Or I'll be bury'd in the king's highway,
Some way of common trade, where fubjects' feet
May hourly trample on their fovereign's head 3:
For on my heart they tread, now whilst I live;
And, bury'd once, why not upon my head?-
Aumerle, thou weep'ft; My tender-hearted coufin !—
We'll make foul weather with defpised tears;
Our fighs, and they, fhall lodge the fummer corn,
And make a dearth in this revolting land.

Or fhall we play the wantons with our woes,
And make fome pretty match with shedding tears?
As thus ;-To drop them ftill upon one place,
Till they have fretted us a pair of graves

Within the earth; and, therein laid,-There lies
Two kinfmen, digg'd their graves with weeping eyes?
Would not this ill do well?-Well, well, I fee
I talk but idly, and you mock at me.-

Moft mighty prince, my lord Northumberland,
What fays king Bolingbroke? will his majefty
Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?
You make a leg, and Bolingbroke fays-ay 4.

North. My lord, in the bafe court 3 he doth attend
To fpeak with you; may't please you to come down.

2 Some way of common trade,] Trade in the fense of either commerce or cuftom. JOHNSON.

The phrafe is ftill ufed by common people. When they speak of a road much frequented, they fay, "it is a road of much traffic." Shakspeare ufes the word in the fame fenfe in K. Henry VIII:

Stand in the gap and trade of more preferments." STEEVENS. 3-on their fovereign's bead :] Shakspeare is very apt to deviate from the pathetick to the ridiculous. Had the fpeech of Richard ended at this line, it had exhibited the natural language of fubmiffive mifery, conforming its intention to the prefent fortune, and calmly ending its purposes in death. JOHNSON.

4-Bolingbroke fays-ay.] Here is another inftance of injury done to the poet's metre by changing his orthography. I, which was Shakfpeare's word, rimed very well with to die; but ay has quite a differ ent found. See a note on the Merry Wives of Windsor, Act V. Vol. I. p. 299, n. 6. TYRWHITT.

In fome counties ay is at this day pronounced with a found very little differing from that of I. MALONE.

5 - base court-] Bas cour.

Fr.

STEEVENS.

K. Rich. Down, down, I come; like gliftering Phaeton, Wanting the manage of unruly jades. [Nor. retires to Bol. In the bafe court? Bafe court, where kings grow base, To come at traitors' calls, and do them grace.

In the base court? Come down? Down, court! down, king!

For night-owls fhriek, where mounting larks fhould fing. [Exeunt, from above.

Boling. What fays his majesty?

North. Sorrow and grief of heart

Makes him fpeak fondly, like a frantick man :

Yet he is come.

Enter King RICHARD and his Attendants, below. Boling. Stand all apart,

And fhew fair duty to his majesty.

My gracious lord,

[kneeling.

K. Rich. Fair coufin, you debafe your princely knee,

To make the bafe earth proud with kiffing it:

Me rather had, my heart might feel your love,
Than my unpleas'd eye fee your courtesy.

Up, coufin, up; your heart is up, I know,

Thus high at least, [touching his own head.] although your

3

As

knee be low.

Boling. My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.

K. Rich. Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all. Boling. So far be mine, my moft redoubted lord,

my true service shall deferve your love.

K. Rich. Well you deferve :-They well deferve to have, That know the strongest and fureft way to get.Uncle, give me your hand: nay, dry your eyes; Tears fhow their love, but want their remedies.Coufin, I am too young to be your father, Though you are old enough to be my heir. What you will have, I'll give, and willing too; For do we muft, what force will have us do.Set on towards London :-Coufin, is it for Boling. Yea, my good lord.

K. Rich. Then I must not fay, no. [Flourish. Exeunt.

SCENE

SCENE IV.

Langley. The duke of York's garden.

Enter the Queen, and two ladies.

Queen. What fport fhall we devife here in this garden, To drive away the heavy thought of care?

1. Lady. Madam, we'll play at bowls.

Queen. "Twill make me think, the world is full of rubs, And that my fortune runs against the bias.

1. Lady. Madam, we'll dance.

Queen. My legs can keep no measure in delight,
When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief:
Therefore, no dancing, girl; fome other sport.
1. Lady. Madam, we will tell tales.
Queen. Of forrow, or of joy?

1. Lady. Of either, madam.
Queen. Of neither, girl:

For if of joy, being altogether wanting,
It doth remember me the more of forrow,
Or if of grief, being altogether had,
It adds more forrow to my want of joy :
For what I have, I need not to repeat;
And what I want, it boots not to complain.
1. Lady. Madam, I'll fing.

Queen. 'Tis well, that thou haft caufe;
Bat thou fhould't please me better, would't thou weep.
1. Lady. I could weep, madam, would it do you good.
Queen. And I could weep 7, would weeping do me good,
And never borrow any tear of thee.

But ftay, here come the gardeners:

Let's step into the fhadow of these trees.

6 Of forrow, or of joy?] All the old copies concur in reading: Of ferro, or of grief. Mr. Pope made the neceflary alteration.

STEEVENS.

7 And I could weep,-] The old copies read: And I could fing.

STEEVENS.

Enter

Enter a Gardener, and two Servants.

My wretchedness unto a row of pins,
They'll talk of state; for every one doth fo
Against a change: Woe is fore-run with woe.

[Queen and ladies retires
Gard. Go, bind thou up yon' dangling apricocks,
Which, like unruly children, make their fire
Stoop with oppreffion of their prodigal weight;
Give fome fupportance to the bending twigs.-
Go thou, and, like an executioner,

Cut off the heads of too-fast-growing sprays,
That look too lofty in our commonwealth:
All must be even in our government.-
You thus employ'd, I will go root away
The noisome weeds, that without profit fuck
The foil's fertility from wholefome flowers.

1. Serv. Why should we, in the compafs of a pale,
Keep law, and form, and due proportion,
Shewing, as in a model, our firm eftate??
When our fea-walled garden, the whole land,
Is full of weeds; her faireft flowers chok'd up,
Her fruit-trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd,
Her knots diforder'd, and her wholesome herbs
Swarming with caterpillars?

Gard. Hold thy peace:

He that hath fuffer'd this diforder'd spring,
Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf:

The weeds, that his broad spreading leaves did shelter,
That feem'd, in eating him, to hold him up,
Are pluck'd up, root and all, by Bolingbroke;
I mean, the earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.

8 Against a change: Woe is fore-run with woe.] The poet, according to the common doctrine of prognoftication, fuppofes dejection to forerun calamity, and a kingdom to be filled with rumours of forrow when any great difafter is impending. The fenfe is, that publick evils are always prefignifyed by publick penfiveness, and plaintive converfation. JOHNSON.

9 our firm eftate?] The fervant fays our, meaning the ftate of the garden in which they were at work. Why (fays he) fhould we be careful to preferve order in the narrow cincture of this our fate, when the great fate of the kingdom is in diforder? STEEVENS.

Serv. What, are they dead?

Gard. They are; and Bolingbroke

Hath feiz'd the wafteful king.-Oh! What pity is it,

That he had not fo trimm'd and drefs'd his land,

As we this garden! We at time of year'

Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees;
Left, being over-proud with fap and blood,
With too much riches it confound itself:
Had he done fo to great and growing men,
They might have liv'd to bear, and he to tafte
Their fruits of duty. Superfluous branches
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live :
Had he done fo, himself had borne the crown,
Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.
Serv. What, think you then, the king shall be depos'd?
Gard. Deprefs'd he is already; and depos'd,

'Tis doubt, he will be: Letters came last night
To a dear friend of the good duke of York's,
That tell black tidings.

Queen. O, I am prefs'd to death

Through want of speaking 3.-Thou, old Adam's likeness,

[Coming from her concealment.

Set to dress this garden, how dares

Thy

We at time of year] The word We is not in the old copies. The context fhews that fome word was omitted at the prefs; and the fubfequent lines

Superfluous branches

We lop away

render it highly probable that this was the word. MALONE.

2 Tis doubt, be will be:] We have already had an instance of this uncommon phrafeology in the prefent play:

He is our coufin, coufin; but 'tis doubt,

When time shall call him home, &c.

Doubt is the reading of the quarto, 1597. The folio reads, doubted. I have found reafon to believe that fome alterations even in that valuable copy were made arbitrarily by the editor. MALONE.

I am prefs'd to dearb

Through want of Speaking.] The poet alludes to the ancient legal punishment called peine fort et dure, which was inflicted on those perfons, who, being arraigned, refufed to plead, remaining obftinately filent. They were prejsed to death by a heavy weight laid upon their ftomach. MALONE.

bow dares

Thy barfo rude tongue &c.] So, in Hamlet :

F 4

"What