Q. MAR. Go, tell this heavy meffage to the king. [ Exit Vaux. Ah me! what is this world? what news are these?9 But wherefore grieve I at an hour's poor lofs,' And with the fouthern clouds contend in tears; rows? 3 for Now, get thee hence: The king, thou know'st is coming; If thou be found by me, thou art but dead. SUF. If I depart from thee, I cannot live: And in thy fight to die, what were it elfe, But like a pleasant flumber in thy lap? Here could I breathe my foul into the air, As mild and gentle as the cradle-babe, Dying with mother's dug between its lips: 9Ah me! what is this world? what news are these?] Inftead of this line, the quarto reads: "Oh! what is wordly pomp? all men muft die, "And woe am I for Beaufort's heavy end. STEEVENS. - at an hour's poor loss,] She means, I believe, at a loss which any bour spent in contrivance and deliberation will enable her to fupply. Or perhaps the may call the sickness of the cardinal the loss of an hour, as it may put fome ftop to her fchemes. JOHNSON. I believe the poet's meaning is, Wherefore do I grieve that Beaufort has died an hour before his time, who, being an old man, could not have had a long time to live? STEEVENS. This certainly may be the meaning; yet I rather incline to think that the queen intends to fay, "Why do I lament a circumftance, the impreffion of which will pass away in the fhort period of an hour; while I negled to think on the lofs of Suffolk my affe&ion for whom no time will efface? MALONE. " 3 · for the earth's increase,] See Vol. VII. p. 49, n. 6. MALONE. Where, from thy fight, I fhould be raging mad, And cry out for thee to clofe up mine eyes, To have thee with thy lips to flop my mouth; • So fhouldst thou either turn my flying foul, 3 • Or I should breathe it fo into thy body, And then it liv'd in fweet Elysium. To die by thee, were but to die in jest; From thee to die, were torture more than death: O. let me flay, befall what may befall. Q. MAR. Away! though parting be a fretful corrofive, 4 It is applied to a deathful wound. fo France, fweet Suffolk: Let me hear from thee; For wherefoe'er thou art in this world's globe, I'll have an Iris that fhall find thee out. Where, from thy fight,] In the preambles of almost all the ftatutes made during the first twenty years of queen Elizabeth's reign, the word where is employed instead of whereas. It is fo used here. MALONE. So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona: 3 Aud where I thought the remuant of mine age" &c. See Vol. IV. p. 228, n. 6. STEEVENS. turn my flying foul,] Perhaps Mr. Pope was indebted to this paffage in his Etoifa to Abelard, where he makes that votarift of exquifite fenfibility say: See my lips tremble, and my eye-balls roll, Suck my last breath, and catch my flying foul." STEEVENS. Away! though parting be a fretful corrofive,] This word was generally, in our author's time, written, and, I suppose, pronounced corfive; and the metre fhows that it ought to be fo printed here. So, in The Spanish Tragedy, 1605: His fon diftreft, a corfive to his heart. Again, in The Alchymift, by Ben Jonson, 1610: "Now do you fee that fomething's to be done Again, in au Ode by the fame: fend not balms nor corfives to your wound. " MALONE. JOHNSON 5 I'll have an Iris - Iris was the meffenger of Juno. SUF. I go. Q. MAR. And take my heart with thee." SUF. A jewel lock'd into the woeful'ft cafk That ever did contain a thing of worth. Even as a splitted bark, fo funder we; This way fall I to death. Q. MAR. London. Cardinal Beaufort's Bed-chamber. 6 Enter King HENRY, SALISBURY, WARWICK, and Others. The Cardinal in bed; Attendants with him. *K. HEN. How fares my lord?' fpeak, Beaufort, to thy fovereign. So, in All's Well that Ends Well: ་་ this diftemper'd meffenger of wet, "The many-colour'd Iris -- STEEVENS. 5 And take my heart with thee.] I fuppofe, to complete the verse, we should read: along with thee. So, in Hamlet: "And he to England fhall along with thee. STEEVENS Enter King Henry, &c.] The quarto offers the following flage directions. Enter King and Salisbury, and then the curtaines be drawne, and the cardinal is difcovered in his bed, raving and flaring as if he were mad. STEEVENS. This defcription did not efcape our author, for he has availed himself of it elsewhere. See the speech of Vaux in p. 284. MALONE. How fares my lord? &c.] This fcene, and that in which the dead body of the duke of Gloster is defcribed, are defervedly admir ed. Having already fubmitted to the reader the lines on which the former scene is founded, I shall now fubjoin those which gave rise to that before us: |