A refolv'd ambitious Woman.

OLLOW I muft, I cannot go before,

(2) F While Glo fer bears this bade and humble mind,

Were I a man, a duke, and next of blood,
I wou'd remove these tedious stumbling-blocks;
And smooth my way upon their headless necks.
And being a woman I will not be flack
To play my part in fortune's pageant.

ACT II.

SCENE II.

The Lord ever to be remembered.

Let never day or night unhallow'd pass, But ftill remember what the Lord hath done.

SCENE

(1) Follow, &c.] There is fomething very like the charafter of lady Macbeth, in this ambitious wife of the duke of Gh'fter.

D 4

SCENE VII. Eleanor to the Duke of Glo'fter, when doing Penance.

For whilst I think I am thy married wife,
And thou a prince, protector of this land;
Methinks, I fhould not thus be led along,
(2) Mail'd up in fhame, with papers on my back;
And follow'd with a rabble, that rejoice
To fee my tears, and hear my deep-fetch'd groans.
The ruthless flint doth cut my tender feet,
And when I start, the cruel people laugh:
And bid me be advised how I tread.

ACT III. SCENE I.

Silent Refentment deepest.

(3) Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep; And in his fimple fhew he harbours treason.

SCENE IV. A guilty Countenance.

Upon the eye-balls murd'rous tyranny Sits in grim majefty to fright the world.

Defcription of a murder'd Perfon.

See how the blood is fettled in his face! Oft have I feen a timely-parted ghost,

Of afhy femblance, meager, pale, and blood-lefs;

(4) Being

(2) Mail'd.] Cover'd in a fheet as a man is in a coat of mail.

(3) Smooth.] Swallowing waters

Run deep and filent, till they're fatisfied,

And fmile in thousand curls to gild their craft.

The bloody Brother, Act 2. Sc. 1.

(4) Being all defcended to the lab'ring heart,
Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,
Attracts the fame for aidance 'gainst the enemy;
Which with the heart there cools, and ne'er returneth
To blush and beautify the cheek again.

But fee his face is black, and full of blood!
His eye-balls farther out than when he liv'd:
Staring full ghaftly, like a strangled man!

His hair up-rear'd, his noftrils stretch'd with struggling!
His hands abroad difplay'd, as one that grafpt
And tugg'd for life, and was by ftrength fubdu'd!
Look on the sheets; his hair, you fee, is sticking!
His well-proportioned beard, made rough and rugged,
Like to the fummer's corn by tempeft lodg'd:
It cannot be, but he was murder'd here;
The leaft of all thefe figns were probable.

SCENE VII. A good Confcience.

(5) What stronger breaft-plate than a heart un-.

tainted?

Thrice is he arm'd, that hath his quarrel juft;

And

(4) Being, &c.] There is fome little irregularity in grammar here; I have put a hyphen at blood-lefs, to make it the plainer; being all, i. e. all the blood being defcended, &c. I cannot quite be reconciled to who in the next line; it may indeed be allowed but I fhould rather transpose that, and read

That in the conflict which it holds with death.

Tho' perhaps, which foon after following, may be an objection. And we may obferve, he uses who almoft in the fame manner in the fourth page of this volume:

He gave his nofe

Who therewith angry

(5) What, &c.] A little before it is faid,

A heart unfpotted is not easily daunted.

And he but naked (though lock'd up in fteel)
Whose confcience with injuftice is corrupted.

SCENE VIII.

Remorfelefs Hatred.

A plague upon 'em! wherefore fhould I curfe them: Would curfes kill, as doth the Mandrake's groan, I would invent as bitter fearching terms, As curs'd, as harfh, as horrible to hear, Deliver'd strongly through my fixed teeth, With full as many figns of deadly hate, (6) As lean-fac'd envy in her loathfome cave. My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words,

Mine

This fentiment is plainly fhadow'd from two celebrated odes of Horace; the 22d of the first book, and the 3d of the 3d book. The first begins, Integer vitæ, &c.

From virtue's laws who never parts,
Without the Moorifb lance or bow,
Or quiver stor❜d with poifon'd darts,
Secure thro' favage realms may go,

&c.

The other, Juftum ac tenacem propofiti virum, &c.

That upright man, who's fteady to his truft,
Inflexible to ill, and obftinately juft,

The fury of the populace defies,

And dares the tyrant's threat'ning frowns defpife, &c.

1 only juft refer the reader to them, as they are fo generally known: Horace too in his epiftles has a fine fentiment to this purpose:

-Hic murus abeneus efto,

Nil confcire fibi, nulla pallefcere culpa.

Be this thy guard, and this thy ftrong defence
A virtuous heart, and spotlefs innocence:
Not to be confcious of a fhameful fin,
Nor to look pale for scarlet crimes within.

Creech.

(6) As, &c.] This is as fine a picture of envy as could poffibly be given in fo narrow a compaís: Spencer hath described her twice in his Faerie Queene, and in both places given us a moft loathfome picture, which Longinus would furely have greatly

difcom

Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint,
Mine hair be fix'd on end like one distract:
Ay, ev'ry joint should seem to curse and ban,
And ev❜n now, my burden'd heart would break,
Should I not curfe them. Poifon be their drink!
Gall, worse than gall, the daintieft meat they taste!
Their fweetest-shade, a grove of cypress-trees!
Their fweetest profpect, murd'ring bafilifks!
Their foftest touch, as fmart as lizard's ftings!
Their mufic frightful as the ferpent's hifs!
And boding fcreech-owls make the concert full!
All the foul terrors of dark-feated hell-

Now by the ground that I am banish'd from,
Well could I curfe away a winter's night,
Though standing naked on a mountain-top,
Where biting cold would never let grafs grow.

Parting Lovers.

And banished I am, if but from thee: Go, fpeak not to me: ev'n now be goneOh ! go not yet-ev❜n thus two friends condemn'd Embrace and kiss, and take ten thousand leaves, Loather a hundred times to part than die : Yet, now farewel, and farewel life with thee! Suff. Thus is poor Suffolk ten times banished, Once by the king, and three times thrice by thee. (7) 'Tis not the land I care for, wert thou hence; A wil

discommended, when we find him fo fevere, on an author for one line reprefenting a naufeous image. See his Essay on the Sublime, feet. 9. See Spencer's Faerie Queene, B. 15. 1. 4. ft. 30. and B. 5. 1. 12. ft. 29. It may be worth while to remark, how exactly Shakespear fuits his language to his characters: how different are thefe curfes from the mouth of Suffolk, to thofe, from the mouth of Caliban, in the Tempest.

(7) 'Tis not, &c.] This paffage, as Mr. Wbally has observed in his Inquiry into the Learning of Shakespear, is the ancient language