Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me. Aum. Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke. K. Rich. What must the king do now? Must he submit? go: The king shall do it. Must he be depos'd? May hourly trample on their sovereign's head: We'll make foul weather with despised tears; Our sighs, and they, shall lodge the summer corn, And make a dearth in this revolting land. As thus ;-To drop them still upon one place, Would not this ill do well?-Well, well, I see To speak with you; may 't please you to come down? K. Rich. Down, down, I come; like glistering Phaeton, Some way of common trade. The early meddling editors changed trade into tread. The original meaning of trade is a course-a path traded or trodden continuously. The trade winds are not winds favourable to commerce, but winds blowing in a regular course. Our modern usage of the word as intercourse for buying and selling, is a secondary meaning engrafted upon the original meaning of habitual course or practice. b Base court-lower court-bas cour. To make the base earth proud with kissing it: Boling. My gracious lord, I come but for K. Rich. Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all. Boling. So far be mine, my most redoubted lord, As my true service shall deserve your love. K. Rich. Well you deserve:-They well deserve to have That know the strong'st and surest way to get. Then I must not say no. SCENE IV.-Langley. The Duke of York's Garden. Enter the QUEEN and two Ladies. Queen. What sport shall we devise here in this garden, To drive away the heavy thought of care? 1 Lady. Madam, we'll play at bowls. Queen. 'T will make me think The world is full of rubs, and that my fortune Runs 'gainst the bias. When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief: Of sorrow, or of joy ? a 1 Lady. Of either, madam. Queen. Of neither, girl: For if of joy, being altogether wanting, It doth remember me the more of sorrow; Or if of grief, being altogether had, It adds more sorrow to my want of joy: For what I have, I need not to repeat; And what I want, it boots not to complain. 1 Lady. Madam, I'll sing. Queen. 'Tis well, that thou hast cause; But thou should'st please me better would'st thou weep. 1 Lady. I could weep, madam, would it do you good. Queen. And I could sing, would weeping do me good, And never borrow any tear of thee. Enter a Gardener and two Servants. My wretchedness unto a row of pins, They'll talk of state: for every one doth so Against a change: Woe is forerun with woe. [QUEEN and Ladies retire. Gard. Go, bind thou up yon' dangling apricocks, Of sorrow or of joy. All the old copies read of sorrow or of grief, which the context clearly shows to be an error. It was corrected by Pope. b And I could sing. Thus all the old copies; but Pope, having corrected the error just above, was satisfied that another error existed, and changed sing to weep. This reading has been adopted in some subsequent editions. We believe that the original was right, and that the sense of the passage was mistaken The queen, who speaks constantly of her sorrow, it may be presumed does weep, or has been weeping The lady offers to sing, but the queen desires sympathy: Thou should'st please me better would'st thou weep." The lady could weep, "would it do you good." The queen rejoins, "And I could sing, would weeping do me good." If my griefs were removed by weeping,-if my tears could take away my sorrow,-I should be ready to sing,-1 could ing, and then, my sorrows being past, I would "never borrow any tear of thee"-not ask thee to weep, as I did just now. Mr. Grant White adopts this reading. abricot. Apricocks. Our modern apricot is from the French But the name came with the fruit from Persiabricoe; and we probably derived it from the Italian. Florio, in his New World of Words, has "Berricocoli-Apricockplumbes." Which, like unruly children, make their sire 1 Serv. Why should we, in the compass of a pale, Keep law, and form, and due proportion, Gard. Hold thy peace :— He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring That seem'd in eating him to hold him up, That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land, 1 Serv. What, think you then, the king shall be depos'd? Gard. Depress'd he is already; and depos'd, "Tis doubt, he will be: Letters came last night To a dear friend of the good duke of York's, That tell black tidings. Queen. O, I am press'd to death through want of speaking! [Coming from her concealment. a Knots disorder'd. The symmetrical beds of a garden were the knots. (See Love's Labour's Lost, Illustrations of Act I.) Thou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden, How dares thy harsh-rude tongue sound this unpleasing news? What Eve, what serpent hath suggested thee Gard. Pardon me, madam: little joy have I Post you to London, and you'll find it so: Doth not thy embassage belong to me, I would my skill were subject to thy curse.- [Exeunt. 1 SCENE I.-" Bolingbroke's camp, at Bristol." We have given, on the next page, an ancient view of Bristol. Redcliffe Church, which is the prominent object in the view, was completed in 1376. 2SCENE II "There the antic sits Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp." We have given a fac-simile from the seventh in the fine series of wood-cuts, called Imagines mortis, improperly attributed to Holbein. It is a wonderful composition; and it is by no means improbable, as suggested by Douce, that the engraving furnished Shakspere with the hint of these splendid lines. SCENE III." By the honourable tomb he swears, That stands upon your royal grandsire's bones." We present, above, a representation of the splendid tomb of Edward III., in Westminster Abbey. The reverence in which the memory of this illustrious king was held by his descendants, and by the people, made this oath of peculiar solemnity. And yet Bolingbroke violated it in an oath-breaking age. We have hithe: to traced the course of events in Shakspere's History of Richard II. by the aid of the Chronicles. Froissart was a contemporary of Richard; and in the days of the king's prosperity had presented him with a book "fair enlumined and written," of which, when the king demanded whereof it treated, the maker of histories "shewed him how it treated matters of love, whereof the king was glad, and looked in it, and read it in many places, for he could speak and read French very well." Holinshed was, in another sense, a "maker of histories." He compiled, and that admirably well, from those who had written before him; and he was properly Shakspere's great authority for the incidents which he dramatised. But we have now to turn to one of the most remarkable documents that affords materials for the history of any period-the narrative of an eye-witness of what took place from the period when Richard, being in Ireland, received the news of Bolingbroke's landing, to the time when the king was utterly prostrate at the feet of the man whom he had banished and plundered. All the historians have been greatly indebted to this narrative. It is entitled, "Histoire du Roy d'Angleterre Richard, Traictant particulierement la Rebellion de ses subiectz et prinse de sa personne. Composee par un gentlehom'e Francois de marque, qui fut a la suite du dict Roy, avecq permission du Roy de France, 1399." The most beautiful, and, apparently, the earliest copy of this manuscript is in the British Museum. It contains sixteen illuminations, in which the identity of the portraits and of the costume is preserved throughout. It appears to have been the property of Charles of Anjou, Count of Maine, and formed part of the Harleian collection. Another manuscript of the same history, which is in the library at Lambeth, was that consulted and quoted by the early historians, and it is called, by Holinshed, "A French Pamphlet that belongeth to Master John Dee :" the name of John Dee, with the date 1575, appears in the last leaf. The author of the Metrical History informs us, in his title, that he was "Un gentilhom'e Francois de marque ;' and, when brought before Bolingbroke, the writer says of himself and his companion, "The herald told him, in the English language, that we were of France, and that the king had sent us with King Richard into Ireland for recreation, and to see the country." This manuscript has been re-published in the twentieth volume of the Archæologia, with a most admirable translation, and notes alike distinguished for their learning and good sense, by the Rev. John Webb. The author of the Metrical History, with his companion, "in the year one thousand and four hundred save one, quitted Paris, full of joy ;" and, travelling late and early, reached London. He found that Richard had set out, anxious to journey day and night. He followed him to Milford Haven, where "he waited ten days for the north-wind, and passed his time pleasantly amidst trumpets and the sounds of minstrelsy." The king had proceeded to Waterford, whither the French knight at length followed him. Six days afterwards the king took the field, with the English, for Kilkenny, whence, after a fortnight's delay, he marched directly to wards Mac-more (the Irish chieftain) into the depths of the deserts, who, with his wild men-Shakspere's "rough rugheaded kerns"-defied England and its power. The usual accompaniment of war was not want |