Long die thy happy days before thy death;
And, after many lengthen'd hours of grief,
Die neither mother, wife, nor England's queen!-
Rivers, and Dorfet,-you were ftanders by,-
And fo waft thou, lord Haftings,-when my fon
Was ftabb'd with bloody daggers; God, I pray him,
That none of you may live your natural age,
But by fome unlook'd accident cut off!

Glo. Have done thy charm, thou hateful wither'd hag.

2. Mar. And leave out thee? ftay, dog, for thou fhalt hear me.

If heaven have any grievous plague in ftore,
Exceeding thofe that I can wish upon thee,
O, let them keep it, 'till thy fins be ripe,
And then hurl down their indignation

On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace!
The worm of confcience ftill be-gnaw thy foul!
Thy friends fufpect for traitors while thou liv'ft,
And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!
No fleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
Unless it be while fome tormenting dream
Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!
Thou elvish-mark'd abortive, rooting hog!

Thou

selvish-mark'd] The common people in Scotland (as I learn from Kelly's Proverbs) have still an averfion to those who have any natural defect or redundancy, as thinking them mark'à out for mifchief. STEEVENS.

6

-rooting hog!] The expreffion is fine, alluding (in memory of her young fon) to the ravage which hogs make, with the finest flowers, in gardens; and intimating that Elizabeth was to expect no other treatment for her fons. WARBURTON.

She calls him bog, as an appellation more contemptuous than boar, as he is elfewhere termed from his enfigns armorial. There is no fuch heap of allufion as the commentator imagines.

JOHNSON.

In the Mirror for Magiftrates (a book already quoted) is the following Complaint of Collingbourne, who was cruelly executed for making a rime.

For

Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity
"The flave of nature, and the fon of hell!
Thou flander of thy mother's heavy womb!
Thou loathed iffue of thy father's loins l
* Thou rag of honour! thou detefted-
Glo. Margaret.

2. Mar. Richard!

For where I meant the king by name of bog,
I only alluded to his badge the bore:

To Lovel's name I added more,our dog;
Because most dogs have borne that name of yore.
Thefe metaphors I us'd with other more,

As cat and rat, the half-names of the reft,

To hide the fenfe that they fo wrongly wreft.

That Lovel was once the common name of a dog, may be likewife known from a paffage in The Hiftorie of Jacob and Efau, an interlude, 1568:

"Then come on at once, take my quiver and my bowe; "Fette lovell my hounde, and my horne to blowe."

The rhime for which Collingbourne fuffered, was:

"A cat, a rat, and Lovel the dog,

"Rule all England under a hog." STEEVENS.

1 The flave of nature,- -] The expreffion is ftrong and noble, and alludes to the ancient custom of masters branding their profligate flaves: by which it is infinuated that his mishapen perfon was the mark that nature had fet upon him to ftigmatize his ill conditions. Shakspeare expreffes the fame thought in The Comedy of Errer's:

"He is deformed, crooked, &c.

Stigmatical in making,

But as the fpeaker rifes in her refentment, fhe expreffes this contemptuous thought much more openly, and condemns him to a ftill worfe ftate of slavery:

"Sin, death, and hell, have fet their marks on him.” Only, in the first line, her mention of his moral condition infinuates her reflections on his deformity: and, in the laft, her mention of his, deformity infinuates her reflections on his moral condition: And thus he has taught her to fcold in all the elegance of figure. WARBURTON.

3 Thou rag of honour, &c.] This word of contempt is ufed again in Timon:

"If thou wilt curfe, thy father, that poor rag,
"Muft be the fubject."

Again, in this play :

"Thefe over-weening rags of France," STEEVENS.

VOL. VII.

D

Glo.

Glo. Ha?

2. Mar. I call thee not.

Glo. I cry thee mercy then; for I did think, That thou had'ft call'd me all these bitter names. 2. Mar. Why, fo I did; but look'd for no reply. O, let me make the period to my curfe.

Glo. 'Tis done by me; and ends in- Margaret. Queen. Thus have you breath'd your curse against yourself.

2. Mar. Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune 9!

Why ftrew'st thou fugar on that' bottled spider,
Whose deadly web enfnareth thee about?

Fool, fool! thou whet'st a knife to kill thyself.
The day will come, that thou shalt wish for me
To help thee curfe this pois'nous bunch-back'd toad.
Haft. Falfe-boding woman, end thy frantick curfe;
Left, to thy harm, thou move our patience.

2. Mar. Foul fhame upon you! you have all mov'd

mine.

Riv. Were you well ferv'd, you would be taught your duty.

2. Mar. To ferve me well, you all should do me

duty,

Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects: O, ferve me well, and teach yourselves that duty. Dorf. Difpute not with her, fhe is lunatic.

2. Mar. Peace, mafter marquis, you are malapert; Your fire-new ftamp of honour is fcarce current: O, that your young nobility could judge, What 'twere to lofe it, and be miferable!

9 flourish of my fortune!] This expreffion is likewife ufed by Maflinger in the Great Duke of Florence:

-I allow thefe

"As flourishings of fortune." STEEVENS.

-bottled fpider,] A spider is called bottled, because, like other infects, he has a middle flender and a belly protube-Richard's form and venom, made her liken him to a

rant.

fpider. JOHNSON.

2,

They

They that stand high, have many blafts to fhake them;

And, if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces. Glo. Good counfel, marry;-learn it, learn it, marquis.

Dorf. It touches you, my lord, as much as me. Glo. Ay, and much more: But I was born fo high, Our aiery buildeth in the cedar's top,

And dallies with the wind, and fcorns the fun.

2. Mar. And turns the fun to fhade; -alas! alas!* Witness my fun, now in the shade of death; Whofe bright out-fhining beams thy cloudy wrath Hath in eternal darkness folded up.

Your aiery buildeth in our aiery's neft3:-
O God, that fee'st it, do not suffer it;
As it was won with blood, loft be it fo!

Buck. Peace, peace, for fhame, if not for charity. 2. Mar. Urge neither charity nor shame to me; Uncharitably with me have you dealt,

And shamefully by you my hopes are butcher'd.
My charity is outrage, life my fhame,-
And in my fhame ftill live my forrow's rage!
Buck. Have done, have done.

2. Mar. O princely Buckingham, I'll kifs thy hand, In fign of league and amity with thee:

2 Witness my fun, &c.] The folio's read: Witnefs my fonne

Her diftrefs cannot prevent her quibbling. It may be here remarked, that the introduction of Margaret in this place, is against all hiftorical evidence. She was ranfomed and fent to France foon after Tewkesbury fight, and there paffed the remainder of her wretched life. REMARKS.

Your aiery buildeth in our aiery's neft:-] An aiery is a hawk's or an eagle's net. So, in Green's Card of Fancy, 1608:

"It is a fubtle bird that breeds among the aiery of hawks.' Again, in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1630:

"His high-built aiery thall be drown'd in blood."

Again, in Maffinger's Maid of Honour :

"One aiery, with propertion, ne'er difclofes

"The eagle and the wren."

D 2

STEEVENS.

Now

Now fair befal thee, and thy noble house!
Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,
Nor thou within the compafs of my curse.

Buck. Nor no one here; for curfes never pafs
The lips of those that breathe them in the air.

2. Mar. I'll not believe but they ascend the sky, And there awake God's gentle-fleeping peace. O Buckingham, beware of yonder dog;

Look, when he fawns, he bites; and, when he bites,
His venom tooth will rankle to the death:
Have not to do with him, beware of him;

4 Sin, death, and hell, have fet their marks upon
And all their minifters attend on him.

him;

Glo. What doth fhe fay, my lord of Buckingham? Buck. Nothing that I refpect, my gracious lord. 2. Mar. What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle counfel?

And footh the devil that I warn thee from?
O, but remember this another day,

When he shall split thy very heart with forrow;
And fay, poor Margaret was a prophetefs.
Live each of you the fubjects to his hate,
And he to yours, and all of you to God's! [Exit.
Buck. My hair doth stand on end to hear her curfes.
Riv. And fo doth mine; I wonder, fhe's at liberty".
Glo. I cannot blame her, by God's holy mother;

4

Sin, death, and hell] Poffibly Milton took from hence. the hint of his famous Allegory. BLACKSTONE.

5 Live each of you the fubjects to his hate,

And he to yours, and all of you to God's!] It is evident from the conduct of Shakspeare, that the houfe of Tudor retained all their Lancaftrian prejudices, even in the reign of queen Elizabeth. In this play of Richard the Third, he seems to reduce the woes of the house of York from the curfes which queen Margaret had vented against them; and he could not give that weight to her curfes, without fuppofing a right in her to utter them. WALPOLE.

6

"I wonder he's at liberty.] Thus the quarto. The folio reads:

I mufe, why fhe's at liberty.. STEVENS.

She