miliarly of John of Gaunt, as if he had been sworn brother to him: and I'll be sworn he never saw him but once in the Tilt-yard; and then he burst his head, for crouding among the marshal's men. I saw it; and told John of Gaunt, he beat his own name;' for you might have truss'd him, and all his apparel, into an eel-skin; the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a court; and now has he land and beeves. Well; I will be acquainted with him, if I return: and it shall go hard, but I will make him a philosopher's two stones to me: If the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason, in the law of nature, but I may snap at him. Let time shape, and there an end. [Exit.

ACT IV.

SCENE I. A Forest in Yorkshire.

Enter the Archbishop of York, MOWBRAY, HASTINGS, and Others.

Arch. What is this forest call'd?

Hast. "Tis Gualtree forest, an't shall please your

grace.

Arch. Here stand, my lords: and send discoverers.

forth,

To know the numbers of our enemies.

Hast. We have sent forth already.

Arch.

"Tis well done.

My friends, and brethren in these great affairs,

I must acquaint you that I have receiv'd
New-dated letters from Northumberland;

beat his own name:] That is, beat gaunt, a fellow so

slender, that his name might have been gaunt.

Their cold intent, tenour and substance, thus :-
Here doth he wish his person, with such powers
As might hold sortance with his quality,
The which he could not levy; whereupon
He is retir'd, to ripe his growing fortunes,
To Scotland: and concludes in hearty prayers,
That your attempts may overlive the hazard,
And fearful meeting of their opposite.

Mowb. Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground,

And dash themselves to pieces.

Hast.

Enter a Messenger.

Now, what news?

Mess. West of this forest, scarcely off a mile, In goodly form comes on the enemy:

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

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

Enter WESTMORELAND.

Arch. What well-appointed leader3 fronts us here? Mowb. I think, it is my lord of Westmoreland. West. Health and fair greeting from our general, The prince, lord John and duke of Lancaster.

Arch. Say on, my lord of Westmoreland, in peace; What doth concern your coming?

West.

Unto

Then, my lord,

your grace do I in chief address
The substance of my speech. If that rebellion
Came like itself, in base and abject routs,
Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rage,*

3-well-appointed] i. e. completely accoutred.

4

guarded with rage,] Guarded is an expression taken from dress; it means the same as faced, turned up.

And countenanc'd by boys, and beggary;
I say, if damn'd commotion so appear'd,
In his true, native, and most proper shape,
You, reverend father, and these noble lords,
Had not been here, to dress the ugly form
Of base and bloody insurrection

With your fair honours. You, lord archbishop,
Whose see is by a civil peace maintain'd;

Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd;
Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor'd;
Whose white investments figure innocence,
The dove and very blessed spirit of peace,-
Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself,
Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace,
Into the harsh and boist'rous tongue of war?
Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,
Your pens to lances; and your tongue divine
To a loud trumpet, and a point of war?

5

Arch. Wherefore do I this?-so the question stands.

Briefly to this end:-We are all diseas'd;
And, with our surfeiting, and wanton hours,
Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,
And we must bleed for it: of which disease
Our late king, Richard, being infected, died.
But, my most noble lord of Westmoreland,
I take not on me here as a physician;
Nor do I, as an enemy to peace,
Troop in the throngs of military men:
But, rather, show a while like fearful war,
To diet rank minds, sick of happiness;

And purge the obstructions, which begin to stop
Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.

5 -graves,] For graves Dr. Warburton very plausibly reads glaives, and is followed by Sir Thomas Hanmer. But we might perhaps as plausibly read greaves, i. e. armour for the legs, a kind of boots,

I have in equal balance justly weigh'd'

What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we

suffer,

6

And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
We see which way the stream of time doth run,
And are enforc'd from our most quiet sphere
By the rough torrent of occasion:

And have the summary of all our griefs,
When time shall serve, to show in articles;
Which, long ere this, we offer'd to the king,
And might by no suit gain our audience :
When we are wrong'd, and would unfold our griefs,
We are denied access unto his person

Even by those men that most have done us wrong.
The dangers of the days but newly gone,
(Whose memory is written on the earth
With yet-appearing blood,) and the examples
Of every minute's instance, (present now,)
Have put us in these ill-beseeming arms:
Not to break peace, or any branch of it;
But to establish here a peace indeed,
Concurring both in name and quality.

West. When ever yet was your appeal denied? Wherein have you been galled by the king? What peer hath been suborn'd to grate on you That you should seal this lawless bloody book Of forg'd rebellion with a seal divine, And consecrate commotion's bitter edge?"

Arch. My brother general, the commonwealth, To brother born an household cruelty,

I make my quarrel in particular.

7

8

our griefs - i. e. our grievances.

commotion's bitter edge?] i. e. the edge of bitter strife and commotion; the sword of rebellion.

My brother general, &c.

I make my quarrel in particular.] The sense is this" My brother general, the commonwealth, which ought to distribute its

West. There is no need of any such redress; Or, if there were, it not belongs to you.

Mowb. Why not to him, in part; and to us all, That feel the bruises of the days before; And suffer the condition of these times To lay a heavy and unequal hand

Upon our honours ?

West.

O my good lord Mowbray,

Construe the times to their necessities,9
And you shall say indeed,

it is the time,

And not the king, that doth you injuries.
Yet, for your part, it not appears to me,
Either from the king, or in the present time,'
That should have an inch of any ground

you

To build a grief on: Were you not restor❜d
To all the duke of Norfolk's signiories,

Your noble and right-well-remember'd father's? Mowb. What thing, in honour, had my father lost,

That need to be reviv'd, and breath'd in me?
The king, that lov'd him, as the state stood
then,

Was, force perforce, compell'd to banish him:
And then, when Harry Bolingbroke, and he,-
Being mounted, and both roused in their seats,
Their neighing coursers daring of the spur,

benefits equally, is become an enemy to those of his own house, to brothers born, by giving all to some, and others none; and this (says he) I make my quarrel or grievance that honours are unequally distributed," the constant birth of male-contents, and the source of civil commotions. WARBURTON.

Other senses have been attempted by other commentators, but none more probable.

"Construe the times to their necessities,] That is,-Judge of what is done in these times, according to the exigencies that over-rule us.

* Either from the king, &c.] Whether the faults of government be imputed to the time or the king, it appears not that you have, for your part, been injured either by the king or the time.