Enter King Henry, Queen Margaret, Cardinal Beaufort, Somerset, Lords, and others.

'K. Hen. Go, call our uncle to our presence straight:

'Say, we intend to try his grace to-day, If he be guilty, as 'tis published.

'Suff. I'll call him presently, my noble lord.

[Exit. 'K. Hen. Lords, take your places;-And, I

pray you all,

Proceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Gloster, Than from true evidence, of good esteem, "He be approv'd in practice culpable.

*Q. Mar. God forbid any malice should prevail, *That faultless may condemn a nobleman? *Pray God, he may acquit him of suspicion! *K. Hen. I thank thee, Margaret; these words content me much.

Re-enter Suffolk.

How now? why look'st thou pale? why tremblest thou?

Where is our uncle? what is the matter, Suffolk? Suff. Dead in his bed, my lord; Gloster is dead. *2. Mar. Marry, God forefend!

*Car. God's secret judgment:-I did dream to-night,

* The duke was dumb, and could not speak a word. [The King swoons. 'Q. Mar. How fares my lord?--Help, lords! the king is dead.

*Som. Rear up his body; wring him by the nose. * Q. Mar. Run, go, help, help ?—O, Henry, ope

thine eyes!

*Suff. He doth revive again;-Madam, be patient.

*K. Hen. O heavenly God!

* Q. Mar.

How fares my gracious lord?

Suff. Comfort, my sovereign! gracious Henry,

comfort!

K. Hen. What, doth my lord of Suffolk comfort

me?

Came he right now! to sing a raven's note,
* Whose dismal tune bereft my vital powers;
And thinks he, that the chirping of a wren,
By crying comfort from a hollow breast,

'Can chase away the first-conceived sound?
* Hide not thy poison with such sugar'd words.
*Lay not thy hands on me; forbear, I say;
*Their touch affrights me, as a serpent's sting.
Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight!

Upon thy eye-balls murderous tyranny 'Sits in grim majesty, to fright the world. "Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding 'Yet do not go away;-Come, basilisk,

And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight: *For in the shade of death I shall find joy; * In life, but double death, now Gloster's dead. Q. Mar. Why do you rate my lord of Suffolk thus? *Although the duke was enemy to him,

* Yet he, most Christian-like, laments his death: *And for myself,-foe as he was to me, *Might liquid tears, or heart-offending groans, *Or blood-consuming sighs, recall his life,

* I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans, * Look pale as primrose, with blood-drinking sighs, * And all to have the noble duke alive.

'What know I how the world may deem of me? 'For it is known, we were but hollow friends;

It may *So shall my name with slander's tongue be wounded,

be judg'd, I made the duke away:

*And princes' courts be fill'd with my reproach. * This get I by his death: Ah me, unhappy! *To be a queen, and crown'd with infamy!

K. Hen. Ah, wo is me for Gloster, wretched man! Q. Mar. Bewo for me,2 more wretched than he is.

(1) Just now.

(2) i. e. Let not wo be to thee for Gloster, but for me.

* And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart; *And call'd them blind and dusky spectacles, *For losing ken of Albion's wished coast. * How often have I tempted Suffolk's tongue *(The agent of thy foul inconstancy,) *To sit and watch me, as Ascanius did, * When he to madding Dido would unfold *His father's acts, commenc'd in burning Troy? * Am I not witch'd like her? or thou not false like him?

* Ah me,

I can no more! Die, Margaret! * For Henry weeps, that thou dost live so long. Noise within. Enter Warwick and Salisbury. The Commons press to the door.

War. It is reported, mighty sovereign, 'That good duke Humphrey traitorously is murder'd

By Suffolk and the cardinal Beaufort's means. The commons, like an angry hive of bees, "That want their leader, scatter up and down, And care not who they sting in his revenge. Myself have calm'd their spleenful mutiny, 'Until they hear the order of his death.

K. Hen. That he is dead, good Warwick, 'tis too true;

But how he died, God knows, not Henry:
Enter his chamber, view his breathless corpse,
And comment then upon his sudden death.
War. That I shall do, my liege :-Stay, Sal-
isbury,

With the rude multitude, till I return.

[Warwick goes into an inner room, and Salisbury retires.

*K. Hen. O thou that judgest all things, stay my thoughts:

My thoughts, that labour to persuade my soul, * Some violent hands were laid on Humphrey's life! *If my suspect be false, forgive me, God; *For judgment only doth belong to thee!

*Fain would I go to chafe his paly lips * With twenty thousand kisses, and to drain *Upon his face an ocean of salt tears; *To tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk, And with my fingers feel his hand unfeeling : *But all in vain are these mean obsequies; * And, to survey his dead and earthly image, *What were it but to make my sorrow greater?

The folding-doors of an inner chamber are thrown open, and Gloster is discovered dead in his bed: Warwick and others standing by it.

*War. Come hither, gracious sovereign, view this body.

*K. Hen. That is to see how deep my grave is made:

* For, with his soul, fled all my worldly solace; *For seeing him, I see my life in death.1

War. As surely as my soul intends to live With that dread King that took our state upon him To free us from his Father's wrathful curse,

'I do believe that violent hands were laid

Upon the life of this thrice-famed duke.

Suff. A dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn tongue!

'What instance gives lord Warwick for his vow? War. See, how the blood is settled in his face! Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,2

Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless, 'Being all descended to the labouring heart; 'Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,

Attracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy; 'Which with the heart there cools and ne'er returneth

(1) i. e. I see my life destroyed or endangered by his death.

(2) A body becomes inanimate in the commou course of nature, to which violence has not brought a timeless end.