Whilft we were wand'ring with the antipodes,
Shall fee us rifing in our throne, the east,
His treafons will fit blufhing in his face,
Not able to endure the fight of day;
But, self-affrighted, tremble at his fin.
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wafh the balm from an anointed king;
s The breath of worldly men cannot depofe
The deputy elected by the lord.

For every man that Bolingbroke hath preft,
To lift fhrewd fteel againft our golden crown,
Heaven for his Richard hath in heavenly pay
A glorious angel: then, 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 fpeak of nothing but defpair.
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'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy ftate;
For all the Welfhmen, hearing thou wert dead,
Are gone to Bolingbroke, difpers'd and fled.

Aum. Comfort, my liege; why looks your grace fo pale?

K. Pich. But now the blood of twenty thousand

men

The breath of aworldly men-] Here is the doctrine of indefeasible right expreffed in the ftrongest terms; but our poet did not learn it in the reign of K. James, to which it is now the practice of all writers, whofe opinions are regulated by fashion or intereft, to impute the original of every tenet which they have been taught to think falfe or foolish. JOHNSON,

Did triumph in my face, and they are fled, And till fo much blood thither come again, Have I not reafon to look pale, and dead? All fouls, that will be fafe, fly from my fide; For time hath fet a blot upon my pride.

Aum. Comfort, my liege; remember who you are. K. Rich. I had forgot myself. Am I not king? Awake, thou coward majefty! thou sleepest; Is not the king's name forty thoufand names? Arm, arm, my name ! a puny fubject strikes At thy great glory.-Lock 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 ferve 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

par'd.

heart pre

The worst is worldly lofs thou canft unfold.
Say, is my kingdom loft? why, 'twas my care;
And what lofs is it, to be rid of care?
Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?
Greater he shall not be; if he ferve God,
We'll ferve him too, and be his fellow fo.
Revolt our fubjects? 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.

6

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 fo pale ?"

STEEVENS.

7 Mine ear is open, &c.] It seems to be the defign of the poet to raise Richard to efteem in his fall, and confequently to intereft the reader in his favour. He gives him only paffive fortitude, the virtue of a confeffor rather than of a king. In his profperity we saw him imperious and oppreffive; but in his ditrefs 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 unfeasonable stormy day,

Which makes the filver rivers drown their fhores,
As if the world were all diffolv'd to tears,
So high above his limits fwells the rage

Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land
With hard bright fteel, and hearts harder than steel.
White beards have arm'd their thin and hairlefs fcalps
Against thy majefty; boys, with womens' voices,
Strive to fpeak big, and clafp their female joints
In stiff unwieldy arms, against thy crown.
Thy very beadfmen learn to bend their bows
9 Of double-fatal yew against thy state:
Yea, diftaff-women manage rusty bills.
Against thy feat both young and old rebel,
And all goes worse than I have power to tell.

K. Rich. Too well, too well, thou tell'st a tale fo
ill.

Where is the earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot?

What

Thy very beadfmen learn to bend their bows] Such is the reading of all the copies, yet I doubt whether beadfmen be right, for the bow feems to be mentioned here as the proper weapon of a beadfman. The king's beadfmen were his chaplains. Trevifa calls himself the beadfman of his patron. Beadfman might likewife be any man maintained by charity to pray for their benefactor. Hanmer reads the very beadfmen, but thy is better.

JOHNSON.

The reading of the text is right enough, "As boys strive to fpeak big, and clafp their effeminate joints in stiff unwieldy "< arms," "&c. "fo his very beadfmen learn to bend their bows against him." Their does not abfolutely denote that the bow was their ufual or proper weapon; but only taken up and appropriated by them on this occafion. PERCY.

9 Of double-fatal yew-] Called fo, becaufe the leaves of the yew are poifon, and the wood is employed for inftruments of death ; therefore double fatal fhould be with an hyphen. WARBURTON.

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 Bolingbroke, calls them THREE

Judaffes.

What is become of Bushy? where is Green?
That they have let the dangerous enemy
Measure our confines with fuch peaceful steps?
If we prevail, their heads fhall 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 redemption!

Dogs, eafily won to fawn on any man!

Snakes in my heart-blood warm'd, that fting my heart!
Three Judaffes, each one thrice worse than Judas!
Would they make peace? terrible hell make war
Upon their spotted fouls for this offence!
Scroop. Sweet love, I fee, changing his
Turns to the fourest and most deadly hate.
Again uncurse their fouls; their peace is made
With heads, and not with hands: thofe, whom you
curse,

property,

Have felt the worft of death's deftroying wound
And lie full low, grav'd in the hollow'd ground.
Aum. Is Bufhy, Green, and the earl of Wiltshire
dead?

Judaffes. But how was their peace made? Why, with the lofs of their heads. This being explained, Aumerle fays, Is Busby, Green, and the earl of Wiltshire dead? So that Bagot ought to be left out of the queftion: and, indeed, he had made the best of his way for Chester, and from thence had efcaped into Ireland. And fo we find him, in the second act, determining to do. Bagot. No: I'll to Ireland, to his majesty.

The poet could not be guilty of fo much forgetfulness and abfardity. The tranfcribers must have blundered. It seems probable to me that he wrote, as I have conjecturally altered the text,

Where is the earl of Wiltshire? where is he got?

i. e. into what corner of my dominions is he flunk, and abfconded? 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,

1. Scroop.

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

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make duft our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write forrow on the bofom of the earth!
Let's chufe executors, and talk of wills-
And yet not fo-for what can we bequeath,
Save our depofed 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 Imall model of the barren earth,
3 Which ferves as pafte and cover to our bones.
For heaven's fake, let us fit upon the ground,
And tell fad ftories of the death of kings:-
How fome have been depos'd 4, fome flain in war;
Some poison'd by their wives, fome fleeping 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 fits,
Scoffing his ftate, and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little fcene,

To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks;
Infufing him with felf 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 elfewhere, for part, portion.

WARBURTON.

He uses model for mould. That earth, which clofing upon the body, takes its form. This interpretation the next line feems to authorize. JOHNSON.

3 Which ferves as pafte, &c.] A metaphor, not of the mot fublime kind, taken from a pie. JOHNSON.

4 The ghosts they have depos'd;] Such is the reading of all the old copies. The modern editors, in the room of have depos'd, fubflituted difpoffefs'd. STEEVENS.

5-there the antic fits,] Here is an allufion to the antic or fool of old farces, whole chief part is to deride and diflurb the graver and more fplendid perfonages. JoHNSON.

Were