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Tal. No, no, I am but shadow of myself:
You are deceiv'd, my substance is not here;
For what you see, is but the smallest part
And least proportion of humanity:

I tell you, madam, were the whole frame here,
It is of such a spacious, lofty pitch,

Your roof were not sufficient to contain it.

Count. This is a riddling merchant for the nonce ;

He will be here, and yet he is not here :

How can these contrarieties agree?

Tal. That will I show you presently.

He winds a horn. Drums heard; then a peal of ordnance.
The gates being forced, enter Soldiers.

How say you, madam? are you now persuaded,
That Talbot is but shadow of himself?

These are his substance, sinews, arms, and strength,
With which he yoketh your rebellious necks;
Razeth your cities, and subverts your towns,
And in a moment makes them desolate.

Count. Victorious Talbot! pardon my abuse :
I find, thou art no less than fame hath bruited'
And more than may be gather'd by thy shape.
Let my presumption not provoke thy wrath;
For I am sorry, that with reverence

I did not entertain thee as thou art.

Tal. Be not dismay'd, fair lady; nor misconstrue
The mind of Talbot, as you did mistake

The outward composition of his body.

What you have done, hath not offended me:
No other satisfaction do I crave,

But only (with your patience,) that we may
Taste of your wine, and see what cates you have;
For soldiers' stomachs always serve them well.

Count. With all my heart; and think me honoured
To feast so great a warrior in my house. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

London. The Temple garden. Enter the Earls of SOMER-
SET, SUFFOLK, and WARWICK; RICHARD PLANTAGENET,
VERNON, and another Lawyer.

Plan. Great lords, and gentlemen, what means this
silence ?

[4] To bruit is to proclaim with noise, to announce loudly. STEEVENS. Read a lawyer. This lawyer was probably Roger Nevyle, who was afterwards hanged. See W. Wyrcester, p. 478. _ RITSON.

Dare no man answer in a case of truth?

Suf. Within the Temple hall we were too loud;
The garden here is more convenient.

Plan. Then say at once, If I maintain'd the truth;
Or, else, was wrangling Somerset in th' error?
Suf. 'Faith, I have been a truant in the law;
And never yet could frame my will to it;
And, therefore, frame the law unto my will.

Som. Judge you, my lord of Warwick, then between us.
War. Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch,
Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth,
Between two blades, which bears the better temper,
Between two horses, which doth bear him best,
Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye,
I have, perhaps, some shallow spirit of judgment:
But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.

Plan. Tut, tut, here is a mannerly forbearance:
The truth appears so naked on my side,
That any purblind eye may find it out.

Som. And on my side it is so well apparell'd,

So clear, so shining, and so evident,

That it will glimmer through a blind man's eye.

Plan. Since you are tongue-ty'd, and so loath to speak,

In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts:

Let him, that is a true-born gentleman,

And stands upon the honour of his birth,

If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,

From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.

Som. Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer,

But dare maintain the party of the truth,

Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me."

War. I love no colours; and, without all colour

Of base insinuating flattery,

I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet.

Suf. I pluck this red rose, with young Somerset ;

[6] This is given as the original of the two badges of the houses of York and Lancaster, whether truly or not, is no great matter. But the proverbial expression of saying a thing under the rose, I am persuaded came thence. When the nation had ranged itself into two great factions, under the white and red rose, and were perpetually plotting and counterplotting against one another, then, when a matter of faction was communicated by either party to his friend in the same quarrel, it was natural for him to add, that he said it under the rose; meaning that, as it concerned the faction it was religiously to be kept secret. WARBURTON.

The rose (as the fables say) was the symbol of silence, and consecrated by Cupid to Harpocrates, to conceal the lewd pranks of his mother. UPTON.

[7] Colours is here used ambiguously for tints and deceits. JOHNSON.

9

VOL, VI.

F 2

And say, withal, I think he held the right.

Ver. Stay, lords, and gentlemen; and pluck no more, Till you conclude that he, upon whose side

The fewest roses are cropp'd from the tree,

Shall yield the other in the right opinion.

Som. Good master Vernon, it is well objected;o

If I have fewest, I subscribe in silence.
Plan. And I.

Ver. Then, for the truth and plainness of the case,
I pluck this pale, and maiden blossom here,
Giving my verdict on the white rose side.

Som. Prick not your finger as you pluck it off;
Lest, bleeding, you do paint the white rose red,
And fall on my side so against your will.

Ver. If I, my lord, for my opinion bleed,
Opinion shall be surgeon to my hurt,
And keep me on the side where still I am.
Som. Well, well, come on: who else?
Law. Unless my study and my books be false,
The argument you held, was wrong in you;
In sign whereof, I pluck a white rose too.

[TO SOM.

Plan. Now, Somerset, where is your argument?
Som. Here, in my scabbard; meditating that,

Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red.

Plan. Mean time, your cheeks do counterfeit our roses; For pale they look with fear, as witnessing

The truth on our side.

Som. No, Plantagenet,

'Tis not for fear; but anger,-that thy cheeks
Blush for pure shame, to counterfeit our roses;
And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error.
Plan. Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset ?
Som. Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet?
Plan. Ay, sharp and piercing, to maintain his truth ;
Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood.

Som. Well, I'll find friends to wear my bleeding-roses That shall maintain what I have said is true,

Where false Plantagenet dare not be seen.

Plan. Now, by this maiden blossom in my hand.

I scorn thee and thy fashion, peevish boy.

Suf. Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet.
Plan. Proud fool, I will; and scorn both him and thee.

[6] Properly thrown in our way, justly proposed. JOHNSON.

Suf. I'll turn my part thereof into thy throat. Som. Away, away, good William De-la-Poole ! We grace the yeoman, by conversing with him.

my words

War. Now, by God's will, thou wrong'st him, Somerset ;
His grandfather was Lionel, duke of Clarence,
Third son to the third Edward king of England;
Spring crestless yeomen from so deep a root ?1
Plan. He bears him on the place's privilege,'
Or durst not, for his craven heart, say thus.
Som. By him that made me, I'll maintain
On any plot of ground in Christendom:
Was not thy father, Richard, Earl of Cambridge,
For treason executed in our late king's days?
And, by his treason, stand'st not thou attainted,
Corrupted, and exempt from ancient gentry ?3
His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood;
And, till thou be restor❜d, thou art a yeoman.
Plan. My father was attached, not attainted
Condemn'd to die for treason, but no traitor;
And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset,
Were growing time once ripen'd to my will.
For your partaker Poole, and you yourself,
I'll note you in my book of memory,

To scourge you for this apprehension :
Look to it well; and say you are well warn'd.

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Som. Ay, thou shalt find us ready for thee still :
And know us, by these colours, for thy foes;
For these my friends, in spite of thee, shall wear.
Plan. And, by my soul, this pale and angry rose,
As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate,
Will I for ever, and my faction, wear;
Until it wither with me to my grave,
Or flourish to the height of my degree.

Suf. Go forward, and be chok'd with thy ambition!
And so farewell, until I meet thee next.

[Exit.

Som. Have with thee, Poole.-Farewell, ambitious

Richard.

[Exit.

Plan. How I am brav'd, and must perforce endure it!

[9] The author mistakes. Plantagenet's paternal grandfather was Edmund of Langley, Duke of York. His maternal grandfather was Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, who was the son of Philippa the daughter of Lionel, Duke of Clarence. The duke therefore was his maternal great great grandfather. MALONE. i. e. those who have no right to arms. WARBURTON.

The Temple, being a religious house, was an asylum, a place of exemption,

from violence, revenge, and bloodshed. JOHNSON.

[3] Exempt for excluded. [4] Apprehension, that is opinion. WARBURTON.

War. This blot, that they object against your house, Shall be wip'd out in the next parliament,

Call'd for the truce of Winchester and Gloster :
And, if thou be not then created York,
I will not live to be accounted Warwick.
Meantime, in signal of my love to thee,
Against proud Somerset, and William Poole,
Will I upon thy party wear this rose :
And here I prophesy,-This brawl to-day,
Grown to this faction, in the Temple garden,
Shall send, between the red rose and the white,
A thousand souls to death and deadly night.

Plan. Good master Vernon, I am bound to you,
That you on my behalf would pluck a flower.
Ver. In your behalf still will I wear the same.
Law. And so will I.

Plan. Thanks, gentle sir.

Come, let us four to dinner: I dare say,
This quarrel will drink blood another day.

SCENE V.

The same. A Room in the Tower.

[Exeunt.

Enter MORTIMER, brought in a chair by two Keepers.

Mor. Kind keepers of my weak decaying age,

Let dying Mortimer here rest himself.

Even like a man new haled from the rack,
So fare my limbs with long imprisonment :
And these grey locks, the pursuivants of death,'
Nestor-like aged, in an age of care,

[4] Mr. Edwards in his MS. notes observes, that Shakespeare has varied from the true history to introduce this scene between Mortimer and Richard Plantagenet. Edmund Mortimer served under Henry V. in 1422, and died unconfined in Ireland in 1424. Holinshed says, that Mortimer was one of the mourners at the funeral of Henry the V. STEEVENS.

I am aware, and could easily show, that some of the most interesting events. not only in the Chronicles of Hall and Holinshed, but in the Histories of Rapin, Hume and Smollet, are perfectly fabulous and unfounded, which are nevertheless constantly cited and regarded as incontrovertible facts. But, if modern writers, standing as it were, upon the shoulders of their predecessors, and possessing innumerable other advantages, are not always to be depended on, what allowances ought we not to make for those who had neither Rymer, nor Dugdale, nor Sanford to consult, who could have no access to the treasuries of Cotton or Harley, nor were permitted the inspection of a public record? If this were the case with the historian, what can be expected from the dramatist? He naturally took for fact what he found in history, and is by no means answerable for the misinformation of his authority. RITSON.

[5] Pursuivants. The heralds that, forerunning death, proclaim its approach. JOHNSON

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