He, that no more must say, is listen’d more

Then they whom youth and ease have taught to glore; More are men's ends mark'd, than their lives before :

The setting fun, and musick at the close",
As the last talte of sweets, is sweetest last;
Writ in rememberance, more than things long part:
Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear,
My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.

York. No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,
As, praises of his state; then, there are found
Lascivious metres; to whose venom found
The open ear of youth doth always liften:
Report of fashions in proud Italy ?;
Whole manners still our tardy apith nation
Limps after, in base imitation.
Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity,
(So it be new, there's no respect how vile,)
That is not quickly buzz'd into his ears ?
Then all too late comes counsel to be heard,
Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard
Direct not him, whose way himself will choose" ;
'Tis breath thoú lack'it, and that breath wilt thou lose.

Gaunt. Methinks, I am a prophet new inspir'd;
And thus, expiring, do foretell of him :
His rafh' fierce blaze of riot cannot last;
For violent fires foon burn out themselves :
Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short ;
He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;
With eager feeding, food doth choke the feeder:

0 m at ibe close, ] This I suppose to be a musical term. STEEVENS.

7 Report of fashions in proud Italy ;] Our author, who gives to all nations the customs of England, and to all ages the manners of his own, bas charged the times of Richard with a folly not perhaps known then, but very frequent in Shakfpeare's time, and much lamented by the wiseft and best of our ancestors. JOHNSON.

& Wbere will dotb mutiny with wit's regard.] Where the will rebels, against the notices of the understanding. JOHNSON.

9- wbose way bimself will choaje;] Do not attempt to guide bim, wbo, whatever thou fralt say, will take his own course. JOHNSON. raft] That is, bally, viokrit. JeHNSON.

Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
Consuming means, foon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd ifle,
This earth of majesty, this feat of Mars,
This other Eden, demy paradise ;
This fortress, built by nature for herself,
Against infection, and the hand of war;
This happy breed of men, this little world;
This precious stone set in the filver fea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands);
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd by their breed 4, and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
(For Christian service, and true chivalry,)
As is the sepulcher in stubborn Jewry,
Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's son:
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leas'd out (I die pronouncing it,)
Like to a tenement, or pelting farms:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious fiege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds;

That 2 Again in feftion, &c.] I suppose Shakspeare meant to say, that inanders are secured by their situation both from war and pefilence.

JOHNSON. In Allot's England's Parnassus, 1600, this passage is quoted" Against inception, &c.” Perhaps the word might be in feftion, if such a word was in use. FARMER.

3-lefs bappier lands;] So read all the editions, except Hanmer's, which has lefs bappy. I believe Shakspeare, from the habit of saying more bappier according to the custom of his time, inadvertently writ lefs bappier. JOHNSON. 4 Feard by tbeir breed,] i. e. by means of their breed. MALONE.

or pelting farm;] See Vol. II. p. 40. n. 5. MALONE. -rollen parcbmeni bonds;] Alluding to the great sums raised by beans and other exactions, in this reign, upon the English subje&ts. Grey.

Gaunt

my

That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself:
O, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!
Enter King RICHARD, and Queen?; AUMER LE ', Bushe,

Green, BAGOT, Ross, and WILLOUGHBY'. York. The king is come : deal mildly with his youth ; For young hot colts, being rag'd, do rage the more.

Queen. How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?
K. Rich. What comfort, man? How is’t with aged Gaunt?

Gaunt. O, how that name befits my composition!
Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old:
Within me grief hath kept a tedious fat;
And who abstains from meat, that is not gaunt?
For sleeping England long time have I watch'd;
Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt:
The pleasure, that some fathers feed upon,
Is strict fast, I mean-my children's looks ;
And, therein fasting, haft thou made me gaunt:
Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,
Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.

K. Rich. Can fick men play so nicely with their names ?

Gaunt. No, misery makes sport to mock itself:
Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me,
I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.

Gaunt does not allude to any loans or exactions extorted by Richard, but to the circumstance of his having actually farmed out his royal realm, as he himself styles it. In the last scene of the first act he says,

“ And, for our coffers are grown somewhat light,

“ We are enforc'd to farm our royal realm." Mason. 7 Queen;] Shakspeare, as Mr. Walpole suggests to me, has deviated from historical truth in the introduction of Richard's queen as a woman in the present piece ; for Anne, his first wife, was dead before the play commerces, and Isabella, his second wife, was a child at the time of his death. MALONE.

8 - Aumerle,] was Edward, eldest son of Edmund Duke of York, whom he succeeded in the title. He was killed at Agincourt. WALPOL E.

9 Ross-] was William Lord Roos, (and so should be printed) of Hamlake, afterwards Lord Treasurer to Henry IV. WALPOLE,

· Willougbby] was William Lord Willoughby of Eresby, who afterwards married Joan, widow of Edmund Duke of York, WALPOLI.

K. Rish.

M

K. Rich. Should dying men flatter with those that live?
Gaunt. No! no; men living flatter those that die.
K. Rich. Thou, now a dying, say'st-thou flatter'st me.
Gaunt. Oh! no; thou dy'it, though I the ficker be.
K. Rich. I am in health, I breathe, I see thee ill.

Gaunt. Now, He that made me, knows I see thee ill ;
Ill in myself to see, and in thee feeing ill.
Thy death-bed is no lesier than the land,
Wherein thou lieft in reputation fick;
And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
Commit'st thy annointed body to the cure
Of those physicians that first wounded thee:
A thousand flatterers fit within thy crown,
Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;
And yet, incaged in so small a verge,
The waste is no whit lesser than thy land.
O, had thy grandfire, with a prophet's eye,
Seen how his son's son should destroy his fons,
From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame;
Depofing thee before thou wert poffess’d,
Which art possess’d now to depose thyself.
Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,
It were a shame, to let this land by lease:
But, for thy world, enjoying but this land,
Is it not more than shame to Thame it so?
Landlord of England art thou now, not king:
Thy state of law is bond-llave to the law?;
And

K. Rich. - Thou, a lunatick lean-witted fool,
Presuming on an ague's privilege,

4

2 Tby state of law is bend-Nave to ibe law;] The reasoning of Gaunt, I think, is this: By feitingibe royalties to farm ibou baff reduced akyself to a fare below sovereignty, ibiu art now no longer king but landlord of England, fubje&t to the same restraint and limitations as other landlords : by making eby condition a state of law, a condition upon which ibe common rules of law can operate, thou art become a bond-Nave to the law ; tbou baft made thyself amenable to laws from wbicb obou wert originally exempt. JOHNSON.

Mr. Heath explains the words fate of law somewhat differently: “ Thy royal estate, which is established by the law, is now in virtue of thy having leated it out, fubjected s.

MALONE.

Dar's

Dar'it with thy frozen admonition
Make pale our cheek; chafing the royal blood,
With fury, from his native relidence.
Now by my seat's right royal majesty,
Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son,
This tongue that runs fo roundly in thy head,
Should run thy head from thy unreverend Moulders.

Gaunt. 0, spare me not, my brother Edward's son,
For that I was his father Edward's son ;
That blood already, like the pelican,
Haft thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd:
My brother Gloster, plain well-meaning soul,
(Whom fair befal in heaven 'mong'st happy fouls !)
May be a precedent and witness good,
That thou respe&t'st not spilling Édward's blood:
Join with the present fickness that I have;
And thy unkindness be like crooked age,
To crop at once a too-long wither'd flower3.
Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!-
These words hereafter thy tormentors be!
Convey me to my bed, then to my grave:-
3 Andeby unkindnefs bè like crooked age,

Toorop at once a roo-long witber'd Hower.] Shakspeare, I believe, took this idea from the figure of Time, who was represented as carrying a fickle as well as a frytbe. A fickle was anciently called a crook, and sometimes, as in the following instances, crooked may mean armed with a crook. So, in Kendall's Epigrams, 1577:

“ The regall king and crooked clowne,

« All one alike death driveth downe." Again, in the rooth fonnet of Shakspeare :

“ Give my love, fame, faster than time wastes life,

“ So thou prevent't his scythe and crooked knife." Again, in the 119th :

“ Love's oot Time's fool, though rofy lips and cheeks

“ Within his bending fickle's compass come.” It may be mentioned, however, that crooked is an epithet bestowed on age in the Tragedy of Locrine, 1595:

“ Now yield to death o'er-laid by crooked age." In that pafiage no allusion to a fcythe can be supposed. STEEVENS.

Shakspeare had probably two different but kindred ideas in his mind, ths bend of age and the fickle of time, which he confounded together.

MASON