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?
The king shall be contented: Must he lose
The name of king? o' God's name, let it
I'll give my jewels, for a set of beads;
My gorgeous palace, for a hermitage;
My gay apparel, for an alms-man's gown;
My figur'd goblets, for a dish of wood;
My sceptre, for a palmer's walking-staff;
My subjects, for a pair of carved saints;
And my large kingdom, for a little grave,
A little little grave, an obscure grave :—
Or I'll be buried in the king's highway,
Some way of common trade, where subjects'
feet

May hourly trample on their sovereign's head:
For on my heart they tread, now whilst I live;
And, buried once, why not upon my head?
Aumerle, thou weep'st; My tender-hearted
cousin!-

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.
Or shall we play the wantons with our woes,
And make some pretty match with shedding
tears?

As thus ;-To drop them still upon one place,
Till they have fretted us a pair of graves
Within the earth; and, therein laid,―There lies
Two kinsmen, digg'd their graves with weeping
eyes?

Would not this ill do well?-Well, well, I see
I talk but idly, and you mock at me.—
Most mighty prince, my lord Northumberland,
What says king Bolingbroke? will his majesty
Give Richard leave to live till Richard die ?
You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says-ay.
North. My lord, in the base court he doth
attend

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:
Me rather had my heart might feel your love,
Than my unpleas'd eye see your courtesy.
Up, cousin, up; your heart is up, I know,
Thus high at least, [touching his own head.]
although your knee be low.

Boling. My gracious lord, I come but for
mine own.

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.
Uncle, give me your hand: nay, dry your eyes;
Tears shew their love, but want their remedies.-
Cousin, I am too young to be your father,
Though you are old enough to be my heir.
What you will have, I'll give, and willing too;
For do we must what force will have us do.-
Set on towards London :-Cousin, is it so?
Boling. Yea, my good lord.
K. Rich.

Then I must not say no.
[Flourish. Exeunt.

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.
1 Lady.
Madam, we will dance.
Queen. My legs can keep no measure in de-
light,

When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief:
Therefore, no dancing, girl; some other sport.
1 Lady. Madam, we'll tell tales.
Queen.

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.
But stay, here come the gardeners:
Let's step into the shadow of these trees.-

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
Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight:
Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
Go thou, and like an executioner
Cut off the heads of too-fast-growing sprays,
That look too lofty in our commonwealth:
All must be even in our government.
You thus employ'd, I will go root away
The noisome weeds, that without profit suck
The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.

1 Serv. Why should we, in the compass of a pale,

Keep law, and form, and due proportion,
Shewing, as in a model, our firm estate ?
When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,
Is full of weeds; her fairest flowers chok'd up,
Her fruit-trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd,
Her knots disorder'd," and her wholesome herbs
Swarming with caterpillars ?

Gard.

Hold thy peace :—

He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring
Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf :
The weeds, that his broad-spreading leaves did
shelter,

That seem'd in eating him to hold him up,
Are pluck'd up, root and all, by Bolingbroke;
I mean the earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.
1 Serv. What, are they dead?
Gard.
They are; and Bolingbroke
Hath seiz'd the wasteful king.-Oh! what pity
is it,

That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land,
As we this garden! We at time of year
Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit trees;
Lest, being over-proud with sap and blood,
With too much riches it confound itself:
Had he done so to great and growing men,
They might have liv'd to bear, and he to taste
Their fruits of duty: superfluous branches
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live:
Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,
Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown
down.

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
To make a second fall of cursed man?
Why dost thou say king Richard is depos'd?
Dar'st thou, thou little better thing than earth,
Divine his downfal? Say where, when, and how,
Cam'st thou by these ill-tidings? speak, thou
wretch.

Gard. Pardon me, madam: little joy have I
To breathe these news: yet what I say is true.
King Richard, he is in the mighty hold
Of Bolingbroke; their fortunes both are weigh'd:
In your lord's scale is nothing but himself,
And some few vanities that make him light;
But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,
Besides himself, are all the English peers,
And with that odds he weighs king Richard
down.

Post you to London, and you'll find it so:
I speak no more than every one doth know.
Queen. Nimble mischance, that art so light of
foot,

Doth not thy embassage belong to me,
And am I last that knows it? O, thou think'st
To serve me last, that I may longest keep
Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go,
To meet at London London's king in woe.
What, was I born to this! that my sad look
Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?
Gardener, for telling me this news of woe,
I would the plants thou graft'st may never grow.
[Exeunt Queen and Ladies.
Gard. Poor queen! so that thy state might
be no worse,

I would my skill were subject to thy curse.-
Here did she drop a tear; here, in this place,
I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace:
Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,
In the remembrance of a weeping queen.

[Exeunt.

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