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Mowb. However heaven, or fortune, caft my lot,
There lives, or dies, true to king Richard's throne,
A loyal, juft, and upright gentleman.
Never did captive with a freer heart

Caft off his chains of bondage, and embrace
His golden uncontroul'd enfranchisement,
More than my dancing foul doth celebrate
This feaft of battle, with mine adversary.-
Moft mighty liege, and my companion peers,
Take from my mouth the wish of happy years:
As gentle and as jocund, as to jeft 6,

Go I to fight: truth hath a quiet breast.

K. Rich. Farewell, my lord: fecurely I efpy Virtue with valour couched in thine eye... Order the trial, marfhal, and begin.

Mar. Harry of Hereford, Lancafter, and Derby, Receive thy lance; and heaven defend thy right Boling. Strong as a tower in hope, I cry-Amen. Mar. Go bear this lance to Thomas duke of Norfolk.

1 Her. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, Stands here for God, his fovereign, and himself, On pain to be found falfe and recreant,

To prove the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,
A traitor to his God, his king, and him;

And dares him to fet forward to the fight.

2 Her. Here ftandeth Thomas Mowbray, duke of
Norfolk,

On pain to be found falfe and recreant,
Both to defend himself, and to approve
Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
To God, his fovereign, and to him, difloyal;

• As gentle and as jocund, as to JEST, ] Not fo neither. We fhould read, to JUST; i. e. to tilt or tournay, which was a a kind of sport too. WARBURTON.

The fenfe would perhaps have been better if the author had written what his commentator fubftitutes; but the rhyme, to which fenfe is too often enflaved, obliged Shakespeare to write jeft, and obliges us to read it. JOHNSON.

Courageously,

Courageously, and with a free defire,

Attending but the signal to begin. [A charge founded. Mar. Sound, trumpets; and fet forward, combatants.

-Stay, the king hath thrown his warder down.
K. Rich. Let them lay by their helmets, and their
spears,

And both return back to their chairs again :-
Withdraw with us; and let the trumpets found,
While we return these dukes what we decree.-

Draw near

[A long flourish; after which, the king
Speaks to the combatants.

And lift, what with our council we have done.
For that our kingdom's earth should not be foil'd
With that dear blood which it hath foftered;
And, for our eyes do hate the dire aspect

Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbour swords;
7 And for we think, the eagle-winged pride
Of fky-afpiring and ambitious thoughts
With rival-hating envy fet you on,

To wake our peace 8, which in our country's cradle

Draws

And for we think, the eagle-winged pride, &c.] These five verfes are omitted in the other editions, and restored from the firft of 1598. POPE.

To wake our peace,which thus rouz'd up

Might fright fair peace,] Thus the fentence ftands in the common reading, abfurdly enough; which made the Oxford Editor, inftead of fright fair peace, read, be affrighted; as if thefe latter words could ever, poifibly, have been blundered into the former by tranfcribers. But his bufinefs is to alter as his fancy leads him, not to reform errors, as the text and rules of criticifm direct. In a word then, the true original of the blunder was this: the editors before Mr. Pope had taken their editions from the folios, in which the text ftcod thus,

-the dire afpect

Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbour Swords;
Which thus rouz'd up-

VOL..V.

-fright fair peace.
L

This

Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle fleep;]
Which fo rouz'd up with boisterous untun'd drums,
And harfh-refounding trumpets' dreadful bray,
And grating fhock of wrathful iron arms,
Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace,
And make us wade even in our kindred's blood:-
Therefore, we banish you our territories.-
You, coufin Hereford, upon pain of death,
Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields,
Shall not regreet our fair dominions,

But tread the stranger paths of banishment.

Boling. Your will be done. This must my comfort

be

That fun, that warms you here, fhall fhine on me ;

This is fenfe. But Mr. Pope, who carefully examined the firft printed plays in quarto (very much to the advantage of his edition) coming to this place, found five lines, in the first edition of this play printed in 1598, omitted in the firft general collection of the poet's works; and, not enough attending to their agreement with the common text, put them into their place. Whereas, in truth, the five lines were omitted by Shakespeare himfelf, as not agreeing to the reft of the context; which, on revife, he thought fit to alter. On this account I have put them into hooks, not as fpurious, but as rejected on the author's revife; and, indeed, with great judgment; for,

To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle
Draws the feet infant breath of gentle fleep,

as pretty as it is in the image, is abfurd in the fenfe: for peace awake is ftill peace, as well as when asleep. The difference is, that peace afleep gives one the notion of a happy people funk in floth and luxury, which is not the idea the speaker would raise, and from which state the sooner it was awaked the better.

WARBURTON,

To this note, written with fuch an appearance of taste and judgment, I am afraid every reader will not fubfcribe. It is true, that peace awake is ftill peace, as well as when asleep; but peace awakened by the tumults of these jarring nobles, and peace indulging in profound tranquillity, convey images fufficiently oppofed to each other for the poet's purpose. To wake peace is to introduce difcord. Peace afleep, is peace exerting its natural influence, from which it would be frighted by the clamours of war. STEEVENS.

And

And those his golden beams, to you here lent,
Shall point on me, and gild my banishment.

K. Rich. Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,
Which I with fome unwillingness pronounce.
The fly-flow hours fhall not determinate
The dateless limit of thy dear exile:
The hopeless word, of never to return,
Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.

Mowb. A heavy fentence, my moft fovereign liege
And all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth.
A dearer merit, not fo deep a maim?,

As to be caft forth in the common air,
Have I deferved at your highness' hands.
The language I have learn'd these forty years,
My native English, now I must forego:
And now my tongue's ufe is to me no more,
Than an unftringed viol, or a harp;
Or, like a cunning inftrument cas'd up,
Or, being open, put into his hands

That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
Within
my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,
Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;
And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance
Is made my gaoler to attend on me.
I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
Too far in years to be a pupil how;

What is thy fentence then, but speechless death,
Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?
K. Rich. It boots thee not to be compaffionate;
After our fentence, plaining comes too late.

"A dearer merit, not fo deep a maim,

Have I deferved

-] To deferve a merit is a phrafe of

which I know not any example. I wish some copy would exhibit,

A dearer mede, and not so deep a maim.

To deferve a mede or reward, is regular and eafy. JOHNSON. compaffionate;] for plaintive. WARBURTON.

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Mowb. Then thus I turn me from my country's

light,

To dwell in folemn fhades of endless night.

K. Rich. Return again, and take an oath with ye. Lay on your royal fword your banish'd hands; Swear by the duty that you owe to heaven, 2 (Our part therein we banish with yourselves) To keep the oath that we adminifter..

You never fhall, fo help you truth and heaven!
Embrace each other's love in banishment;
Nor ever look upon each other's face;
Nor ever write, regreet, or reconcile

This lowering tempeft of your home-bred hate,
Nor ever by advised purpose meet,

To plot, contrive, or complot any ill,

'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land. Boling. I fwear.

Mowb. And I, to keep all this.

Boling. 3 Norfolk-fo far, as to mine enemy-
By this time, had the king permitted us,
One of our fouls had wandered in the air,
Banifh'd this frail fepulchre of our flesh,
As now our flesh is banish'd from this land:
Confefs thy treasons, ere thou fly this realm;

2 (Our part, &c.] It is a question much debated amongst the writers of the law of nations, whether a banish'd man may be ftill tied in allegiance to the ftate which fent him into exile. Tully and lord chancellor Clarendon declare for the affirmative: Hobbs and Puffendorf hold the negative. Our author, by this line, seems to be of the fame opinion. WARBURTON.

3 Norfolk-fo far, &c.] I do not clearly fee what is the fenfe of this abrupt line; but fuppofe the meaning to be this. Hereford immediately after his oath of perpetual enmity addreffes Norfolk, and, fearing some mifconftruction, turns to the king and fays-fo far as to mine enemy-that is, I fhould fay nothing to bim but what enemies may say to each other.

Reviewing this paffage, I rather think it should be understood thus. Norfolk, fo far I have addreffed myself to thee as to mine enemy, I now utter my laft words with kindness and tenderness, Confefs thy treafons. JOHNSON.

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