He, that no more muft fay, is listen'd more

Then they whom youth and ease have taught to glofe;
More are men's ends mark'd, than their lives before:
The setting fun, and mufick at the close,
As the last tafte of fweets, is fweeteft laft;

Writ in rememberance, more than things long past:
Though Richard my life's counfel would not hear,
My death's fad tale may yet unde af his ear.

York. No; it is ftopp'd with other flattering founds,
As, praises of his ftate, then, there are found
Lafcivious metres; to whofe venom found
The open ear of youth doth always liften:
Report of fashions in proud Italy 7;
Whole manners ftill our tardy apifh nation
Limps after, in bafe imitation.

Where doth the world thruft forth a vanity,
(So it be new, there's no refpect how vile,)
That is not quickly buzz'd into his ears?
Then all too late comes counfel to be heard,
Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard.
Dire& not him, whofe way himself will choose";
"Tis breath thou lack'ft, and that breath wilt thou lofe.
Gaunt. Methinks, I am a prophet new infpir'd;
And thus, expiring, do foretell of him:
His rafh fierce blaze of riot cannot last;

For violent fires foon burn out themselves:
Small fhowers laft long, but fudden ftorms are fhort;
He tires betimes that fpurs too fast betimes;
With eager feeding, food doth choke the feeder:

6 at the clofe,] This I fuppofe to be a mufical term. STEEVENS. 7 Report of fabions in proud Italy ;] Our author, who gives to all nations the customs of England, and to all ages the manners of his own, has charged the times of Richard with a folly not perhaps known then, but very frequent in Shakspeare's time, and much lamented by the wifeft and beft of our ancestors. JOHNSON.

& Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard.] Where the will rebels, against the notices of the understanding. JOHNSON.

whofe way bimself will choose; bo, whatever thou fhalt fay, will take -raft] That is, bafly, violent.

Do not attempt to guide bim, his own course. JOHNSON. JOHNSON.

Light vanity, infatiate cormorant,

Confuming means, foon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this fcepter'd ifle,
This earth of majefty, this feat of Mars,
This other Eden, demy paradife ;

This fortrefs, built by nature for herself,
Against infection, and the hand of war";
This happy breed of men, this little world;
This precious ftone fet in the filver fea,
Which ferves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defenfive to a house,
Against the envy of lefs happier lands3;

This bleffed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
(For Chriftian fervice, and true chivalry,)
As is the fepulcher in ftubborn Jewry,
Of the world's ranfom, bleffed Mary's fon:
This land of fuch dear fouls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leas'd out (I die pronouncing it,)
Like to a tenement, or pelting farm5:
England, bound in with the triumphant fea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious fiege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds;

That 2 Again infection, &c.] I fuppofe Shakspeare meant to say, that inlanders are fecured by their fituation both from war and peftilence. JOHNSON.

In Allot's England's Parnaffus, 1600, this paffage is quoted-" Against inteftion, &c." Perhaps the word might be infeflion, if such a word was in use. FARMER.

3- lefs happier lands;] So read all the editions, except Hanmer's, which has lefs bappy. I believe Shakspeare, from the habit of faying more bappier according to the custom of his time, inadvertently writ lefs bappier. JOHNSON.

Fear'd by their breed,] i. e. by means of their breed. MALONE. S — or pelting farm ;] See Vol. II. p. 40. n. 5. MALONE. 6 -rotten parchment bonds;] Alluding to the great fums raised by leans and other exactions, in this reign, upon the English subjects. GREY.

Gaunt

That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a fhameful conqueft of itself:
O, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my enfuing death!

Enter King RICHARD, and Queen 7; AUMERLE, BUSHY,
GREEN, BAGOT, Ross, and WILLOUGHBY'.
York. The king is come: deal mildly with his youth;
For young hot colts, being rag'd, do rage the more.
Queen. How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?

K. Rich. What comfort, man? How is't with aged Gaunt?
Gaunt. O, how that name befits my compofition!
Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old:
Within me grief hath kept a tedious faft;

And who abftains from meat, that is not gaunt?
For fleeping England long time have I watch'd;
Watching breeds leannefs, leanness is all gaunt:
The pleafure, that fome fathers feed upon,
Is my ftrict faft, I mean-my children's looks;
And, therein fafting, haft thou made me gaunt:
Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,
Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.

K. Rich. Can fick men play so nicely with their names ?
Gaunt. No, mifery makes sport to mock itself:
Since thou doft seek to kill my name in me,

I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.

Gaunt does not allude to any loans or exactions extorted by Richard, but to the circumftance of his having actually farmed out his royal realm, as he himself ftyles it. In the last scene of the first act he says, "And, for our coffers are grown fomewhat light,

"We are enforc'd to farm our royal realm." MASON.

Queen;] Shakspeare, as Mr. Walpole fuggefts to me, has deviated from hiftorical truth in the introduction of Richard's queen as a woman in the prefent piece; for Anne, his first wife, was dead before the play commences, and Ifabella, his fecond wife, was a child at the time of his death. MALONE.

-Aumerle,] was Edward, eldest fon of Edmund Duke of York, whom he fucceeded in the title. He was killed at Agincourt. WALPOLE. 9 Rofs-] was William Lord Roos, (and fo fhould be printed) of Hamlake, afterwards Lord Treasurer to Henry IV. WALPOLE.

Willoughby-] was William Lord Willoughby of Erefby, who afterwards married Joan, widow of Edmund Duke of York. WALPOLE,

K. Righ

K. Rich. Should dying men flatter with those that live?
Gaunt. No! no; men living flatter those that die.
K. Rich. Thou, now a dying, fay'ft-thou flatter'ft me.
Gaunt. Oh! no; thou dy't, though I the ficker be.
K. Rich. I am in health, I breathe, I fee thee ill.
Gaunt. Now, He that made me, knows I fee thee ill;
Ill in myself to fee, and in thee feeing ill.

Thy death-bed is no leffer than the land,
Wherein thou lieft in reputation fick;
And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
Commit'ft thy annointed body to the cure
Of those physicians that first wounded thee:
A thousand flatterers fit within thy crown,
Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;
And yet, incaged in fo fmall a verge,
The wafte is no whit leffer than thy land.
O, had thy grandfire, with a prophet's eye,
Seen how his fon's fon fhould deftroy his fons,
From forth thy reach he would have laid thy fhame;
Depofing thee before thou wert poffefs'd,
Which art poffefs'd now to depofe thyself.
Why, coufin, wert thou regent of the world,
It were a fhame, to let this land by leafe:
But, for thy world, enjoying but this land,
Is it not more than fhame to fhame it fo?
Landlord of England art thou now, not king:
Thy ftate of law is bond-flave to the law 2;
And-

K. Rich. Thou, a lunatick lean-witted fool, Prefuming on an ague's privilege,

2 Thy ftate of law is bond-flave to the law;] The reasoning of Gaunt, I think, is this: By fetting the royalties to farm thou baft reduced thy felf to a ftate below fovereignty, thou art now no longer king but landlord of England, fubject to the fame reftraint and limitations as other landlords: by making thy condition a state of law, a condition upon which the common rules of law can operate, thou art become a bond-flave to the law; thou baft made thyself amenable to laws from which thou wert originally exempt. JOHNSON.

Mr. Heath explains the words ftate of law fomewhat differently: "Thy royal eftate, which is established by the law, is now in virtue of thy having leafed it out, fubjected &c. MALONE.

Dar'ft

Dar'ft with thy frozen admonition

Make pale our cheek; chafing the royal blood,
With fury, from his native refidence.

Now by my feat's right royal majesty,
Wert thou not brother to great Edward's fon,
This tongue that runs fo roundly in thy head,
Should run thy head from thy unreverend shoulders.
Gaunt. O, fpare me not, my brother Edward's fon,
For that I was his father Edward's fon;

That blood already, like the pelican,

Haft thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd:
My brother Glofter, plain well-meaning foul,
(Whom fair befal in heaven 'mong'ft happy fouls!)
May be a precedent and witnefs good,

That thou refpect'ft not spilling Edward's blood:
Join with the prefent fickness that I have;
And thy unkindness be like crooked age,
To crop at once a too-long wither'd flower3.
Live in thy fhame, but die not fhame with thee!—
These words hereafter thy tormentors be!-
Convey me to my bed, then to my grave:-

3 And tby unkindnefs be like crooked age,

To crop at once a too-long wither'd flower.] Shakspeare, I believe, took this idea from the figure of Time, who was reprefented as carrying a fickle as well as a frythe. A fickle was anciently called a crook, and fometimes, as in the following inftances, crooked may mean armed with a crook. So, in Kendall's Epigrams, 1577:

"The regall king and crooked clowne, "All one alike death driveth downe." Again, in the 100th fonnet of Shakspeare:

"Give my love, fame, fafter than time waftes life,
"So thou prevent'ft his fcythe and crooked knife."

Again, in the 119th:

"Love's not Time's fool, though rofy lips and cheeks
"Within his bending fickle's compafs come."

It may be mentioned, however, that crooked is an epithet bestowed on age in the Tragedy of Locrine, 1595:

"Now yield to death o'er-laid by crooked age.”

In that paffage no allufion to a scythe can be fuppofed. STEEVENS. Shakspeare had probably two different but kindred ideas in his mind, the bend of age and the fickle of time, which he confounded together..

MASON