Which to recure, we heartily solicit

Your gracious self to take on you the charge
And kingly government of this your land:
Not as protector, steward, substitute,
Or lowly factor for another's gain;
But as successively, from blood to blood,
Your right of birth, your empery, your own.
For this, consorted with the citizens,
Your very worshipful and loving friends,
And by their vehement instigation,

In this just suit come I to move your grace.
Glo. I cannot tell, if to depart in silence,
Or bitterly to speak in your reproof,
Best fitteth my degree, or your condition:
If, not to answer,5-you might haply think,
Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded
To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,
Which fondly you would here impose on me;"
If to reprove you for this suit of yours,

And almost smoulder'd in the swallowing gulph. That is, almost smother'd, covered and lost. Johnson.

I suppose the old reading to be the true one. So, in The Barons' Wars, by Drayton, canto i:

"Stoutly t' affront and shoulder in debate." In is used for into. So before in this play:

"But first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave."

Again, ibid:

"Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects." Shoulder'd has the same meaning as rudely thrust into.

So, in a curious ancient paper quoted by Mr. Lysons in his Environs of London, Vol. III, p. 80, n. 1: "-lyke tyraunts and lyke madde men helpynge to shulderynge other of the sayd bannermen ynto the dyche," &c. Again, in Arthur Hall's translation of the second Iliad, 1581:

"He preaseth him, him he again, shouldring ech one his

feere." Steevens.

4 Which to recure,] To recure is to recover. This word is frequently used by Spenser; and both as a verb and a substantive in Lyly's Endymion, 1591. Steevens.

5 If, not to answer,] If I should take the former course, and depart in silence, &c. So below: "If, to reprove," &c. The editor of the second folio reads-For not to answer; and his capricious alteration of the text has been adopted by all the subsequent editors. This and the nine following lines are not in the quarto.

Malone.

So season'd with your faithful love to me,
Then, on the other side, I check'd my friends.
Therefore, to speak, and to avoid the first;
And then, in speaking, not to incur the last,-
Definitively thus I answer you.

Your love deserves my thanks; but my desert
Unmeritable, shuns your high request.
First, if all obstacles were cut away,
And that my path were even to the crown,
As the ripe revenue and due of birth;6
Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,
So mighty, and so many, my defects,

That I would rather hide me from my greatness,―
Being a bark to brook no mighty sea,-
Than in my greatness covet to be hid,
And in the vapour of my glory smother'd.
But, God be thank'd, there is no need of me;
(And much I need to help you, if need were ;)
The royal tree hath left us royal fruit,

Which, mellow'd by the stealing hours of time,
Will well become the seat of majesty,
And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.
On him I lay what you would lay on me,
The right and fortune of his happy stars,-

Which, God defend, that I should wring from him!
Buck. My lord, this argues conscience in your grace;
But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,
All circumstances well considered.

You say, that Edward is your brother's son;
So say we too, but not by Edward's wife:

6 As the ripe revenue and due of birth;] So the folio. The quarte 1598 thus:

"As my right, revenue, and due by birth."

A preceding line seems rather to favour the original reading : "Your right of birth, your empery, your own."

The first quarto, [1597] I find, reads:

"As my ripe revenew, and due by birth." Malone.

7 And much I need to help you,] And I want much of the ability requisite to give you help, if help were needed. Johnson.

8 are nice and trivial,] Nice is generally used by Shakspeare in the sense of minute, trifling, of petty import. So, in Romeo and Juliet:

"The letter was not nice, but full of charge." Malone.

For first he was contract to lady Lucy,
Your mother lives a witness to his vow;
And afterwards by substitute betroth'd
To Bona, sister to the king of France.
These both put by, a poor petitioner,1
A care-craz'd mother to a many sons,
A beauty-waning and distressed widow,
Even in the afternoon of her best days,
Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,
Seduc'd the pitch and height of all his thoughts
To base declension and loath'd bigamy:2
By her, in his unlawful bed, he got

This Edward, whom our manners call-the prince.
More bitterly could I expostulate,

Save that, for reverence to some alive,3

I gave a sparing limit to my tongue.

Then, good my lord, take to your royal self
This proffer'd benefit of dignity:

If not to bless us and the land withal,
Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry

9 To Bona, sister to the king of France.] See King Henry VI, P. III, Act III, sc. iii. Bona was daughter to the Duke of Savoy, and sister to Charlotte, wife to Lewis XI, King of France.

Malone.

1-a poor petitioner,] See Vol. X, King Henry VI, P. III, Act III, p. 356.

2

Malone.

loath'd bigamy:] Bigamy, by a canon of the council of Lyons, A. D. 1274, (adopted in England by a statute in 4 Edw. 1.) was made unlawful and infamous. It differed from polygamy, or having two wives at once; as it consisted in either marrying two virgins successively, or once marrying a widow. Blackstone.

loath'd bigamy:] So Sir T. More, copied by Hall and Holinshed: ". the only widowhead of Elizabeth Grey, though she were in all other things convenient for you, should yet suffice, as me seemeth, to restraine you from her marriage, sith it is an unfitting thing, and a verie blemish and high disparagement to the sacred majestie of a prince, (that ought as nigh to approach priesthood in cleanness, as he doth in dignity,) to be defouled with bigamie in his first marriage." Malone.

3 More bitterly could I expostulate,

Save that, for reverence to some alive,] The Duke here hints at a topick which he had touched upon in his address to the citizens, the pretended bastardy of Edward and Clarence. By "some alive," is meant the Duchess of York, the mother of Edward and Richard.

Malone.

From the corruption of abusing time,
Unto a lineal true-derived course.

May. Do, good my lord; your citizens entreat you. Buck. Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffer'd love. Cates. O, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit. Glo. Alas, why would you heap those cares on me? I am unfit for state and majesty :I do beseech you, take it not amiss; I cannot, nor I will not, yield to you. Buck. If you refuse it,- -as in love and zeal, Loth to depose the child, your brother's son; As well we know your tenderness of heart, And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,* Which we have noted in you to your kindred, And equally, indeed, to all estates,― Yet know, whe'r you accept our suit or no, Your brother's son shall never reign our king; But we will plant some other in the throne, To the disgrace and downfal of your house. And, in this resolution, here we leave you;— Come, citizens, we will entreat no more.

[Exeunt Buck. and Citizens. Cates. Call them again, sweet prince, accept their suit; If you deny them, all the land will rue it.

Glo. Will you enforce me to a world of cares? Well, call them again; I am not made of stone,5 But penetrable to your kind entreaties,

[Exit CATES.

Albeit against my conscience and my soul.

Re-enter BUCKINGHAM, and the Rest.

Cousin of Buckingham,—and sage, grave men,—
Since you will buckle fortune on my back,
To bear her burden, whe'r I will, or no,
I must have patience to endure the load:
But if black scandal, or foul-fac'd reproach,
Attend the sequel of your imposition,

4

effeminate remorse,] i. e. pity. See our author, passim. Thus also, in The Miseries of enforced Marriage, 1600: "Be all his days, like winter, comfortless;

"Restless his nights, his wants remorseless.”

i. e. unpitied. Steevens.

I am not made of stone,] The quarto and folio havestones. Mr. Pope made the emendation. Malone.

Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me
From all the impure blots and stains thereof;
For God he knows, and you may partly see,
How far I am from the desire of this.

May. God bless your grace! we see it, and will
Glo. In saying so, you shall but say the truth.
Buck. Then I salute you with this royal title,—
Long live king Richard, England's warthy king!
All. Amen.

Buck. To-morrow may it please you to be crown'd? Glo. Even when you please, since you will have it so. Buck. To-morrow then we will attend your grace; And so, most joyfully, we take our leave. Glo. Come, let us to our holy work again:

[To the Bishops. Farewel, good cousin ;-farewel, gentle friends."

[Exeunt.

ACT IV..... SCENE I.

Before the Tower.

Enter, on one side, Queen ELIZABETH, Duchess of York, and Marquis of DORSET; on the other, ANNE, Duchess of Gloster, leading Lady MARGARET PLANTAGENET, Clarence's young Daughter.

Duch. Who meets us here?-my niece Plantagenet Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloster? 8

6 Farewel, good cousin;-farewel, gentle friends.] To this Act should, perhaps, be added the next scene, so will the coronation pass between the Acts; and there will not only be a proper interval of action, but the conclusion will be more forcible. Johnson.

7 Anne, Duchess of Gloster,] We have not seen this lady since the second scene of the first Act, in which she promised to meet Richard at Crosby-place. She was married about the year 1472. Malone.

8 Who meets us here?-my niece Plantagenet

Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloster?] Here is a manifest intimation, that the Duchess of Gloster leads in somebody in her hand; but there is no direction marked in any of the copies, from which we can learn who it is. I have ventured to guess