Unmanner'd dog! stand thou when I
command:

Advance thy halberd higher than my breast,
Or, by Saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot,
And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.

[The Bearers set down the Coffin.

ANNE. What, do you tremble? are you all afraid?
Alas, I blame you not; for you are mortal,
And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.-
Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!

Thou had'st but power over his mortal body,
His soul thou can'st not have; therefore, be gone.
GLO. Sweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.
ANNE. Foul devil, for God's sake, hence, and
trouble us not;

For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,
Fill'd it with cursing cries, and deep exclaims.
If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,
Behold this pattern of thy butcheries " :-

8

O, gentlemen, see, see! dead Henry's wounds Open their congeal'd mouths, and bleed afresh'!

8

*Folio, stand'st.

PATTERN of thy butcheries :] Pattern is instance, or example. JOHNSON.

So, in The Legend of Lord Hastings, Mirrour for Magistrates, 1587:

66

66

By this my pattern, all ye peers, beware." MALONE Holinshed says: The dead corps on the Ascension even was conveied with billes and glaives pompouslie (if you will call that a funeral pompe) from the Tower to the church of saint Paule, and there laid on a beire or coffen bare-faced; the same in the presence of the beholders did bleed; where it rested the space of one whole daie. From thense he was carried to the Blackfriers, and bled there likewise;" &c. STEEVENS.

9- see! dead Henry's wounds

Open their congeal'd mouths, and bleed afresh!] It is a tradition very generally received, that the murdered body bleeds on the touch of the murderer. This was so much believed by Sir -Kenelm Digby, that he has endeavoured to explain the reason.

So, in Arden of Feversham, 1592:

JOHNSON.

Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity;
For 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood
From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells;
Thy deed, inhuman and unnatural,

Provokes this deluge most unnatural.——

O God, which this blood mad'st, revenge his death! O earth, which this blood drink'st, revenge his death!

Either, heaven, with lightning strike the murderer dead,

Or, earth, gape open wide, and eat him quick;
As thou dost swallow up this good king's blood,
Which his hell-govern'd arm hath butchered!

GLO. Lady, you know no rules of charity,
Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.
ANNE. Villain, thou know'st no law of God nor

man;

No beast so fierce, but knows some touch of pity. GLO. But I know none, and therefore am no

beast.

ANNE. O wonderful, when devils tell the truth!

"The more I sound his name, the more he bleeds:
"This blood condemns me, and in gushing forth

66

Speaks as it falls, and asks me why I did it."

Again, in The Widow's Tears, by Chapman, 1612:

"The captain will assay an old conclusion often approved; that at the murderer's sight the blood revives again and boils afresh; and every wound has a condemning voice to cry out guilty against the murderer."

Again, in the 46th Idea of Drayton :

"If the vile actors of the heinous deed,

"Near the dead body happily be brought,

"Oft 't hath been prov'd the breathless corps will bleed." See also the 7th article in the tenth Booke of Thomas Lupton's Notable Thinges, 4to. bl. 1. no date, p. 255, &c.

Mr. Tollet observes, that this opinion seems to be derived from the ancient Swedes, or Northern nations from whom we descend; for they practised this method of trial in dubious cases, as appears from Pitt's Atlas, in Sweden, p. 20. STEEVENS.

See also Demonologie, 4to. 1608, p. 79; and Goulart's Admirable and Memorable Histories, translated by Grimeston, 4to. 1607, p. 422. REED.