ACT THE SECOND.

SCENE I.

St. Paul's.

Enter TRESSEL, meeting LORD STANLEY.

Tressel. My lord, your servant; pray what brought you to St. Paul's?

Stanley. I came among the crowd, to see the corpse Of poor King Henry; 'tis a dismal sight; But yesterday I saw him the Tower; His talk is still so fresh within my memory, That I could weep, to think how fate has us'd him. I wonder where's Duke Richard's policy,

In suffering him to lie expos'd to view;

Can he believe that men will love him for't?

Tressel. O yes, sir, love him, as he loves his brothers.

When was you with King Edward, pray, my lord?
I hear he leaves his food, is melancholy;
And his physicians fear him mightily.

Stanley. Tis thought he'll scarce recover.
Shall we to court, and hear more news of him ?
Tressel,, I am oblig'd to pay attendance here:
The lady Anne has license to remove

King Henry's corpse to be interred at Chertsey,
And I'm engaged to follow her.

Stanley. Mean you King Henry's daughter in law?
Tressel. The same, sir, widow to the late Prince
Edward,

Whom Gloster kill'd at Tewksbury.

Stanley. Alas! poor lady! She's severely used!

And yet,

I hear, Richard attempts her love : Methinks the wrongs he's done her might discourage him.

Tressel. Neither those wrongs, nor his own shape, can fright him:

He sent for leave to visit her, this morning,

And she was forc'd to keep her bed, to avoid him : Will you along

To see this doleful ceremony?

Stanley. I'll wait upon you.

[Exeunt.

Enter GLOSTER.

e.-Alas!

Glost. 'Twas her excuse, to avoid me.

She keeps no bed

She has health enough to progress far as Chertsey,
Tho' not to bear the sight of me.

I cannot blame her-

Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb,
And, for I should not deal in his soft laws,
He did corrupt frail nature with a bribe,
To shrink my arm up, like a wither'd shrub,
To make an envious mountain on my back,
Where sits deformity, to mock my body;
To shape my legs of an unequal size,
To disproportion me in every part.
And am I then a man to be belov'd?
Oh monstrous thought! more vain than
tion.

Enter LIEUTENANT, hastily.

Lieut. My lord, I beg your grace

my

Glost. Begone, fellow! I'm not at leisure.

ambi

Lieut. My lord, the King, your brother,'s taken ill. Glost. I'll wait on him: leave me friend.

Ha! Edward taken ill!

'Would he were wasted, marrow, bones, and all,

That from his loins no more young brats may rise, To cross me in the golden time I look for.

Enter LADY ANNE, in Mourning, LORD STANLEY,
TRESSEL, GUARDS, BEARERS, with KING HEN-
RY'S Body, and Six LADIES in Mourning.

But see, my love appears-look where she shines,
Darting pale lustre, like the silver moon,
Thro' her dark veil of rainy sorrow!

So mourn'd the dame of Ephesus her love;
And thus the soldier, arm'd with resolution,
Told his soft tale, and was a thriving wooer.
'Tis true my form perhaps may little move her,
But I've a tongue, shall wheedle with the devil :
Why I can smile, and smile, and murder when I smile.
And cry content, to that, which grieves my heart;
And wet my cheek with artificial tears,

And suit my face to all occasions.

Yet hold, she mourns the man, that I have kill'd;
First let her sorrows take some vent-stand here,
I'll take her passion in its wain, and turn

This storm of grief to gentle drops of pity
For his repentant murderer.

[He retires. Lady A. Hung be the heav'ns with black; yield day to night;

Comets, importing change of times and states,
Brandish your fiery tresses in the sky,

And with them scourge the bad revolting stars,
That have consented to King Henry's death.
Oh! be accurst the hand, that shed his blood,
Accurst the head, that had the heart to do it;
If ever he have wife, let her be made
More miserable by the life of him,

Than I am now by Edward's death, and thine.
Glost. Poor girl, what pains she takes to curse her-

self.

[Aside.

Lady A. If ever he have child, abortive be it,

Prodigious and untimely brought to light;
Whose hideous form, whose most unnatural aspect,
May fright the hopeful mother at her view,
And that be heir to his unhappiness.

Now on to Chertsey, with your sacred load.

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

Lady A. What black magician conjures up this fiend,

To stop devo ted charitable deeds?

Glost. Villains, set down the corse, or by St. Paul, I'll make a corse of him that disobeys.

Guard. My lord, stand back, and let the coffin

pass.

Glost. Unmanner'd slave! stand thou, when I command,

Advance thy halbert higher than my breast,

Or, by St. Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot,
And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.
Lady A. Why dost thou haunt him thus, unsated

fiend?

Thou hast but power over his mortal body;
His soul thou canst not reach, therefore begone.
Glost. Sweet saint, be not so hard for charity.
Lady A. If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,
Behold this pattern of thy butcheries.
Why didst thou do this deed? could not the laws
Of man, of nature, nor of Heav'n dissuade thee?
No beast so fierce, but knows some touch of pity.
Glost. If want of pity be a crime so hateful,
Whence is it, thou, fair excellence, art guilty?
Lady A. What means the slanderer?

Glost. Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,
Of these my crimes suppos'd, to give me leave,
By circumstance but to acquit myself.

Lady A. Then take that sword, whose bloody point

still reeks

With Henry's life, with my lov'd lord's, young Ed

ward's,

And here let out thy own, to appease their ghosts.

Glost. By such despair I should accuse myself. Lady A. Why by despairing only canst thou stand excus'd?

Didst thou not kill the king?

Glost. I grant ye.

Lady A. Oh! he was gentle, loving, mild, and virtuous;

But he's in heaven, where thou canst never come. Glost. Was I not kind, to send him thither, then? He was much fitter for that place than earth.

Lady A. And thou unfit for any place, but hell. Glost. Yes, one place else—If you will hear me

name it.

Lady A. Some dungeon.

Glost. Your bedchamber.

Lady A. Ill rest betide the chamber, where thou liest.

Glost. So it will, madam, till I lie in yours.

Lady A. I hope so.

Glost. I know so.

But, gentle Lady Anne,
To leave this keen encounter of our tongues,
And fall to something a more serious method,
Is not the causer of the untimely deaths,

Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,
As blameful as the executioner ?

Lady A. Thou wert the cause, and most accurs'd effect.

Glost. Your beauty was the cause of that effect,
Your beauty! that did haunt me in my sleep,
To undertake the death of all the world,

So I might live one hour in that soft bosom?

Lady A. If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide, These hands should rend that beauty from my

cheeks.