Thine eye begins to speak, set thy tongue there:
Or, in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear;
That, hearing how our plaints and prayers do

pierce,

Pity may move thee pardon to rehearse.

BOLING. Good aunt, stand up,

DUCH.

I do not fue to ftand,

Pardon is all the fuit I have in hand.

BOLING. I pardon him, as God fhall pardon me.
DUCH. O happy vantage of a kneeling knee!
Yet am I fick for fear: fpeak it again;

Twice faying pardon, doth not pardon twain,
But makes one pardon ftrong.

BOLING.

I pardon him.

DUCH.

With all my heart

A god on earth thou art.3

BOLING. But for our trusty brother-in-law,-and

the abbot,'

With all the reft of that conforted crew,—
Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels."—
Good uncle, help to order several powers

With all my heart

I pardon him.] The old copies read-I pardon him with all my heart. The tranfpofition was made by Mr. Pope. MALONE. 3 A god on earth thou art.] So, in Cymbeline:

"He fits 'mongft men, like a defcended god." STEEVENS. + But for our trusty brother-in-law,] The brother-in-law meant, was John duke of Exeter and Earl of Huntingdon (own brother to King Richard II.) and who had married with the lady Elizabeth, fifter of Henry Bolingbroke. THEOBALD.

s—the abbot,] i. c. the Abbot of Westminster.

THEOBALD.

6 Deftruction ftraight shall dog them at the heels.] Again, im King Richard III:

"Death and destruction dog thee at the heels."

STERVENS.

To Oxford, or where'er thefe traitors are:
They fhall not live within this world, I fwear,
But I will have them, if I once know where.
Uncle, farewell,—and cousin too," adieu:
Your mother well hath pray'd, and prove you true.
DUCH. Come, my old fon;-I pray God make
[Exeunt.

thee new.

Enter EXTON, and a Servant.

EXTON. Didft thou not mark the king, what words he spake?

Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?
Was it not fo?

SERV.

Those were his very words.

EXTON. Have 1 no friend? quoth he: he spake it twice,

And urg'd it twice together; did he not?

SERV. He did.

EXTON. And, speaking it, he wiftly look'd on me; As who fhould fay,-I would, thou wert the man That would divorce this terror from my heart; Meaning, the king at Pomfret. Come, let's go; I am the king's friend, and will rid his foe.

7

[Exeunt.

coufin too, adieu :] Too, which is not in the old copy, was added by Mr. Theobald, for the fake of the metre. MALONE.

Vex. XI. M-161.

디

SCENE V.

Pomfret. The Dungeon of the Caftle.

Enter King RICHARD.

K. RICH. I have been studying how I may compare
This prifon, where I live, unto the world:
And, for because the world is populous,
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it ;-Yet I'll hammer it out.
My brain I'll prove the female to my foul;
My foul, the father: and these two beget
A generation of ftill-breeding thoughts,
And these fame thoughts people this little world;'
In humours, like the people of this world,
For no thought is contented. The better fort,-
As thoughts of things divine,-are intermix'd
With fcruples, and do fet the word itself
Against the word:"

As thus, Come,-little ones; and then again,-
It is as hard to come, as for a camel

To thread the postern of a needle's eye.

Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot

5

people this little world;] i. e. his own frame;-" the ftate of man;" which in our author's Julius Cæfar is faid to be "like to a little kingdom." So alfo, in his Lover's Complaint: Storming my world with forrow's wind and rain." Again, in King Lear:

"Strives in this little world of man to out-fcorn

"The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain." MALONE. the word itself

Against the word:] By the word, I fuppose, is meant the holy

word. The folio reads:

the faith itself

Against the faith. STEEVENS.

The reading of the text is that of the first quarto, 1597:

MALONE

Unlikely wonders: how these vain weak nails
May tear a paffage through the flinty ribs
Of this hard world, my ragged prifon walls;
And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.
Thoughts tending to content, flatter themselves,-
That they are not the first of fortune's flaves,
Nor shall not be the laft; like filly beggars,
Who, fitting in the stocks, refuge their fhame,-
That many have, and others muft fit there:
And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
Bearing their own misfortune on the back
Of fuch as have before endur'd the like.
Thus play I, in one perfon,' many people,
And none contented: Sometimes am I king;
Then treafon makes me wish myself a beggar,
And fo I am: Then crushing penury
Perfuades me I was better when a king;
Then am I king'd again: and, by-and-by,
Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,
And straight am nothing:-But, whate'er I am,
Nor I, nor any man, that but man is,

With nothing fhall be pleas'd, till he be eas'd
With being nothing.-Mufick do I hear? [Mufick.
Ha, ha! keep time:-How four fweet mufick is,
When time is broke, and no proportion kept!
So is it in the mufick of men's lives.

And here have I the daintiness of ear,

To check time broke in a disorder'd string;

7 Thus play I, in one perfon,] Alluding, perhaps, to the neceffities of our early theatres. The title-pages of fome of our Moralities fhow, that three or four characters were frequently represented by one perfon. STEEVENS.

Thus the first quarto, 1597. All the fubfequent old copies have-prifon. MALONE.

To check-] Thus the first quarto, 1597. The folio reads— To bear. Of this play the first quarto copy is much more valuable than that of the folio. MALONE.

But, for the concord of my state and time,
Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
For now hath time made me his numb'ring clock:
My thoughts are minutes; and, with fighs, they jar
Their watches on to mine eyes, the outward watch,'

9 For now hath time made me his numb’ring clock:

My thoughts are minutes; and, with fighs, they jar

Their watches on to mine eyes, the outward watch, &c.] I think this paffage must be corrupt, but I know not well how to make it better. The firft quarto reads:

My thoughts are minutes; and with fighs they jar,
Their watches on unto mine eyes the outward watch.
The quarto 1615:

My thoughts are minutes, and with fighs they jar,

There watches on unto mine eyes the outward watch.

The firft folio agrees with the fecond quarto.

Perhaps out of these two readings the right may be made. Watch feems to be used in a double sense, for a quantity of time, and for the inftrument that measures time. I read, but with no great confidence, thus:

My thoughts are minutes, and with fighs they jar

Their watches on; mine eyes the outward watch,
Whereto, &c. JOHNSON.

I am unable to throw any certain light on this paffage. A few hints, however, which may tend to its illustration, are left for the fervice of future commentators.

The outward watch, as I am informed, was the moveable figure of a man habited like a watchman, with a pole and lantern in his hand. The figure had the word-watch written on its forehead; and was placed above the dial-plate.This information was derived from an artift after the operation of a fecond cup: therefore neither Mr. Tollet, who communicated it, or myfelf, can vouch for its authenticity, or with any degree of confidence apply it to the paffage before us.XSuch a figure, however, appears to have been alluded to in Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Hu—he looks like one of thefe motions in a great antique clock," &c. A motion anciently fignified a puppet. Again, in his Sejanus:

mour: "

"Obferve him, as his watch obferves his clock."
Again, in Churchyard's Charitie, 1595:

"The clocke will strike in hafte, I heare the watch
"That founds the bell.

Note

× Mr Dutton of Fleetstreet has since confirmed to me this intelligonia, Steevens,