With Eleanor, for telling but her dream?
Next time I'll keep my dreams unto myself,
And not be check'd.

Glo. Nay, be not angry; I am pleas'd again.

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. My lord protector, 'tis his highness' pleasure,
You do prepare to ride unto St. Alban's,

Whereas the king and queen do mean to hawk.
Glo. I go.-Come, Nell; thou wilt ride with us?
Duch. Yes, my good lord; I'll follow presently.

[Exeunt GLOSTER and Messenger.

Follow I must; I cannot go before,
While Gloster bears this base and humble mind.
Were I a man, a duke, and next of blood,
I would remove these tedious stumbling-blocks,
And smooth my way upon their headless necks:
And, being a woman, I will not be slack

To play my part in fortune's pageant.
Where are you
there? Sir John'! nay, fear not, man,
We are alone; here's none but thee, and I.

Enter HUME.

Hume. Jesus preserve your royal majesty!

Duch. What say'st thou? majesty! I am but grace. Hume. But, by the grace of God, and Hume's advice, Your grace's title shall be multiplied.

Duch. What say'st thou, man? hast thou as yet conferr'd With Margery Jourdain ", the cunning witch,

Sir John!] i. e. Sir John Hume: he was a priest, and to persons of his profession the title of "sir" was of old frequently applied. See "Twelfth-Night," Vol. ii. p. 700. In Davenport's "New Trick to Cheat the Devil," 1639, we meet with this expression :-" Sir me no sirs: I am no knight or churchman." In the old "Contention," 1594, he is called Sir John Hum on his entrance and afterwards, and Sir John in the prefixes.

s With MARGERY JOURDAIN,] It appears (says Douce, Illustr. of Shakesp. ii. 7), from Rymer's "Foedera," Vol. x. p. 505, that in the tenth year of King Henry the Sixth, Margery Jourdemayn, John Virley, clerk, and friar John Ashwell, were, on the ninth of May, 1433, brought from Windsor by the constable of the castle, to which they had been committed for sorcery, before the council at Westminster, and afterwards, by an order of council, delivered into the custody of the lord chancellor. The same day it was ordered by the lords of council, that whenever the said Virley and Ashwell should find security for their good behaviour, they should be set at liberty; and in like manner that Jourdemayn should be discharged on her husband's finding security. This woman was afterwards burned in Smithfield, as stated in the play, and also in the chronicles.

And Roger Bolingbroke, the conjurer?

And will they undertake to do me good?

Hume. This they have promised,—to show your highness A spirit rais'd from depth of under ground, That shall make answer to such questions, As by your grace shall be propounded him.

Duch. It is enough: I'll think upon the questions.
When from St. Alban's we do make return,

We'll see these things effected to the full.
Here, Hume, take this reward; make merry, man,
With thy confederates in this weighty cause.

[Exit Duchess. Hume. Hume must make merry with the duchess' gold, Marry, and shall. But how now, Sir John Hume!

Seal up your lips, and give no words but mum':

The business asketh silent secrecy.

Dame Eleanor gives gold to bring the witch:
Gold cannot come amiss, were she a devil.
Yet have I gold flies from another coast:
I dare not say, from the rich cardinal,

And from the great and new-made duke of Suffolk;
Yet I do find it so: for, to be plain,

They, knowing dame Eleanor's aspiring humour,
Have hired me to undermine the duchess,
And buz these conjurations in her brain.
They say, a crafty knave does need no broker;
Yet am I Suffolk, and the Cardinal's broker.
Hume, if you take not heed, you shall go near
To call them both a pair of crafty knaves.
Well, so it stands; and thus, I fear, at last,
Hume's knavery will be the duchess' wreck,
And her attainture will be Humphrey's fall.
Sort how it will", I shall have gold for all.

[Exit.

Seal up your lips, and give no words but mum:] By the mode in which Hume's name is spelt in the old "Contention," in every edition, he is made to begin his soliloquy with a rhyme-perhaps not intended :—

"Now, sir John Hum, No words but mum."

He also ends with a couplet,

"But whist, sir John: no more of that, I trow,

For fear you lose your head before you go."

10 SORT how it will,] i. e. Let it happen as it will: an etymological use of the word "sort "" very common in our old writers.

SCENE III.

The Same. A Room in the Palace.

Enter PETER, and other Petitioners, with papers.

1 Pet. My masters, let's stand close my lord protector will come this way by and by, and then we may deliver our supplications in sequel'.

2 Pet. Marry, the Lord protect him, for he's a good man. Jesu bless him!

Enter SUFFOLK and Queen MARGARET.

1 Pet. Here 'a comes, methinks, and the queen with him. I'll be the first, sure.

2 Pet. Come back, fool! this is the duke of Suffolk, and not my lord protector.

Suf. How now, fellow! wouldst any thing with me?

1 Pet. I pray my lord, pardon me: I took ye for my lord protector.

Q. Mar. "To my lord protector!" are your supplications to his lordship? Let me see them. What is thine?

1 Pet. Mine is, an't please your grace, against John Goodman, my lord cardinal's man, for keeping my house, and lands, and wife and all, from me.

Suf. Thy wife too! that is some wrong indeed.-What's your's?-What's here? [Reads.] "Against the duke of

1- and then we may deliver our supplications in SEQUEL.] i. e. In sequence or succession: but the first Petitioner makes a very palpable blunder between one word and another. The Rev. Mr. Dyce devotes two pages of his "Few Notes" (pp. 99, 100) to showing that Peter (who does not here speak at all) did not blunder; but the blunder is not by Peter, but by the first Petitioner, 1 Pet. in the old copies: when Peter afterwards speaks he is so called in the prefixes. The Rev. Mr. Dyce (and Mr. Singer after him, though he does not cite his authority) would read "in the coil," and for the sake of their conjecture would spell "coil" quoil, and explain it "in the stir." No speculation could well be more unhappy, and the very words the first Petitioner uses, "I'll be the first, sure," show that he meant sequence, though he said "sequel :" he would make certain of being earliest in the delivery of his petition. If Mr. Dyce and Mr. Singer had but read four lines farther, even they could hardly have refused to see that "sequel" is the very word that is wanted, and that the quil was a very easy and probable corruption for it. They were, however, in such haste to oppose the MS. correction in the folio, 1632, that they would not give themselves time to look at the context.

VOL. IV.

C

Suffolk, for enclosing the commons of Melford."-How now, sir knave!

2 Pet. Alas! sir, I am but a poor petitioner of our whole township.

Peter. [Presenting his petition.] Against my master, Thomas Horner, for saying, that the duke of York was rightful heir to the crown?

Q. Mar. What say'st thou? Did the duke of York say, he was rightful heir to the crown.

Pet. That my master was?? No, forsooth: my master said, that he was; and that the king was an usurper.

Suf. Who is there? [Enter Servants.]-Take this fellow in, and send for his master with a pursuivant presently.We'll hear more of your matter before the king.

[Exeunt Servants with PETER. Q. Mar. And as for you, that love to be protected Under the wings of our protector's grace, Begin your suits anew, and sue to him. Away, base cullions !—Suffolk, let them go. All. Come, let's be gone.

[Tears the petition.

[Exeunt Petitioners.

Q. Mar. My lord of Suffolk, say, is this the guise,

Is this the fashion in the court of England?
Is this the government of Britain's isle,
And this the royalty of Albion's king?
What! shall king Henry be a pupil still,
Under the surly Gloster's governance ?
Am I a queen in title and in style,
And must be made a subject to a duke?
I tell thee, Poole, when in the city Tours

2 That my MASTER was?] The old copy has mistress for "master," an error occasioned, no doubt, by "master" having been denoted, in the MS. from which this play was printed, merely by the letter M. It may be worth while here to insert the reading of the 4to, First Part of the Contention," 1594, as it confirms Malone's alteration of mistress to "master." Peter is there called, in the prefixes, Peter Thump.

66

"Peter Thump. Marry, sir, I come to tel you that my maister said, that the duke of Yorke was true heire unto the crowne, and that the king was an usurer. "Queene. An usurper, thou wouldst say.

"Peter. I, forsooth, an usurper.

"Queene. Didst thou say the king was an usurper?

"Peter. No forsooth; I said my maister said so, th' other day, when we were scowring the duke of Yorks armour in our garret."

Consistently with this reading, mistress is amended to "master" in the corr. fo. 1632. In the old copies, 4to. and folio, Peter is called "the armourer's man" in the stage-direction, Here Peter (like 1 Pet. in the very beginning of the scene) commits an ignorant blunder, " usurer" for usurper,

Thou ran'st a tilt in honour of my love,

And stol'st away the ladies' hearts of France,
I thought king Henry had resembled thee,
In courage, courtship, and proportion;
But all his mind is bent to holiness,

To number Ave-Maries on his beads:
His champions are the prophets and apostles;
His weapons, holy saws of sacred writ;
His study is his tilt-yard, and his loves
Are brazen images of canoniz'd saints.
I would, the college of the cardinals
Would choose him pope, and carry him to Rome,
And set the triple crown upon his head:
That were a state fit for his holiness.

Suf. Madam, be patient: as I was cause
Your highness came to England, so will I
In England work your grace's full content.

Q. Mar. Beside the haught protector, have we Beaufort, The imperious churchman; Somerset, Buckingham, And grumbling York: and not the least of these,

But can do more in England than the king.

Suf. And he of these that can do most of all,
Cannot do more in England than the Nevils:
Salisbury, and Warwick, are no simple peers.

Q. Mar. Not all these lords do vex me half so much,
As that proud dame, the lord protector's wife:
She sweeps it through the court with troops of ladies,
More like an empress than duke Humphrey's wife.
Strangers in court do take her for the queen:
She bears a duke's revenues on her back,
And in her heart she scorns our poverty.
Shall I not live to be aveng'd on her?
Contemptuous base-born callat as she is,
She vaunted 'mongst her minions t'other day,
The very train of her worst wearing gown
Was better worth than all my father's lands,
Till Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter.
Suf. Madam, myself have lim'd a bush for her;
And plac'd a quire of such enticing birds,

base-born CALLAT] "Callat" was a term of abuse applied to women, of frequent occurrence in almost every writer of the time of Shakespeare, as well as considerably earlier. See "The Winter's Tale," Vol. iii. p. 45, but it occurs also in "Othello" and in other plays.