32

Love they to live, that love and honour have. [Exit, borne out by his attendants.

K. Rich. And let them die, that age and fullens have; For both haft thou, and both become the grave.

York. I do beseech your majefty, impute his words To wayward ficklinefs and age in him:

He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear

As Harry duke of Hereford, were he here.

K. Rich. Right; you fay true: as Hereford's love, fo his. As theirs, fo mine; and all be as it is.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND 5.

North. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majefty.

K. Rich. What says he?

North. Nay, nothing; all is faid:

His tongue is now a ftringless instrument;

Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.

York. Be York the next that must be bankrupt fo!
Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.

K. Rich. The ripest fruit first falls, and fo doth he;
His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be :
So much for that.-Now for our Irish wars :
We must fupplant those rough rug-headed kerns;
Which live like venom, where no venom elfe',
But only they, hath privilege to live.
And, for thefe great affairs do afk some charge,
Towards our affistance, we do feize to us
The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables,
Whereof our uncle Gaunt did ftand poffefs'd.

York. How long fhall I be patient? Ah, how long
Shall tender duty make me fuffer wrong?

Not Glofter's death, nor Hereford's banishment,

4 Love they-] That is, let them love. JOHNSON.

5

7

Northumberland-] was Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland.

WALPOLE.

MASON.

our pilgrimage must be :] i. e. is yet to come.
where no venom elfe,] This alludes to a tradition that St. Pa-

trick freed the kingdom of Ireland from venomous reptiles of every kind. STEEVENS.

Not

Not Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,
Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke
About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,
Have ever made me four my patient cheek,
Or bend one wrinkle on my fovereign's face.-
I am the last of noble Edward's fons,
Of whom thy father, prince of Wales, was first;
In war was never lion rag'd more fierce,
In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
Than was that young and princely gentleman;
His face thou haft, for even fo look'd he,
Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;
But, when he frown'd, it was against the French,
And not against his friends: his noble hand
Did win what he did fpend, and spent not that
Which his triumphant father's hand had won :
His hands were guilty of no kindred's blood,
But bloody with the enemies of his kin.
O, Richard! York is too far gone with grief,
Or else he never would compare between.

K. Rich. Why, uncle, what's the matter?
York. O, my liege,

Pardon me, if you pleafe; if not, I pleas'd
Not to be pardon'd, am content withal.
Seek you to feize, and gripe into your hands,
The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?
Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not Hereford live?
Was not Gaunt juft? and is not Harry true?
Did not the one deserve to have an heir?

Is not his heir a well-deferving fon?

Take Hereford's rights away, and take from time
His charters, and his cuftomary rights;

8 Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke

About bis marriage,] When the duke of Hereford, after his banishment, went into France, he was honourably entertained at that court, and would have obtained in marriage the only daughter of the duke of Berry, uncle to the French king, had not Richard prevented the match. STEEVENS.

? Accomplish'd with the number of thy bours;] i. e. when he was of thy age. MALONE.

VOL. V.

D

Let

Let not to-morrow then enfue to-day;
Be not thyfelf, for how art thou a king,
But by fair fequence and fucceffion?
Now, afore God, (God forbid, I fay true!)
If you do wrongfully feize Hereford's rights,
Call in the letters patents that he hath
By his attornies-general to fue

His livery, and deny his offer'd homage',
You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,
You lose a thousand well-difpofed hearts,
And prick my tender patience to thofe thoughts
Which honour and allegiance cannot think.

K. Rich. Think what you will; we feize into our hands

His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.

York. I'll not be by, the while: My liege, farewel: What will enfue hereof, there's none can tell;

But by bad courfes may be understood,

That their events can never fall out good.

[Exit.

K. Rich. Go, Bufhy, to the earl of Wiltshire ftraight;

Bid him repair to us to Ely-house,

To fee this bufinefs: To-morrow next

We will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow;

And we create, in abfence of ourself,

Our uncle York lord-governor of England,
For he is juft, and always lov'd us well.-
Come on, our queen: to-morrow must we part;
Be merry, for our time of stay is fhort.

[Flourish.

[Exeunt King, Queen, Bus. AUM. GRE. and BAG. North. Well, lords, the duke of Lancaster is dead. Rofs. And living too; for now his fon is duke. Willo. Barely in title, not in revenue.

North. Richly in both, if justice had her right.

Rofs. My heart is great; but it muft break with filence, Ere't be difburden'd with a liberal tongue.

North. Nay, fpeak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak

more,

That speaks thy words again, to do thee harm!

1

deny Lis offer'd bomage,] That is, refuse to admit the homage, by which he is to hold his lands. JOHNSON.

Willo. Tends that thou'dft speak, to the duke of

Hereford ?

If it be fo, out with it boldly, man;

Quick is mine ear, to hear of good towards him.
Rofs. No good at all, that I can do for him;

Unless you call it good, to pity him,

Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.

North. Now, afore heaven, 'tis fhame, fuch wrongs
are borne,

In him a royal prince, and many more
Of noble blood in this declining land.
The king is not himself, but bafely led
By flatterers, and what they will inform,
Merely in hate, 'gainft any of us all,
That will the king feverely profecute

'Gainft us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.

Rofs. The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes,
And quite loft their hearts: the nobles hath he fin'd
For ancient quarrels, and quite loft their hearts.
Willo. And daily new exactions are devis'd;
As-blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what:
But what, o'God's name, doth become of this?
North.Wars have not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not,
But bafely yielded upon compromise

That which his ancestors atchiev'd with blows:
More hath he spent in peace, than they in wars.
Rofs. The earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.
Willo. The king's grown bankrupt, like a broken man.
North. Reproach, and diffolution, hangeth over him.
Rofs. He hath not money for thefe Irish wars,
His burthenous taxations notwithstanding,
But by the robbing of the banish'd duke.

North. His noble kinfman:-Moft degenerate king!
But, lords, we hear this fearful tempeft fing,

Yet feek no fhelter to avoid the ftorm:

We fee the wind fit fore upon our fails,

And yet we strike not 2, but fecurely perish 3.

Rofs.

2 And yet we strike not,] To frike the fails, is, to contra them when there is too much wind. JOHNSON.

3 - but securely perish.] We perish by too great confidence in our

VOL. V.

D 2

fecurity,

Rofs. We fee the very wreck that we must fuffer; And unavoided is the danger now

For fuffering fo the caufes of our wreck.

North. Not fo; even through the hollow eyes of death, I fpy life peering; but I dare not fay,

How near the tidings of our comfort is.

Willo. Nay, let us fhare thy thoughts, as thou doft ours. Rofs. Be confident to fpeak, Northumberland:

We three are but thyfelf; and, fpeaking fo,

Thy words are but as thoughts; therefore, be bold. North. Then thus:-I have from Port le Blanc, a bay In Britany, receiv'd intelligence,

That Harry Hereford, Reignold lord Cobham,

[The fon of Richard earl of Arundel,]

That late broke from the duke of Exeter,

His

fecurity. The word is ufed in the fame fenfe in the Merry Wives of Windfor: "Though Ford be a fecure fool, &c. MALONE.

And unavoided is the danger-] Unavoided is, I believe, here used for unavoidable. MALONE.

5 The fon of Richard earl of Arundel,

That late broke from the duke of Exeter,] For the infertion of the line included within crotchets, I am anfwerable; it not being found in the old copies. Mr. Steevens obferved, that "all the perfons enumerated in Holinthed's account of thofe embarked with Bolingbroke are here mentioned with great exactness, except Thomas Arundell, fonne and heire to the late Earle of Arundell, beheaded at the Tower-hill.' And yet this nobleman is the perfon to whom alone that circumftance relates of having broke from the Duke of Exeter." From hence he very justly inferred, that a line must have been loft, "in which the name of this Thomas Arundel had originally a place."

The paflages in Holinihed relative to this matter run thus: "Aboute the fame time the Earl of Arundell's fonne, named Thomas, which was kept in the Duke of Exeter's boufe, efcaped out of the realme, by means of one William Scot," &c. "Duke Henry,-chiefly through the earnest perfuafion of Thomas Arundell, late Archbishoppe of Canterburie, (who, as before you have heard, had been removed from his fea, and banished the realme by King Richardes means,) got him downe to Britaine :— and when all his provifion was made ready, he tooke the fea, together with the faid Archbishop of Canterburic, and his nephew Thomas Arundell, fonne and heyre to the late Earle of Arundell, beheaded on Tower-hill. There were alfo with him Reginalde Lord Cobham, Sir Thomas Erpingham," &c.

There cannot, therefore, I think, be the fmalleft doubt, that a line

was