Whilst we were wandring with the antipodes,
Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,
His treasons wil sit blushing in his face,
Not able to endure the light of day;
But, self-affrighted, tremble at his sin.
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balın from an anointed king;
5 The breath of worldly men cannot depcle
The deputy elected by the lord.
For every man that Bolingbroke hath preft,
To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
Heaven for his Richard hath in heavenly pay
A glorious angel : chen, if angels fight,
Weak men must fall; for heaven still guards the right,

. Enter Salisbury. Welcome, my lord; how far off lies your power?

Sal. Nor near, nor further off, my gracious lord, Than this weak arm : discomfort guides my tongue, And bids me speak of nothing but despair. One day too late, I fear, my noble lord, Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth. Oh, call back yesterday, bid time return, And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men ! To-day, to-day- unhappy day, too late O’ertlırows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state ; For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead, ' Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispers’d and Aed. Allm. Comfort, my liege; why looks your grace so

pale? K. Pich. But now the blood of twenty thousand

men

Oh, call band have twelv day, too land thy state ;

Did triumph in my face, and they are fled. And till so much blood thither come again,

Have I not reason to look pale, and dead? All souls, that will be safe, fly from my side; For time hath set a blot upon my pride.

Aum. 6 Comfort, my liege ; remember who you are.

K. Rich. I had forgot myself. Am I not king? Awake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest; Is not the king's name forty thousand names ? Arm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes At thy great glory.-Look not to the ground, Ye favourites of a king; are we not high? High be our thoughts. I know, my uncle York Hath power to serve our turn. But who comes here?

Enter Scroop. Scroop. More health and happiness betide my liege, Than can my care-tun'd tongue deliver him!

K. Rich. 7 Mine ear is open, and my heart pre

par'd.

The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.
Say, is my kingdom lost? why, 'twas my care ;
And what loss is it, to be rid of care ?
Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?
Greater he shall not be; if he serve God,
We'll serve him too, and be his fellow so.
Revolt our subjects ? that we cannot mend ;
They break their faith to God, as well as us.
Cry, woe, destruction, ruin, lofs, decay;
The worst is-death, and death will have his day.

o Comfort, my liege; remember who you are.] Thus the first quarto and the folio. The quarto, 1615, reads, “Comfort, my liege ; why looks your grace so pale ?”

STEEVENS. ? Mine ear is open, &c.] It seems to be the design of the poet to raise Richard to esteem in his fall, and consequently to interest the reader in his favour. He gives him only pasíve fortitude, the virtue of a confeffor rather than of a king. In his prosperity we saw him imperious and oppressive ; but in his ditress he is wife, patient, and pious. JOHNSON.

Scroop. Scroop. Glad am I, that your highness is so arm’d To bear the tidings of calamity. Like an unseasonable stormy day, Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores, As if the world were all diffolv'd to tears, So high above his limits swells the rage Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land With hard bright steel, and hearts harder than steel. White beards have arm’d their thin and hairless scalps Against thy majesty ; boys, with womens' voices, Strive to speak big, and clasp their female joints In stiff unwieldy arms, against thy crown. 8 Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows 9 Of double-fatal yew against thy state: Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills. Against thy seat both young and old rebel, And all goes worse than I have power to tell. K. Rich. Too well, too well, thou tell’it a tale fo

ill. Where is the earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot ?

What Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows] Such is the read. ing of all the copies, yet I doubt whether bead/men be right, for the bow seems to be mentioned here as the proper weapon of a bead man. The king's beadmen were his chaplains. Trevisa calls himself the beadsman of his patron. Beudsman might likewise be any man maintained by charity to pray for their bene. factor. Hanmer reads the very beadjmen, but thy is better.

JOHNSON. The reading of the text is right enough, “ As boys trive to. “ speak big, and clasp their effeminate joints in ftiff unwieldy “ arms,” &c. “ so his very bead/men learn to bend their bows « against him.” Their does not absolutely denote that the bow was their usual or proper weapon ; but only taken up and appropriated by them on this occasion. PERCY.

9 Of double-fatal yew ] Called so, because the leaves of the yew are poison, and the wood is employed for instruments of death ; therefore double futal should be with an hyphen.

WARBURTON. 1 Where is the earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot?

What is become of Bushy? where is Green?] Here are four of them named ; and, within a very few lines, the king, hearing they had made their peace with Boling broke, calls them THRIE

Judasses.

What is become of Bushy? where is Green?

That they have let the dangerous enemy
Measure our confines with such peaceful steps ?
If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it.
I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.
Scroop. Peace they have made with him, indeed, my

lord. K. Rich. O villains, vipers, damn'd without re

demption ! Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man! Snakes in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart! Three Judasses, each one thrice worse than Judas ! Would they make peace ? terrible hell make war Upon their spotted souls for this offence!

Scroop. Sweet love, I fee, changing his property, Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate. Again uncurse their souls; their peace is made With heads, and not with hands: those, whom you

curse, Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound And lie full low, grav'd in the hollow'd ground. Aum. Is Bushy, Green, and the earl of Wiltshire

dead ?

Judasses. But how was their peace made? Why, with the loss of their heads. This being explained, Aumerle says, Is Bushy, Grein, and the earl of Wiltshire dead? So that Bagot ought to be left out of the question : and, indeed, he had made the best of his way for Chester, and from thence had escaped into Ireland. And so we find him, in the second act, determining to do..

Bagot. No: l'll to Ireland, to his majesty. The poet could not be guilty of so much forgetfulness and absurdity. The transcribers must have blundered. It seems probable to me that he wrote, as I have conjecturally altered the texi,

Where is the earl of Wiltshire? where is be got? i. t. into what corner of my dominions is he junk, and abfcorded ? THEOBALD.

This emendation Dr. Warburton adopts. Hanmer leaves a blank after Wiltshire. I believe the author, rather than tranfcriber, made a mistake. Where is he got does not found in my far like an expreffion of Shakespeare. JOHNSON,

Scroop:

Pan.

Scroop. Yea, all of them at Bristol lost their heads.
Aum. Where is the duke my father, with his power?
K. Rich. No matter where; of comfort no man

speak :
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs ;
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth!
Let's chuse executors, and talk of wills
And yet not fo— for what can we bequeath,
Save our deposed bodies to the ground ?
Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own, but death;
2 And that small model of the barren earth,
3 Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For heaven's fake, let us fit upon the ground,
And teil sad stories of the death of kings :-
How some have been depos'd 4, some slain in war ;
Some poison’d by their wives, some sleeping kill'd;
All murther'd:—for within the hollow crown,
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,
Keeps death his court : and 5 there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp ;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear’d, and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh, which walls about our life,

2 And that small model of the barren earth,] He uses model here, as he frequently does elsewhere, for part, portion.

WARBURTON. He uses model for mould. That carth, which closing upon the . body, takes its form. This interpretation the next line seems to authorize. JOHNSON.

3 li bich serves as pafle, &c.] A metaph r, not of the most fublime kind, taken from a pie. JOHNSON.

4 The ghofis they have depos’d;] Such is the reading of all the old copies. The modern editors, in the room of have depos’d, subllituted disposjefs'd. STEEVENS.

s—there the antic hits, i Here is an allusion to the artic or fool of old farces, whole chief port is to deride and disturb the graver and more splendid personages. JOHNSON.

Were