Marshal, command 5 our officers at arms

Be ready to direct these home-alarms. [ [Exeunt.

The same.

SCENE II.

A Room in the Duke of Lancaster's
Palace.

Enter GAUNT, and Duchess of Gloster."

GAUNT. Alas! the part I had' in Gloster's blood Doth more solicit me, than your exclaims,

To stir against the butchers of his life.
But since correction lieth in those hands,
Which made the fault that we cannot correct,
Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven;
Who when he sees the hours ripe on earth,
Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.

8

"Justice decide," but without necessity. Designo, Lat. signifies to mark out, to point out: "Notat designatque oculis ad cædem unumquemque nostrum." Cicero in Catilinam. STEEVENS.

To design in our author's time signified to mark out. See Minsheu's DICT. in v: " To designe or shew by a token. Ital. Denotare. Lat. Designare." At the end of the article the reader is referred to the words " to marke, note, demonstrate or shew." -the word is still used with this signification in Scotland.

MALONE.

5 Marshal, command &c.] The old copies-Lord Marshall; but (as Mr. Ritson observes,) the metre requires the omission I have made. It is also justified by his Majesty's repeated address to the same officer, in scene iii. STEEVENS.

6

duchess of Gloster.] The Duchess of Gloster was Eleanor Bohun, widow of Duke Thomas, son of Edward III.

WALPOLE.

7 the part I had-] That is, my relation of consanguinity to Gloster. HANMER.

heaven;

Who when he sees
Who when they see

] The old copies erroneously read:

DUCH. Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur? Hath love in thy old blood no living fire? Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one, Were as seven phials of his sacred blood,

Or seven fair branches springing from one root:
Some of those seven are dried by nature's course,
Some of those branches by the destinies cut:
But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloster,-
One phial full of Edward's sacred blood,
One flourishing branch of his most royal root,—
Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt;
Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded,
By envy's hand, and murder's bloody axe.

Ah, Gaunt! his blood was thine; that bed, that

womb,

That mettle, that self-mould, that fashion'd thee, Made him a man; and though thou liv'st, and breath'st,

Yet art thou slain in him: thou dost consent1
In some large measure to thy father's death,
In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,

I have reformed the text by example of a subsequent passage, p. 17:

66 heaven's substitute,

"His deputy, anointed in his sight," &c. STEEVENS. 9 One phial &c.] Though all the old copies concur in the present regulation of the following lines, I would rather read: One phial full of Edward's sacred blood

Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spill'd;
One flourishing branch of his most royal root
Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded.

Some of the old copies in this instance, as in many others, read vaded, a mode of spelling practised by several of our ancient writers. After all, I believe the transposition to be needless. STEEVENS.

1

thou dost consent &c.] i. e. assent. So, in St. Luke's Gospel, xxiii. 51: "The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them." STEEVENS.

Who was the model of thy father's life.
Call it not patience, Gaunt, it is despair:
In suffering thus thy brother to be slaughter'd,
Thou show'st the naked pathway to thy life,
Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee:
That which in mean men we entitle-patience,
Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
What shall I say? to safeguard thine own life,
The best way is-to 'venge my Gloster's death.
GAUNT. Heaven's is the quarrel; for heaven's
substitute,

His deputy anointed in his sight,

Hath caus'd his death: the which if wrongfully,
Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift
An angry arm against his minister.

2

DUCH. Where then, alas! may I complain myself?"

GAUNT. To heaven, the widow's champion and defence.

DUCH. Why then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.3

2

may I complain myself?] To complain is commonly a verb neuter, but it is here used as a verb active. So, in a very scarce book entitled A courtlie Controversie of Cupid's Cautels, &c. Translated from the French, &c. by H. W. [Henry Wotton] Gentleman, 4to. 1578: "I coulde finde no companion, eyther to comforte me, or helpe to complaine my great sorrowe." Again, p. 58: "-wyth greate griefe he complained the calamitie of his countrey."

Again, in The Queenes Majesties Entertainment in Suffolke and Norfolke, by Thomas Churchyard: "Cupid encountring the Queene, beganne to complayne hys state and his mothers," &c. Dryden also employs the word in the same sense in his Fables: "Gaufride, who couldst so well in rhyme complain "The death of Richard with an arrow slain." Complain myself (as Mr. M. Mason observes,) is a literal translation of the French phrase, me plaindre. STEEvens.

3

Why then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.] The measure of this line being clearly defective, why may we not read?—

Thou go'st to Coventry, there to behold

Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight:
O, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,
That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast!
Or, if misfortune miss the first career,

Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom,
That they may break his foaming courser's back,
And throw the rider headlong in the lists,
A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!
Farewell, old Gaunt; thy sometimes brother's wife,
With her companion grief must end her life.

GAUNT. Sister, farewell: I must to Coventry: As much good stay with thee, as go with me! DUCH. Yet one word more ;-Grief boundeth where it falls,

Not with the empty hollowness, but weight:
I take my leave before I have begun ;
For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.

Why then I will. Now fare thee well, old Gaunt.

Or thus:

Why then I will.

Farewell old John of Gaunt. There can be nothing ludicrous in a title by which the King has already addressed him. RITSON.

Sir T. Hanmer completes the measure, by repeating the word -farewell, at the end of the line. STEEVENS.

4

A caitiff recreant-] Caitiff originally signified a prisoner; next a slave, from the condition of prisoners; then a scoundrel, from the qualities of a slave:

“ Ημισυ τῆς ἀρετῆς αποαίνυται δέλιον ἦμαρ In this passage it partakes of all these significations. JOHNSON. This just sentiment is in Homer; but the learned commentator quoting, I suppose from memory, has compressed a couplet into a single line :

66

Ημισυ γαρ τ' αρετής αποαίνυται ευρύοπα Ζευς
66 Ανερος, ευτ' αν μιν κατα δουλιόν
ημας έλησιν.”

Odyss. Lib. XVII. v. 322. HOLT WHITE.

I do not believe that caitiff in our language ever signified a prisoner. I take it to be derived, not from captiff, but from chetif, Fr. poor, miserable. TYRWHITT.

Commend me to my brother, Edmund York.
Lo, this is all:-Nay, yet depart not so;
Though this be all, do not so quickly go;
I shall remember more. Bid him-O, what?—
With all good speed at Plashy visit me.
Alack, and what shall good old York there see,
But empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls,"
Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones?

And what cheer there for welcome, but my groans?
Therefore commend me; let him not come there,
To seek out sorrow that dwells every where :7
Desolate, desolate, will I hence, and die;
The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.
[Exeunt.

5

- unfurnish'd walls,] In our ancient castles the naked stone walls were only covered with tapestry, or arras, hung upon tenter hooks, from which it was easily taken down on every removal of the family. See the preface to The Household Book of the Fifth Earl of Northumberland, begun in 1512. STEEVENS.

"And what cheer there &c.] I had followed the reading of the folio, [hear] but now rather incline to that of the first quarto.And what cheer, there, &c. In the quarto of 1608, chear was changed to hear, and the editor of the folio followed the latter copy. MALONE.

To seek out sorrow that dwells every where:] Perhaps the pointing may be reformed without injury to the sense:

let him not come there