For 'twere no charity: yet, to wash your blood
From off my hands, here, in the view of men,
I will unfold some causes of your deaths.
You have misled a prince, a royal king,
A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,
By you unhappied and disfigur'd clean1.
You have, in manner, with your sinful hours,
Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him;
Broke the possession of a royal bed,
And stain❜d the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks
With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs.
Myself a prince, by fortune of my birth,
Near to the king in blood; and near in love,
Till you did make him misinterpret me,
Have stoop'd my neck under your injuries,
And sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds,
Eating the bitter bread of banishment:
Whilst you have fed upon my signories,
Dispark'd3 my parks, and fell'd my forest woods;
From my own windows torn my household coat,
Raz'd out my impress, leaving me no sign,-
Save men's opinions, and my living blood,—

1 i. e. quite, completely. Thus in Shakspeare's seventy-fifth Sonnet:

And by and by clean starved for a look.'

Quite and cleane to take awaye an opinion from one. Excutere opinionem radicitus.'-Baret.

2 There seems to be no authority for this. Isabel, Richard's second queen, was but nine years old at this period; his first queen, Anne, died in 1392, and he was very fond of her.

3 To dispark signifies to divest a park of its name and character, by destroying the enclosures, and the vert (or whatever bears green leaves, whether wood or underwood), and the beasts of the chase therein; laying it open.

4 The impress was a device, or motto. Ferne, in his Blazon of Gentry, 1588, observes that 'the arms, &c. of traitors and rebels may be defaced and removed wheresoever they are fixed or set.' For the punishment of a base knight see Spenser's Faerie Queen, b. v. c. iii. st. 37.

To show the world I am a gentleman,

This, and much more, much more than twice all this, Condemns you to the death :-See them deliver'd over To execution and the hand of death.

Bushy. More welcome is the stroke of death to me, Than Bolingbroke to England.-Lords, farewell. Green. My comfort is,—that heaven will take our souls,

And plague injustice with the pains of hell. Boling. My Lord Northumberland, see them despatch'd.

[Exeunt NORTHUMBERAND and Others, with

Prisoners.

Uncle, you say, the queen is at your house;
For heaven's sake, fairly let her be entreated:
Tell her, I send to her my kind commends 5;
Take special care my greetings be deliver❜d.
York. A gentleman of mine I have despatch'd
With letters of your love to her at large.

Boling. Thanks, gentle uncle.-Come,lords,away: To fight with Glendower and his complices; Awhile to work, and, after, holiday.

SCENE II.

[Exeunt 6.

The Coast of Wales. A Castle in view.

Flourish: Drums and Trumpets. Enter KING RICHARD, Bishop of Carlisle, AUMERLE, and Soldiers.

K.Rich. Barkloughly Castle call you1 this at hand? Aum.Yea,my lord: How brooks your grace the air, your late tossing on the breaking seas?

After

K. Rich. Needs must I like it well; I weep for joy,

5 Commendations.

6

6 Johnson says here may be properly inserted the last scene of the second act.'

1 The quarto of 1597 reads they.

To stand upon my kingdom once again.-
Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,
Though rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs:
As a long parted mother with her child

Plays fondly with her tears, and smiles, in meeting;
So, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth,
And do thee favour with my royal hands.
Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,
Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense:
But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,
And heavy-gaited toads, lie in their way;
Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet,
Which with usurping steps do trample thee.
Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies:
And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,
Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder;
Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch
Throw death upon thy sovereign's enemies.—
Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords;
This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones
Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king
Shall falter under foul rebellious arms.

Bishop. Fear not, my lord; that Power, that made you king,

Hath power to keep you king, in spite of all.
The means that heaven yields must be embrac'd,
And not neglected; else, if heaven would,

And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse;
The proffer'd means of succour and redress.

Aum. He means, my lord, that we are too remiss;
Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security,
Grows strong and great, in substance, and in friends.
K.Rich. Discomfortable cousin! know'st thou not,
That when the searching eye of heaven is hid
Behind the globe, and lights the lower world,

2 The old copies read that lights,' &c. The alteration was made by Johnson.

Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen,
In murders, and in outrage, bloody here;
But when, from under this terrestrial ball,
He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines 3,
And darts his light through every guilty hole,
Then murders, treasons, and detested sins,
The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,
Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?
So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,-
Who all this while hath revell'd in the night,
Whilst we were wand'ring with the antipodes,--
Shall see us rising in our throne the east,
His treasons will sit blushing in his face,
Not able to endure the sight of day.
But, self-affrighted, tremble at his sin.
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm from an anointed king:
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord 4:

For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd,
To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
God 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 power5? Sal. Nor near, nor further off, my gracious lord,

3It is not easy (says Steevens) to point out an image more striking and beautiful than this in any poet, ancient or modern.'

Here is the doctrine of the divine right of kings, and of the passive obedience of subjects, expressed in the strongest terms. Johnson observes that it has been the fashion to impute the original of every tenet which we have been taught to think false or foolish to the reign of King James I. But this doctrine was never carried further in any country, than in this island, while the house of Tudor sat on the throne.

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:
O, 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 state; For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead, Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispers'd, and fled.

Aum. Comfort, my liege: why looks your grace so pale?

K. Rich. But now, the blood of twenty thousand

men

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.

you are.

Aum. Comfort, my liege: remember who K. Rich. I had forgot myself: Am I not king? Awake, thou sluggard majesty! thou sleep'st. 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 enough 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.

6 The first quarto reads coward majesty.'

7 So in King Richard III. :

'Besides the king's name is a tower of strength.'

See a speech of Antigonus, in Plutarch, of this kind. Vol. ii. 4to. p. 199, Gr.