Queen. How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?

K. Rich. What comfort, man? How is 't with aged
Gaunt?

Gaunt. O, how that name befits my composition!
Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old:
Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast;
And who abstains from meat, that is not gaunt?
For sleeping England long time have I watch'd;
Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt:
The pleasure, that some fathers feed upon,
Is my strict fast, I mean-my children's looks;
And, therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt:
Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,
Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.

K. Rich. Can sick men play so nicely with their names?
Gaunt. No, misery makes sport to mock itself:
Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me,
I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.

K. Rich. Should dying men flatter with those that live? Gaunt. No, no; men living flatter those that die. K. Rich. Thou, now a dying, say'st-thou flatter'st me. Gaunt. Oh! no; thou diest, though I the sicker be. K. Rich. I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill. Gaunt. Now, He that made me, knows I see thee ill; Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill. Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land, Wherein thou liest in reputation sick:

wife, was dead before the play commences, and Isabella, his second wife, was a child at the time of his death.

Malone.

4 Aumerle,] was Edward, eldest son of Edmund Duke of York, whom he succeeded in the title. He was killed at Agincourt. Walpole.

5

Ross,] was William Lord Roos, (and so should be printed) of Hamlake, afterwards Lord Treasurer to Henry IV.

6

Walpole.

Willoughby.] was William Lord Willoughby of Eresby, who afterwards married Joan, widow of Edmund Duke of York. Walpole.

7 For young hot colts, being rag'd, do rage the more.] Read: being rein'd, do rage the more. Ritson.

8 Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.] I cannot help supposing that the idle words-to see, which destroy the measure, should be omitted. Steevens.

And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
Commit'st thy anointed body to the cure
Of those physicians that first wounded thee:
A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,
Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;
And yet, incaged in so small a verge,

The waste is no whit lesser than thy land.
O, had thy grandsire, with a prophet's eye,
Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons,
From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame;
Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd,
Which art possess'd now to depose thyself."
Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,
It were a shame, to let this land by lease:
But, for thy world, enjoying but this land,
Is it not more than shame, to shame it so?
Landlord of England art thou now, not king:
Thy state of law is bondslave to the law;1

9 Which art possess'd now to depose thyself] Possess'd, in this second instance, was, I believe, designed to mean-afflicted with madness occasioned by the internal operation of a dæmon. So, in The Comedy of Errors:-" Both man and master is possess'd."

Steevens.

1 Thy state of law is bondslave to the law;] State of law, i. e. legal sovereignty. But the Oxford editor alters it to state o'er law, i. e. absolute sovereignty. A doctrine, which, if ever our poet learnt at all, he learnt not in the reign when this play was written, Queen Elizabeth's, but in the reign after it, King James's. By bondslave to the law, the poet means his being inslaved to his favourite subjects. Warburton.

This sentiment, whatever it be, is obscurely expressed. I understand it differently from the learned commentator, being perhaps not quite so zealous for Shakspeare's political reputation. The reasoning of Gaunt, I think, is this: By setting the royalties to farm thou hast reduced thyself to a state below sovereignty, thou art now no longer king but landlord of England, subject to the same restraint and limitations as other landlords: by making thy condition a state of law, a condition upon which the common rules of law can operate, thou art become a bondslave to the law; thou hast made thyself amenable to laws from which thou wert originally exempt. Whether this explanation be true or no, it is plain that Dr. Warburton's explanation of bondslave to the law, is not true.

Johnson.

Warburton's explanation of this passage is too absurd to require confutation; and his political observation is equally ill-foundad. The doctrine of absolute sovereignty might as well have

And thou

K. Rich.

- a lunatick lean-witted fool,

Presuming on an ague's privilege,
Dar'st with thy frozen admonition

Make pale our cheek; chasing the royal blood,
With fury, from his native residence.
Now by my seat's right royal majesty,

Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son,
This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head,

Should run thy head from thy unreverend shoulders.
Gaunt. O, spare me not, my brother Edward's son,
For that I was his father Edward's son;

That blood already, like the pelican,

Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd:
My brother Gloster, plain well-meaning soul,
(Whom fair befal in heaven 'mongst happy souls!)
May be a precedent and witness good,

That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood::

been learned in the reign of Elizabeth, as in that of her successor. She was, in fact, as absolute as he wished to be.

Johnson's explanation is in general just; but I think that the words, of law, must mean, by law, or according to law, as we say of course, and of right, instead of by right, or by course.-Gaunt's reasoning is this- Having let your kingdom by lease, you are no longer the king of England, but the landlord only; and your state is by law, subject to the law." M. Mason.

Mr. Heath explains the words state of law somewhat differently: "Thy royal estate, which is established by the law, is now in virtue of thy having leased it out, subjected," &c. Malone. 2 Gaunt. And thou

K. Rich. ——— a lunatick lean-witted fool,] In the disposition of these lines I have followed the folio, in giving the word thou to the king; but the regulation of the first quarto, 1597, is per. haps preferable, being more in our poet's manner:

Gaunt. And thou

K. Rich. — a lunatick, lean-witted fool,

And thou a mere cypher in thy own kingdom, Gaunt was going to say. Richard interrupts him, and takes the word thou in a different sense, applying it to Gaunt, instead of himself. Of this kind of retort there are various instances in these plays.

The folio repeats the word And:

Gaunt. And

K. Rich. And thou, &c. Malone,

lean-witted-] Dr. Farmer observes to me that the same expression occurs in the 106th Psalm:

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and sent leanness withal into their soul." Steevens..

Join with the present sickness that I have;
And thy unkindness be like crooked age,
To crop at once a too-long wither'd flower.3
Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!-
These words hereafter thy tormenters be!—
Convey me to my bed, then to my grave:-
Love they to live, that love and honour have.

[Exit, borne out by his Attendants. K. Rich. And let them die, that age and sullens have;

3 And thy unkindness be like crooked age,

To crop at once a too-long wither'd flower.] Thus stand these lines in all the copies, but I think there is an error. Why should Gaunt, already old, call on any thing like age to end him? How can age be said to crop at once? How is the idea of crookedness connected with that of cropping? I suppose the poet dictated thus: And thy unkindness be time's crooked edge

To crop at once

That is, let thy unkindness be time's scythe to crop.

Edge was easily confounded by the ear with age, and one mistake once admitted made way for another. Johnson.

Shakspeare, I believe, took this idea from the figure of Time, who was represented as carrying a sickle as well as a scythe. A sickle was anciently called a crook, and sometimes, as in the following instances, crooked may mean armed with a crook. So, in Kendall's Epigrams, 1577:

"The regall king and crooked clowne
"All one alike death driveth downe."

Again, in the 100th Sonnet of Shakspeare:

"Give my love, fame, faster than time wastes life,
"So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife."

Again, in the 119th:

"Love 's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks "Within his bending sickle's compass come."

It may be mentioned, however, that crooked is an epithet bestowed on age in the tragedy of Locrine, 1595:

"Now yield to death o'erlaid by crooked age." Locrine has been attributed to Shakspeare; and in this passage quoted from it, no allusion to a scythe can be supposed. Our poet's expressions are sometimes confused and abortive.

Steevens.

Again, in 4 Flourish upon Fancie, by N. B. [Nicholas Breton,] 1577:

"Who, when that he a while hath bin in fancies schoole, "Doth learne in his old crooked age to play the doting foole." Malone.

Shakspeare had probably two different but kindred ideas in his mind; the bend of age, and the sickle of time, which he confounded together. M. Mason.

4 Love they] That is, Let them love. Johnson.

For both hast thou, and both become the grave.
York. 'Beseech your majesty,5 impute his words
To wayward sickliness and age in him:

He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear
As Harry duke of Hereford, were he here.

K. Rich. Right; you say true: as Hereford's love, so his:

As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.

North. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your

majesty.

K. Rich. What says he now?"

North. Nay, nothing; all is said: His tongue is now a stringless instrument; Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent. York. Be York the next that must be bankrupt so! Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.

K. Rich. The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he; His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be: So much for that. Now for our Irish wars: We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns; Which live like venom, where no venom else,9

5' Beseech your majesty,] The old copies redundantly read"I do beseech." &c.

Mr. Ritson would regulate the passage differently (and perhaps rightly) by omitting the words—in him :

6

I do beseech your majesty, impute

His words to wayward sickliness and age. Steevens.

Northumberland.] was Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. Walpole.

7 What says he now ?] I have supplied the adverb-now, (which is wanting in the old copy) to complete the measure. Steevens. 8 our pilgrimage must be:] That is, our pilgrimage is yet

to come.

M. Mason.

9 where no venom else,] This alludes to a tradition that St. Patrick freed the kingdom of Ireland from venomous reptiles of every kind. So, in Decker's Honest Whore, P. II, 1630:

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that Irish Judas,

"Bred in a country where no venom prospers,
"But in his blood."

Again, in Fuimus Troes, 1635:

"As Irish earth doth poison poisonous beasts."

See also, Thomas Lupton's Fourth Book of Notable Things, 4to. bl. 1. Steevens.