K. Rich. Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee, 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 show 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.

"Twill make me think,

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

Queen.

1 Lady. Of either, madam. Queen.

Of sorrow, or of joy?

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 weep, 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, Which, like unruly children, make their sire

8 Against a change: Woe is forerun with woe.] The poet, according to the common doctrine of prognostication, supposes dejection to forerun calamity, and a kingdom to be filled with rumours of sorrow when any great disaster is impending. The sense is, that publick evils are always presignified by publick pensiveness and plaintive conversation. JOHNSON.

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,
Showing, 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

9 Her knots disorder'd,] Knots are figures planted in box, the lines of which frequently intersect each other.

Their fruits of duty. All 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!—Thou, old Adam's like

ness,

[Coming from her concealment.

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 this 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

"O, I am press'd to death, through want of speaking!
Thou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden,
How dares thy harsh-rude," &c.—MALONE.

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.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.-London. Westminster Hall.

The Lords spiritual on the right side of the Throne; the Lords temporal on the left; the Commons below. Enter BOLINGBROKE, AUMERLE, SURREY, NORTHUMBERLAND, PERCY, FITZWATER, another Lord, Bishop of CARLISLE, Abbot of WESTMINSTER, and Attendants. Officers behind, with BAGOT.

Boling. Call forth Bagot :

Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind;

What thou dost know of noble Gloster's death;
Who wrought it with the king, and who perform'd
The bloody office of his timeless end.

t "Here did she fall a tear ;"-MALONE.

1 Surrey,] Thomas Holland, earl of Kent. He was brother to John Holland, duke of Exeter, and was created duke of Surrey in the 21st year of king Richard the Second, 1397.