Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear, My death's fad tale may yet undeaf his ear.

YORK. No; it is stopp'd with other flattering
founds,

As, praises of his state: then, there are found
Lafcivious metres; to whofe venom found
The open ear of youth doth always liften:
Report of fashions in proud Italy;
Whofe manners still our tardy apish nation
Limps after, in bafe imitation.

Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity,
(So it be new, there's no refpect how vile,)
That is not quickly buzz'd into his ears?
Then all too late comes counfel to be heard,
Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard."
Direct not him, whofe way himself will choose;'
'Tis breath thou lack'ft, and that breath wilt thou
lofe.

GAUNT. Methinks, I am a prophet new infpir'd;

• Lafcivious metres;] The old copies have-meeters; but I believe we should read metres, for verfes. Thus the folio fpells the word metre in the first part of K. Henry IV:

one of these fame meeter ballad-mongers." Venom found agrees well with lafcivious ditties, but not fo commodioufly with one who meets another; in which fense the word appears to have been generally received. STEEVENS.

9 Report of fashions in proud Italy;] Our author, who gives to all nations the cuftoms of England, and to all ages the manners of his own, has charged the times of Richard with a folly not perhaps known then, but very frequent in Shakspeare's time, and much lamented by the wifest and best of our ancestors.

JOHNSON.

2 Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard.] Where the will rebels against the notices of the understanding. JOHNSON.

3 whofe way himself will choofe;] Do not attempt to guide him, who, whatever thou fhalt fay, will take his own course.

JOHNSON.

4

And thus, expiring, do foretell of him :—
His rafh fierce blaze of riot cannot laft;
For violent fires foon burn out themselves:
Small fhowers last long, but fudden storms are
fhort;

He tires betimes, that fpurs too faft betimes;
With eager feeding, food doth choke the feeder:
Light vanity, infatiate cormorant,

Confuming means, foon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this fcepter'd ifle,
This earth of majesty, this feat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise ;

This fortrefs, built by nature for herself,
Against infection,' and the hand of war;
This happy breed of men, this little world;
This precious stone set in the filver sea,
Which ferves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defenfive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands;

6

This bleffed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,

This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,

rab] That is, hafty, violent. JOHNSON.

So, in K. Henry IV. Part I:

"Like aconitum, or rash gunpowder." MALONE.

5 Againft infection,] I once fufpected that for infection we might read invafion; but the copies all agree, and I fuppofe Shakspeare meant to fay, that iflanders are fecured by their fituation both from war and peftilence. JOHNSON.

In Allot's England's Parnaffus, 1600, this paffage is quotedAgainft inteftion," &c. perhaps the word might be infeftion, if fuch a word was in ufe. FARMER.

6

lefs happier lands;] So read all the editions, except Sir T. Hanmer's, which has lefs happy. I believe, Shak fpeare, from the habit of faying more happier, according to the custom of his time, inadvertently writ lefs happier. JOHNSON,

re

Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth,"
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
(For Chriftian fervice, and true chivalry,)
As is the fepulcht in stubborn Jewry,
Of the world's ranfom, bleffed Mary's fon:
This land of fuch dear fouls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leas'd out (I die pronouncing it,)
Like to a tenement, or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant fea,
Whose rocky fhore beats back the envious fiege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with fhame,

1 Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth,] The firft edition in quarto, 1598, reads:

Fear'd by their breed, and famous for their birth.
The quarto, in 1615:

Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth.

The first folio, though printed from the fecond quarto, reads as the firft. The particles in this author feem often to have been printed by chance. Perhaps the paffage, which appears a little difordered, may be regulated thus:

The first folio could not have been printed from the second quarto, on account of many variations as well as omiffions. The quarto 1608 has the fame reading with that immediately preceding it. STEEVENS.

Fear'd by their breed,] i. e. by means of their breed.

8 This land

MALONE.

Is now leas'd out (I die pronouncing it,) Like to a tenement, or pelting farm :] "In this 22d yeare of King Richard (fays Fabian) the common fame ranne, that the kinge had letten to farm the realme unto Sir William Scrope, earle of Wiltshire, and then treafurer of England, to Syr John Bushey, Sir John Bagot, and Sir Henry Grene, knightes." MALONE.

With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds;*
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a fhameful conqueft of itself:
O, would the fcandal vanifh with my life,
How happy then were my enfuing death!

Enter King RICHARD, and Queen ;' AUMERLE,
BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT, Ross,

LOUGHBY."

and WIL

YORK. The king is come: deal mildly with his youth;

With inky blots,] I fufpect that our author wrote-inky bolts. How can blots bind in any thing? and do not bolts correfpond better with bonds? Inky bolts are written reftrictions. So, in The Honeft Man's Fortune, by Beaumont and Fletcher, Act IV. fc. i:

2

66

manacling itself

"In gyves of parchment." STEEVENS.

rotten parchment bonds;] Alluding to the great fums raised by loans and other exactions, in this reign, upon the English fubjects. GREY.

Gaunt does not allude, as Grey fuppofes, to any loans or exactions extorted by Richard, but to the circumstances of his having actually farmed out his royal realm, as he himself styles it. In the laft fcene of the first act he fays:

"And, for our coffers are grown fomewhat light, "We are enforc'd to farm our royal realm." And it afterwards appears that the perfon who farmed the realm was the Earl of Wiltshire, one of his own favourites.

M. MASON.

3 Queen;] Shakspeare, as Mr. Walpole fuggefts to me, has deviated from hiftorical truth in the introduction of Richard's queen as a woman in the prefent piece; for Anne, his first wife, was dead before the play commences, and Ifabella, his fecond wife, was a child at the time of his death. MALONE.

+ — Aumerle,] was Edward, eldest fon of Edmund Duke of York, whom he fucceeded in the title. He was killed at Agincourt, WALPOLE.

5

Rofs,] was William Lord Roos, (and fo fhould be printed,) of Hamlake, afterwards Lord Treasurer to Henry IV.

WALPOLE.

For young hot colts, being rag'd, do rage the

more."

QUEEN. How fares our noble uncle, Lancafter? K. RICH. What comfort, man? How is't with aged Gaunt?

GAUNT. O, how that name befits my compofition!

Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old:
Within me grief hath kept a tedious faft;
And who abstains from meat, that is not gaunt?
For fleeping England long time have I watch'd;
Watching breeds leannefs, leannefs is all gaunt:
The pleasure, that some fathers feed upon,
Is my ftrict faft, I mean-my children's looks;
And, therein fafting, haft thou made me gaunt:
Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,
Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.
K.RICH. Can fick men play so nicely with their
names?

GAUNT. No, mifery makes sport to mock itself:
Since thou doft 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?

6

GAUNT. No, no; men living flatter those that die.

K. RICH. Thou, now a dying, fay'ft-thou flatter'ft me.

GAUNT. Oh! no; thou dieft, though I the ficker be.

Willoughby.] was William Lord Willoughby of Erefby, 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.