By this time, had the king permitted us,
One of our fouls had wander'd in the air,
Banish'd this frail fepulchre of our flesh,4
As now our flefh is banifh'd from this land:
Confefs thy treafons, ere thou fly the realm;
Since thou haft far to go, bear not along
The clogging burden of a guilty foul.

NOR. No, Bolingbroke; if ever I were traitor,
My name be blotted from the book of life,
And I from heaven banish'd, as from hence!
But what thou art, heaven, thou, and I do know;
And all too foon, I fear, the king fhall rue.-
Farewell, my liege :-Now no way can I stray;
Save back to England, all the world's my way.5

[Exit.

thus. Norfolk, fo far I have addreffed myself to thee as to mine enemy, I now utter my laft words with kindness and tenderness, Confefs thy treafons. JOHNSON.

-fo fare, as to mine enemy ;] i. e. he only wishes him to fare like his enemy, and he disdains to fay fare well as Aumerle does in the next fcene. TOLLET.

The firft folio reads fare; the fecond farre. Bolingbroke only uses the phrase by way of caution, left Mowbray should think he was about to addrefs him as a friend. Norfolk, fays he, fo far as a man may speak to his enemy, &c. RITSON.

Surely fare was a mifprint for farre, the old fpelling of the word now placed in the text.-Perhaps the author intended that Hereford in fpeaking this line fhould fhow fome courtesy to Mowbray ;-and the meaning may be: So much civility as an enemy has a right to, I am willing to offer to thee. MALONE. Sir T. Hanmer's marginal direction is-In falutation.

STEEVENS. 4 this frail fepulchre of our flesh,] So, afterwards: thou King Richard's tomb,

"And not King Richard.”

And Milton, in Samfon Agonifies:

"Myfelf my fepulchre, a moving grave." HENLEY.

all the world's my way.] Perhaps Milton had this in

his mind when he wrote these lines:

K. RICH. Uncle, even in the glaffes of thine eyes I fee thy grieved heart: thy fad afpéct Hath from the number of his banish'd years Pluck'd four away;-Six frozen winters spent, Return [To BOLING.] with welcome home from ba

nishment.

BOLING. How long a time lies in one little word! Four lagging winters, and four wanton springs, End in a word; Such is the breath of kings. GAUNT. I thank my liege, that, in regard of me, He shortens four years of my fon's exíle: But little vantage fhall I reap thereby ;

For, ere the fix years, that he hath to spend,
Can change their moons, and bring their times
about,

My oil-dried lamp, and time-bewasted light,
Shall be extinct with age, and endless night;
My inch of taper will be burnt and done,
And blindfold death not let me fee my fon.

K. RICH. Why, uncle, thou haft many years to live.

GAUNT. But not a minute, king, that thou canst give:

"The world was all before them, where to choose
"Their place of rest, and Providence their guide."

JOHNSON.

The Duke of Norfolk after his banishment went to Venice, where, fays Holinfhed, "for thought and melancholy he deceased." MALONE.

I should point the paffage thus:

Now no way can I ftray,

Save back to England:-all the world's my way.

There's no way for me to go wrong, except back to England.

M. MASON.

Shorten my days thou canst with fullen forrow,
And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow:
Thou canst help time to furrow me with age,
But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;

Thy word is current with him for my death;
But, dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.

K. RICH. Thy fon is banish'd upon good advice,"
Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave;8
Why at our juftice feem'ft thou then to lower?
GAUNT. Things sweet to tafte, prove in digeftion
four.

You urg'd me as a judge; but I had rather,
You would have bid me argue like a father:-
O, had it been a ftranger, not my child,

To fmooth his fault I fhould have been more mild:
A partial flander1 fought I to avoid,

And in the sentence my own life destroy'd.

• And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow:] It is matter of very melancholy confideration, that all human advan tages confer more power of doing evil than good. JOHNSON. 7-upon good advice,] Upon great confideration.

So, in King Henry VI. Part II :

MALONE.

"But with advice and filent fecrecy." STEEVENS.

a party-verdict gave ;] i. e. you had yourself a part or fhare in the verdict that I pronounced. MALONE.

9 O, had it been a ftranger,] This couplet is wanting in the folio. STEEVENS.

I

A partial flander-] That is, the reproach of partiality. This is a juft picture of the struggle between principle and affection. JOHNSON.

This couplet, which is wanting in the folio edition, has been arbitrarily placed by fome of the modern editors at the conclufion of Gaunt's fpeech. In the three oldeft quartos it follows the fifth line of it. In the fourth quarto, which feems copied from the folio, the paffage is omitted. STEEVENS.

Alas, I look'd, when fome of you
fhould fay,
I was too ftrict, to make mine own away;
But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue,
Against my will, to do myself this wrong.

K. RICH. Coufin, farewell :—and, uncle, bid him

fo;

Six years we banish him, and he shall go.

[Flourish. Exeunt K. RICHARD and Train. AUM. Coufin, farewell: what prefence must not know,

From where you do remain, let paper fhow.

MAR. My lord, no leave take I; for I will ride, As far as land will let me, by your fide.

GAUNT. O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,

you,

That thou return'ft no greeting to thy friends?
BOLING. I have too few to take my leave of
When the tongue's office fhould be prodigal
To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.
GAUNT. Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.
BOLING. Joy abfent, grief is present for that
time.

GAUNT. What is fix winters? they are quickly

gone.

BOLING. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.

GAUNT. Call it a travel that thou tak'st for pleafure.

BOLING. My heart will figh, when I mifcall it fo, Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.

GAUNT. The fullen paffage of thy weary steps Efteem a foil, wherein thou art to fet

The precious jewel of thy home-return.

BOLING. Nay, rather, every tedious ftride I make Will but remember me, what a deal of world I wander from the jewels that I love. Muft I not ferve a long apprenticehood To foreign paffages; and in the end, Having my freedom, boast of nothing else, But that I was a journeyman to grief?3

GAUNT. All places that the eye of heaven vifits, Are to a wife man ports and happy havens ; Teach thy neceffity to reason thus;

There is no virtue like neceffity.

Think not, the king did banish thee;5

2

Boling. Nay, rather, every tedious ftride 1 make-] This, and the fix verses which follow, I have ventured to fupply from the old quarto. The allufion, it is true, to an apprenticeship, and becoming a journeyman, is not in the fublime tafte; nor, as Horace has expreffed it: "Spirat tragicum fatis:" however, as there is no doubt of the paffage being genuine, the lines are not fo defpicable as to deferve being quite loft. THEOBALD.

3 -journeyman to grief?] I am afraid our author in this place defigned a very poor quibble, as journey fignifies both travel and a day's work. However, he is not to be cenfured for what he himself rejected. JOHNSON.

The quarto, in which these lines are found, is said in its titlepage to have been corrected by the author; and the play is indeed more accurately printed than most of the other fingle copies. There is now, however, no certain method of knowing by whom the rejection was made. STEEVENS.

All places that the eye of heaven vifits, &c.] So, Nonnus: adapos oppa: i. e. the fun. STEEVENS.

The fourteen verfes that follow are found in the first edition. РОРЕ.

I am inclined to believe that what Mr. Theobald and Mr. Pope have reftored were expunged in the revifion by the author: If these lines are omitted, the fenfe is more coherent. Nothing is more frequent among dramatic writers, than to fhorten their dialogues for the ftage. JOHNSON.

Therefore, think not, the king did banish thee. RITSON.