Enter a Meffenger.

Haft. Now, what news?

Mell. Weft of this foreft, fcarcely off a mile, In goodly form comes on the enemy,

And by the ground they hide, I judge their number Upon, or near, the rate of thirty thoufand.

Mowb. The juft proportion that we gave them out. Let us fway on, and face them in the field.

SCENE II.

Enter Weftmorland.

York. What well-appointed leader fronts us here? Mowb. I think, it is my lord of Westmorland. Weft. Health and fair Greeting from our General, The Prince, Lord John, and Duke of Lancaster. York. Say on, my lord of Westmorland, in peace: What doth concern your coming?

Weft. Then, my lord,

Unto your Grace do I in chief addrefs

The fubftance of my fpeech. If that Rebellion
Came like itself, in bafe and abject ronts,
7 Led on by bloody youth, goaded with rage,
And countenanc'd by boys and beggary;
I fay, if damn'd Commotion fo appear'd
In his true, native, and moft proper fhape,
You, reverend Father, and thefe noble lords,
Had not been here to drefs the ugly form

6 Let us fway on,] We fhould read way on, i. e. march WARBURTON.

on.

I know not that I have ever feen favay in this fenfe, but I believe it is the true word, and was intended to exprefs the uniform and forcible motion of a compa& body. There is a fenfe of the noun in Milton kindred to this, where fpeaking of a weighty fword, he fays, It defcends with huge two-banded (way.

7 Led on by bloody youth,~] I believe Shakespeare wrote, heady youth. WARBURTON

I think bloody can hardly be right, perhaps it was moody, that is, furious. So in Scene 8 of this A&t.

Being moody give him line and
Scope

Till that his paffions, like a whale
on ground
Confound themfeltes vaith work-

Of bafe and bloody infurrection

With your fair honours. You, my lord Arch-bishop,
Whofe fee is by a civil peace maintain'd,

Whole beard the filver hand of peace hath touch'd,
Whofe learning and good letters peace hath tutor'd,
Whofe white inveftments figure innocence,
The dove and very bleffed Spirit of Peace;
Wherefore do you fo ill tranflate your felf,
Out of the speech of peace, that bears fuch grace,
Into the harsh and boift'rous tongue of war?
Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,
Your pens to launces, and your tongue divine
To a loud trumpet and a point of war?

*

York. Wherefore do I this? fo the queftion ftands®.
Briefly, to this end. We are all difeas'd,
And with our furfeiting and wanton hours,
Have brought ourfelves into a burning fever,
And we must bleed for it; of which difeafe
Our late King Richard being infected, dy’d.
But, my moft noble lord of Westmorland,
I take it not on me here as a phyfician;
Nor do I, as an enemy to peace,
Troop in the throngs of military men;
But rather fhew a while like fearful war,
To diet rank minds, fick of happiness,

And purge th' obftructions, which begin to ftop
Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.
I have in equal balance juftly weigh'd

What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we fuffer;
And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
We fee, which way the ftream of time doth run,

And are inforc'd from, our, moft Quiet fphere,of
By the rough torrent of occafion;

And have the fummary of all our griefs, op you shm I
When time fhall ferve, to fhew in articles,
Which long ere this we offer'd to the King,
And might by no fuit gain our audience,

dɔ 1.

When we are wrong'd and would unfold our griefs,
We are deny'd accefs unto his perfon, sit be A
Ev'n by thofe men that moft have done us wrong. T
The danger of the days but newly gone, nol o noq
Whofe memory is written on the earth.

With yet appearing blood, and the Examples
Of every minute's inftance, prefent now,
Have put us in thefe ill befeeming arms,
Not to break peace, or any branch of it,
But to establish here a peace, indeed,
Concurring both in name and quality,

Weft. When ever yet was your appeal deny'd? Waals Wherein have you been galled by the King?

What Peer hath been fuborn'd to grate on you,

That you fhould feal this lawlefs bloody book th Of forg❜d Rebellion with a Seal divine, * And confecrate Commotion's Civil edge'?

9 In former Editions: And

are inforc'd from our most quiet THERE,] This is faid in answer to Westmorland's upbraiding the Archbishop for engaging in a courfe which fo ill became his profeffion, it

You my lord Archbishop, Whole See is by a civil peace maintain'd, &c.

So that the reply must be this, And are inforc'd from our most quiet SPHERE WARE. And confecrate, &c.] In one of my old Quarto's of 1600 (for I have Two of the felf-fame Edition; one of which, tis evident, was corrected in fome Paffages during the working off the whole

York

York. My brother General, the Common-wealth, To Brother born an household Cruelty,

I make my quarrel in particular.

t

Weft. There is no need of any fuch redress Or if there were, it not belongs to you.

Mowb. Why not to him in part, and to us all! That feel the bruifes of the days before; And fuffer the condition of thefe times To lay an heavy and unequal hand Upon our honours?

Weft. O my good Lord Mowbray,

confecrate the general's fword, which was employ'd in the fervice of the church. To this custom the line in queftion alludes. As to the cant of uniformity of metaphor in writing, this is to be obferved, that changing the allufion in the fame fentence is indeed vicious, and what Quintilian condemns, Multi quum ini tium à tempeftate fumpferint, incendio aut ruina finiunt. But when one comparison or allufion is fairly feparated from another, by diftinct fentences, the cafe is different. So it is here; in one fentence we fee the book of rebellion fampt with a feal divine; in the other, the Sword of civil difcord confecrated. But this change of the metaphor is not only allowable, but fit. For the dwell ing overlong upon one occafions the difcourfe to degenerate into a dull kind of allegorifin.

WARBURTON,

What Mr. Theobald fays of two editions feems to be true, for my copy reads, commotion's bitter edge, but civil is undoubt. edly right, and one would wonder how bitter could intrude if civil had been written first; perhaps the authour himfelf made the change.

My brother general, &c. I make my quarrel in particular.] The fenfe is this, My brother general, the Common-wwealth, which ought to diflribute its benefits equally, is become an enemy to thofe of his own boufe, to brothers-born, by giving fome all, and others none; and this (fays he) I make my quarrel or grievance, that honcurs are uniqually diftributed; the conftant birth of male-contents, and fource of civil commotions

WARBURTON.

In the first ft folio the fecond line is omitted; yet that reading, unintelligible as it is, has been followed by Sir T. Hanmer. How difficultly fenfe can be drawn from the best reading the explication of Dr. Warburton may thow. I believe there is an errour in the firft line, which perhaps may be rectified thus,

ร

My quarrel general, the common-
awealth,
To Brother born an household
cruelty,

I make my quarrel in particular.
That is, my general caufe of dif-
content is publick mifmanage.
ment, my particular cause a do-
meftick injury done to my natural
brother, who had been beheaded
by the King's order.
X 2

Con

g

H

*Conftrue the times to their neceffities, !
And you fhall fay, indeed, it is the time,
And not the King, that doth you injuries.
Yet, for your part, it not appears to me,
+ Or from the King, or in the present time,
That you should have an inch of any ground
To build a grief on.. Were you not reftor'd
To all the Duke of Norfolk's Seignioriés,
Your noble and right-well remember'd father's? ip
Mowb. What thing, in honour, had my father loft,
That need to be reviv'd and breath'd in me?
The King, that lov'd him, as the State ftood then,
Was, force per force, compell'd to banish him,
And then, when Harry Bolingbroke and he
Being mouuted and both rowsed in their seats,
Their neighing Courfers daring of the spur.

T

Their armed ftaves in charge, their beavers down, Their eyes of fire fparkling through fights of steel, And the loud trumpet blowing them together; Then, then, when there was nothing could have staid My father from the breaft of Bolingbroke, O, when the King did throw his warder down, His own life hung upon the ftaff he threw; Then threw he down himself, and all their lives, That by indictment, or by dint of fword, Have fince mifcarried under Bolingbroke.

[not what. Weft. You fpeak, Lord Mowbray, now, you know The Earl of Hereford was reputed then

In

England the moft valiant gentleman.

Who knows, on whom fortune would then have fmil❜d? But if your father had been victor there,

Confrue the times to their neceffities] That is, judge of what is done in these times according to the exigences that overrule us. 1

the king, it appears not that you have, for your part, been injured either by the king or the time.

Their armed ftaves in charge] An armed ftaff is a lance. To be in charge, is to be fixed for the en

+ Or from the King, &c.] Whether the faults of govern- ~ counter. ment be imputed to the time or

He