Depos'd thine intellect? hath he been in thy heart?
The lion, dying, thrusteth forth his paw,
And wounds the earth, if nothing elfe, with rage
To be o'erpower'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like,
Take thy correction mildly? kifs the rod;
And fawn on rage with base humility,
Which art a lion, and a king of beasts?

K. RICH. A king of beafts, indeed; if aught but
beafts,

I had been still a happy king of men.4
Good fometime queen, prepare thee hence for France:
Think, I am dead; and that even here thou tak'st,
As from my death-bed, my last living leave.
In winter's tedious nights, fit by the fire

With good old folks; and let them tell thee tales
Of woful ages, long ago betid:

And, ere thou bid good night, to quit their grief,s
Tell thou the lamentable fall of me,"

And fend the hearers weeping to their beds.
For why, the fenfelefs brands will fympathize

4king of men.] 'Tis marvellous, that Mr. Upton did not quote this paffage as an evidence of our author's learning, and obferve, that a more faithful tranflation of Homer's vandpa could not have been made. STEEVENS.

to quit their grief,] To retaliate their mournful stories.

JOHNSON.

6 Tell thou the lamentable fall of me,] Thus the folio. So, in K. Henry VIII:

"And when you would fay fomething that is fad,
"Speak how I fell."

The reading, however, of the first quarto, 1597, is alfo much in our author's manner:

Tell thou the lamentable tale of me. MALONE.

7 For why,] The poet fhould have ended this fpeech with the foregoing line, and have fpared his childish prattle about the fire. JOHNSON.

This is certainly childish prattle, as Johnfon calls it; but it is of the fame ftamp with the other fpeeches of Richard, after the landing of Bolingbroke, which are a ftrange medley of sense and puerility. M. MASON.

The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
And, in compaffion, weep the fire out:
And fome will mourn in afhes, fome coal-black,
For the depofing of a rightful king.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, attended.

NORTH. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is chang'd;

You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.-
And, madam, there is order ta'en for you;
With all swift speed you must away to France.

K. RICH. Northumberland, thou ladder where-
withal

The mounting Bolingbroke afcends my throne,-
The time fhall not be many hours of age
More than it is, ere foul fin, gathering head,
Shall break into corruption: thou shalt think,
Though he divide the realm, and give thee half,
It is too little, helping him to all;

And he shall think, that thou, which know'ft the way
To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,
Being ne'er fo little urg'd, another way

To pluck him headlong from the ufurped throne.
The love of wicked friends converts to fear;
That fear, to hate; and hate turns one, or both,
To worthy danger, and deferved death.

NORTH. My guilt be on my head, and there an end. Take leave, and part; for you muft part forthwith.

K. RICH. Doubly divorc'd?-Bad men, ye violate A twofold marriage; 'twixt my crown and me; And then, betwixt me and my married wife.~

4 And he shall think,] The conjunction-And, without which the metre is deficient, was fupplied by Mr. Rowe. STEVENS.

Let me unkifs the oath 'twixt thee and me;
And yet not fo, for with a kifs 'twas made."-
Part us, Northumberland; I towards the north,
Where shivering cold and fickness pines the clime;
My wife to France; from whence, fet forth in pomp,
She came adorned hither like fweet May,
Sent back like Hallowmas," or fhort'ft of day.

QUEEN. And must we be divided? must we part? K. RICH. Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.

8

QUEEN. Banifh us both, and fend the king with me. NORTH. That were fome love, but little policy." QUEEN. Then whither he goes, thither let me go. K. RICH. So two, together weeping, make one woe. Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here; Better far off, than-near, be ne'er the near'."

5 Let me unkifs the oath 'twixt thee and me;

And yet not fo, for with a kifs 'twas made.] A kifs appears to have been an established circumftance in our ancient nuptial ceremony. So, in Marston's Infatiate Countess, 1613, the Duke, on parting with his wife, fays to her:

"The kifs thou gav'ft me in the church, here take." STEEVENS.

Hallowmas,] All-hallows, or all-hallowtide; the first of November. STEEVENS.

7 That were fome love, &c.] The quartos give this fpeech to the king. STEEVENS.

& Then whither he goes, thither let me go.] So, in the Book of Ruth, i. 16: 66 for whither thou goeft, I will go." STEEVENS. 9 Better far off, than-near, be ne'er the near'.] To be never the nigher, or, as it is commonly spoken in the midland counties, ne'er the ne'er, is, to make no advance towards the good defired. JOHNSON. So, in The legend of Shore's wife, by Thomas Churchyard, Mirrour for Magiftrates, 1578:

Compel the hauke to fit, that is unmann'd,

"Or make the hound untaught to draw the deere,
"Or bring the free against his will in band,

"Or move the fad a pleasant tale to hear,

"Your time is loft, and you are never the near."

Go, count thy way with fighs; I, mine with groans QUEEN. So longeft way fhall have the longest

moans.

K. RICH. Twice for one ftep I'll groan, the way being short,

And piece the way out with a heavy heart. Come, come, in wooing forrow let's be brief, Since, wedding it, there is fuch length in grief. One kifs fhall stop our mouths, and dumbly part; Thus give I mine, and thus I take thy heart.

[They kifs. QUEEN. Give me mine own again; 'twere no good part,

To take on me to keep, and kill thy heart."

[Kifs again.

So, now I have mine own again, begone,
That I may strive to kill it with a groan.

K. RICH. We make woe wanton with this fond

delay:

Once more, adieu; the reft let forrow fay. [Exeunt.

The fame. A Room in the Duke of YORK's Palace. Enter YORK, and his Duchefs.

DUCH. My lord, you told me, you would tell the rest, When weeping made you break the ftory off Of our two coufins coming into London.

The meaning is, it is better to be at a great distance, than being near each other, to find that we yet are not likely to be peaceably and happily united. MALONE.

-and kill thy heart.] So, in our author's Venus and Adonis : -they have murder'd this poor heart of mine." MALONE. Again, in K. Henry V. A&t II. fc. i: "he'll yield the crow a pudding one of thefe days: the king hath kill'd his heart.”

STEEVENS,

FORK. Where did I leave?

DUCH.
At that fad ftop, my lord,
Where rude mifgovern'd hands, from windows' tops,
Threw duft and rubbish on king Richard's head.
YORK. Then, as I faid, the duke, great Boling-
broke,-

Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed,

Which his afpiring rider feem'd to know,-
With flow, but ftately pace, kept on his course,
While all tongues cried-God fave thee, Boling-
broke!

-

You would have thought the very windows fpake,
So many greedy looks of young and old
Through cafements darted their defiring eyes
Upon his visage; and that all the walls,
With painted imag'ry, had said at once,3-
Jefu preferve thee! welcome, Bolingbroke!
Whilft he, from one fide to the other turning,
Bare-headed, lower than his proud fteed's neck,
Befpake them thus,-I thank you, countrymen:
And thus ftill doing, thus he pafs'd along.

DUCH. Alas, poor Richard! where rides he the
while?

YORK. As in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious:

Even fo, or with much more contempt, men's eyes

3 With painted imag'ry, had faid at once,] Our author probably was thinking of the painted clothes that were hung in the ftreets, in the pageants that were exhibited in his own time; in which the figures fometimes had labels iffuing from their mouths, containing fentences of gratulation. MALONE.

4 Are idly bent-] That is, carelessly turned, thrown without attention. This the poet learned by his attendance and practice on the ftage. JOHNSON.