Revolt our jubjects? That we cannot mend :
They break their faith to God, as well as us.
Cry woe, destruction, ruin, loss, decay ;
The worst is death, and death will have his day.

Scroop. Glad am I that your Highness is so arm’d
To bear the tidings of calamity.
Like an unseasonable stormy day,
Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores,
As if the world were all diffoly'd to tears ;
So high above his limits swells the

rage
Of Bolingbroke, cov'ring your fearful land
With hard bright steel, and hearts more hard than steel.
White beards have arm’d their thin and hairless scalps
Against thy Majesty ; boys, with women's voices,
Strive to speak big, and clasp their female joints
In stiff unwieldy arms, against thy crown.
The very beadsmen learn to bend their bows
Of double-fatal yew, against thy state.
Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills,
Against thy seat both young and old rebel,
And all goes worse than I have pow'r to tell,

K. Rich. Too well, too well, thou tell’ft a tale fo ills Where is the Earl of Wiltshire ? where is Bagot ? What is become of Bushy? where is Green? -No matter where ; of comfort no man speak. Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs, Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes Write forrow on the bosom of the earth ! Let's chuse executors, and talk of wills ; And yet not so

--for what can we bequeath, Save our deposed bodies to the ground? Our lands, our lives, and all, are Bolingbroke's,

And

And nothing can we call our own but death:
And that small model of the barren earth,
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones,
For heav'n's fake, let us sit

upon

the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of Kings ;
How some have been depos’d, some slain in war ;
Some haunted by the ghost they difpoffess'd ;
Some poison'd by their wives ; some sleeping kill'd ;
All murder'd. -For within the hollow crown,
That rounds the mortal temples of a King,
Keeps Death his court; and there the antic fits,
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene
To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks :
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable ; and, humour'd thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle walls, and farewel King !

heads, and mock not flesh and blood
With folemn rev’rence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,
For
you

have but mistook me all this while.
I live on bread like you, feel want like you ;
Taste grief, need friends, like you: subjected thus,
How can you say to me I am a King ?

SHAKSPEANI.

Cover your

CHAP

CHA P. XIV.

HOTSPUR AND GLENDO WER.

ST

GLEN. IT, cousin, Percy ; sit, good cousin Hotspur ;

For, by that name, as oft as Lancaster Doth speak of you, his cheek looks pale ! and with A risen figh, he wisheth you in heav'n.

Hor. And you in hell, as often as he hears Owen Glendower spoke of.

Glen. I blame him not : at my nativity,
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning creffets : know that at my birth
The frame and the foundation of the earth
Shook like a cowaard.

Hot. So it would have done
At the same season if your mother's cat
Had kitten'd, though yourself had ne'er been born,

Glen. I say, the earth did shake when I was born.

Hor. I say, the earth then was not of my mind ; If you suppose, as fearing you, it shook. Glen. The heav'ns were all on fire, the earth did

tremble. Hor. O, then the earth Mook to see the heav'ns on fire, And not in fear of your nativity. Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth In strange eruptions ; and the teeming earth Is with a kind of colick pinch'd and vex'd, By the imprison of unruly wind Within her womb ; which for enlargement striving, Shakes the old beldame earth, and topples down High tow'rs and moss-govn stoeples. At your birth,

Our

3

of art;

Our grandam earth, with this distemperature
In passion shook.

Glen. Cousin, of many men
I do not bear these crossings: give me leave
To tell you once again, that at my

birth
The front of heav'n was full of fiery shapes ;
The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds
Were strangely clam'rous in the frighted fields :
These figns have mark'd me extraordinary,
And all the courses of my life do show,
I am not in the roll of common men.
Where is he living, clipt in with the sea,
That chides the banks of England, Wales, or Scotland,
Who calls me pupil, or hath read to me?
And bring him out, that is but woman's son,
Can trace me in the tedious

ways Or hold me pace in deep experiments.

Hot. I think there is no man speaks better Welch.

Glen. I can speak English, Lord, as well as you,
For I was train’d up in the English court :
Where, being young, I framed to the harp
Many an English ditty, lovely well,
And
gave

the

tongue a helpful ornament ; A virtue that was never seen in you,

Hot. Marry, and I'm glad of it with all my heart,
I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew!
Than one of these fame metre-ballad

mongers

! I'd rather hear a brazen candlestick turn'd, Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree, And that would nothing set my teeth on edge, Nothing so much as mincing poetry ; 'Tis like the forc'd gait of a shuffling nag.

GLEN

Glen. And I can call spirits from the vastly deep.

Hor. Why, so can I, or so can any man : But will they come when you do call for thein ?

Glen. Why, I can teach thee to command the devil.

Hot, And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil, By telling truth ; Tell truth and

shame the devil..
If thou hast power to raise him, bring him hither,
And I'll be sworn, I've power to shame him hence.
Oh, while you live, Tell truth and bame the devil.

SHAKESPEARE

CH A P. XV.

HOTSPUR READING A LETTER.

UT for mine own part, my

Lord, I could be well contented to be there, in respect of the love I bear your house." He could be contented to be there ; why is hc not then?“ In respect of the love he bears our house !" He shows in this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our house. Let me see some more. “ The purpose you un“ dertake is dangerous.” Why, that is certain :it is dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink,but I tell you, my Lord fool, out of this nettle danger, we pluck this flower fafety, “ The “ purpose you undertake is dangerous, the friends you have " named uncertain, the time itself unforted, and your whole “ plot too light, for the counterpoise of so great an oppofi“ tion,” Say you so, say you so ! I say unto you again, you are a fallow cowardly hind, and you lie. What a lackbrain is this? By the Lord, our plot is a good plot as ever was laid ; our friends true and constant : a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation ; an excellent plot, very good friends. What a frosty-spirited rogue this is ? Why, my

Lord