May hourly trample on their sovereign's head;
For on my heart they tread, now whilst I live,
And, buried once, why not upon my head ?—
Aumerle, thou weep'st; my tender-hearted cousin!-
We'll make foul weather with despised tears;
Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn,
And make a dearth in this revolting land:
Or shall we play the wantons with our woes,
And make some pretty match with shedding tears?
As thus ;-to drop them still upon one place,
Till they have fretted us a pair of graves

Within the earth; and, therein laid, there lies
Two kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping eyes.
Would not this ill do well ?-Well, well, I see
I talk but idly, and you mock at me.—
Most mighty prince, my lord Northumberland,
What says king Bolingbroke? will his majesty
Give Richard leave to live till Richard die ?
You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says I'.

North. My lord, in the base court he doth attend
To speak with you: may't please you to come down?
K. Rich. Down, down, I come; like glistering Phaeton,
Wanting the manage of unruly jades.

[NORTH. retires again to BOLING. In the base court? Base 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 shriek, where mounting larks should sing.

Boling. What says his majesty?
North.

[Exeunt, from above.

Sorrow and grief of heart

Makes him speak fondly, like a frantic man:

Yet he is come.

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

1

7 You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says I.] This is one of the cases in which the rhyme renders it necessary that we should preserve the old spelling of ay, viz. "I." Another instance of orthography sacrificed to sound occurs in "All's Well that Ends Well," A. v. sc. 3. Vol. ii. p. 619. The spelling of ay "I" may be said to have been almost universal with our old dramatists, and it has now and then been the source of confusion.

[Kneeling.

And show fair duty to his majesty.

My gracious lord,

K. Rich. Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee,

To make the base earth proud with kissing it:

Me rather had, my heart might feel your love,
Than my unpleas'd eye see your courtesy.
Up, cousin, up: your heart is up, I know,
Thus high at least, although your knee be low.
Boling. My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.
K. Rich. Your own is your's; and I am your's, and all.
Boling. So far be mine, my most redoubted lord,

As

my true service shall deserve your love.

K. Rich. Well you deserve :-they well deserve to have,
That know the strong'st and surest way to get.-
Uncle, give me your hand: nay, dry your eyes;
Tears show their love, but want their remedies.—
Cousin, 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 must what force will have us do.-
Set on towards London.-Cousin is it so ?
Boling. Yea, my good lord.
K. Rich,

Then, I must not say no.
[Flourish. Exeunt.

8 Then, I must not say no.] Mr. Singer here, at second hand as the misspelling shows, quotes from Stowe a passage which Malone had previously cited; but Mr. Singer, omitting one important clause, makes nonsense of the whole, and represents the old chronicler as writing ridiculous English. We extract the passage from the original, just as it stands on p. 521 of the edition of 1605, the reference given by Malone :-"The Duke, with a high sharpe voyce, bad bring foorth the King's horses, and then two little nagges, not worth fourtie franks, were brought forth the king was set on the one, and the Earle of Salisburie on the other; and thus the Duke brought the king from Flint to Chester, where he was delivered to the Duke of Glocesters sonne, and to the Earle of Arundels sonne, that loved him but little, for he had put their fathers to death, who ledde him straight to the Castle." Mr. Singer omits all mention of the Earl of Arundel and his son, and perverts history by making Richard author of the death of only one of the noblemen mentioned. We adduce this merely as an instance of the evil of quoting, without acknowledgment, what others have already adduced, and not even copying that correctly. We are confident that Mr. Singer meant to be accurate, but that is hardly enough in an edition of Shakespeare.

SCENE IV.

Langley. The Duke of YORK's Garden.

Enter the QUEEN, and two Ladies.

Queen. What sport shall we devise 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; some other sport.
1 Lady. Madam, we'll tell tales.

Queen. Of sorrow, 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 sorrow;
Or if of grief, being altogether had,

It adds more sorrow 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 sing.
Queen.
'Tis well that thou hast cause;
But thou shouldst please me better, wouldst thou weep.
1 Lady. I could weep, madam, would it do you good.
Queen. And I could sing, would weeping do me good,
And never borrow any tear of thee.

But stay, here come the gardeners:

Let's step into the shadow of these trees.—
My wretchedness unto a row of pins,
They'll talk of state; for every one doth so
Against a change. Woe is forerun with woe.

[QUEEN and Ladies retire.

9 of sorrow, or of JOY?] All the old copies read, “Of sorrow, or of grief?" Pope made the alteration, which the context fully supports. It is somewhat singular that we here find no change made in the corr. fo. 1632.

Enter a Gardener and two Servants.

Gard. Go, bind thou up yond' dangling apricocks,
Which, like unruly children, make their sire
Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight:
Give some supportance 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 suck
The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.

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

Hold thy peace.

Gard.
He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring,

Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf:

The weeds that his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,
That seem'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.
1 Serv. What! are they dead?
Gard.
They are; and Bolingbroke
Hath seiz'd the wasteful king.-O! what pity is it,
That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land,
As we this garden. We at time of year'

Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees,

Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood',

1 WE at time of year] The word We is not in any of the old copies, but it seems necessary, and most likely had dropped out in the press. In the next line the folio has," And wound the bark." The corr. fo. 1632 puts the passage thus:"At the time of year

We wound the bark," &c.

This is very probably right, but Malone's text, as it stands, has precisely the same meaning, and we do not needlessly alter it.

2 Lest, being over-proud IN sap and blood,] So the 4to, 1597: all later impressions read, "with sap and blood."

With too much riches it confound itself:
Had he done so to great and growing men,
They might have liv'd to bear, and he to taste
Their fruits of duty. All superfluous branches
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live:
Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,
Which waste of idle hours' hath quite thrown down.

1 Serv. What! think you, then, the king shall be depos'd? Gard. Depress'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 press'd to death, through want of speaking.

[Coming forward.

Thou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden,

How dares thy harsh, rude tongue sound this unpleasing

news?

What Eve, what serpent hath suggested thee

To make a second fall of cursed man?

Why dost thou say king Richard is depos'd?

Dar'st thou, thou little better thing than earth,

Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,
Cam'st thou by these ill tidings? speak, thou wretch.
Gard. Pardon me, madam: little joy have I
To breathe these news, yet what I say is true.
King Richard, he is in the mighty hold

Of Bolingbroke: their fortunes both are weigh'd:
In your lord's scale is nothing but himself,
And some few vanities that make him light;
But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,
Besides himself, are all the English peers,

And with that odds he weighs king Richard down.

3

superfluous branches] So every old copy previous to the folio, 1632, which inserts all for the sake of the metre: it had doubtless escaped.

♦ Which waste of idle hours] The folio, 1623, has "waste and idle hours." None of the 4tos. countenance the substitution of and for "of," which, to say the least of it, is otherwise unobjectionable.

5 'Tis DOUBT, he will be:] The folio, 1623, reads, “"Tis doubted he will be," to the injury of the measure. In this part of the scene the folio, 1623, was very careless of the versification.

• To a dear friend of the GOOD duke of York's,] We only point out this as an instance of the way in which words sometimes are lost, and are necessarily supplied: the folios are without the epithet "good" in this line, but it is recovered from the earlier authorities: it is also in MS. in the corr. fo. 1632.