Whereto my finger, like a dial's point, Is pointing ftill, in cleansing them from tears. Now, fir, the found, that tells what hour it is,' Are clamorous groans, that strike upon my heart, Which is the bell: So fighs, and tears, and groans, Show minutes, times, and hours:-but my time Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy, While I ftand fooling here, his Jack o'the clock.' The fame thought alfo occurs in Greene's Perimedes, 1588: "Difquiet thoughts the minuts of her watch." To jar is, I believe, to make that noife which is called ticking. So, in The Winter's Tale: 66 -I love thee not a jar o' the clock behind," &c. Again, in The Spanish Tragedy: the minutes jarring, the clock ftriking." STEEVENS. There appears to be no reafon for fuppofing with Dr. Johnson, that this paffage is corrupt. It fhould be recollected, that there are three ways in which a clock notices the progrefs of time; viz. by the libration of the pendulum, the index on the dial, and the ftriking of the hour. To thefe, the king, in his comparison, feverally alludes; his fighs correfponding to the jarring of the pendulum, which, at the fame time that it watches or numbers the feconds, marks alfo their progrefs in minutes on the dial or outward watch, to which the king compares his eyes; and their want of figures is fupplied by a fucceffion of tears, or (to ufe an expreffion of Milton) minute drops: his finger, by as regularly wiping thefe away, performs the office of the dial's point:-his clamorous groans are the founds that tell the hour.. In K. Henry IV. Part II. Tears are used in a fimilar manner: "But Harry lives, that fhall convert those tears, "By number, into hours of happiness." HENLEY, Now, fir, &c.] Should we not read thus: Now, fir, the founds that tell what hour it is, Are clamorous groans," &c. RITSON, 3—his Jack o' the clock.] That is, I ftrike for him. One of thefe automatons is alluded to in K. Richard III, A&t IV. fc. iii; "Because that, like a Jack, thou keep'ft the ftroke, "Between thy begging and my meditation," This mufick mads me, let it found no more ; * Enter Groom. GROOM. Hail, royal prince! K. RICH. Thanks, noble peer; The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear. What art thou? and how comeft thou hither, Where no man never comes, but that fad dog' That brings me food, to make misfortune live? Again, in an old comedy, entitled, If this be not a good Play, the Devil is in it, 1612: "And we their jacks o' the clockhouse." STEEVENS. 4 This mufick mads me, let it found no more ;] So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece : "The little birds that tune their morning throats, MALONE. 5 For, though it have holpe madmen to their wits,] In what degree mufick was fuppofed to be useful in curing madnefs, the reader may receive information from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Part II. Sect ii. REED. The allufion is perhaps, to the perfons bit by the tarantula, who are faid to be cured by mufick. MALONE. Is a ftrange brooch in this all-hating world. ie is a h GROOM. I was a poor groom of thy ftable, king, When thou wert king; who, travelling towards York, With much ado, at length have gotten leave To look upon my fometimes master's face. O, how it yern'd my heart, when I beheld, In London streets, that coronation day, When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary! That horse, that thou so often hast bestrid; That horse, that I so carefully have dress'd! for grave. The expreffion will then be the fame as if he had said, that grave, that gloomy villain. So, in Holinfhed, p. 730: "With that, the recorder called Fitzwilliam, a sad man, and an honeft," &c. STEEVENS. fometimes mafter's face.] Sometimes was used for formerly, as well as fometime, which the modern editors have fubftituted. So, in Speed's Hiftory of Great Britaine, 1611:-" A catalogue of the religious houfes, &c. fometimes in England and Wales," MALONE. The old copy, redundantly,― Jometimes royal mafter's face. STEEVENS. by jauncing Bolingbroke.] Jaunce and jaunt were fynonymous words. Ben Jonfon ufes geances in his Tale of a Tub: Enter Keeper, with a dish. KEEP. Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay. [To the Groom. K. RICH. If thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away. GROOM. What my tongue dares not, that my heart fhall fay. [Exit. KEEP. My lord, will't please you to fall to? K. RICH. Tafte of it firft, as thou art wont to do. KEEP. My lord, I dare not; fir Pierce of Exton, who Lately came from the king, commands the contrary. K. RICH. The devil take Henry of Lancaster, and thee! Patience is ftale, and I am weary of it. KEEP. Help, help, help! [Beats the Keeper. Enter EXTON, and Servants, armed. K. RICH. How now? what means death in this rude affault? Villain, thy own hand yields thy death's inftrument. [Snatching a weapon, and killing one. Go thou, and fill another room in hell. [He kills another; then ExTON ftrikes him down. That hand fhall burn in never-quenching fire, That ftaggers thus my perfon.-Exton, thy fierce hand Hath with the king's blood ftain'd the king's own land. "I would I had a few more geances of it: STEEVENS. Mount, mount, my foul! thy feat is up on high; Whilft my grofs flesh finks downward, here to die." 2 [Dies. here to die.] Shak speare in this scene has followed Holinfhed, who took his account of Richard's death from Hall, as Hall did from Fabian, in whofe Chronicle, I believe, this story of Sir Piers of Exton firft appeared. Froifart, who had been in England in 1396, and who appears to have finished his Chronicle foon after the death of the king, fays, "how he died, and by what meanes, I could not tell whanne I wrote this cronicle." Had he been murdered by eight armed men, (for fuch is Fabian's story,) "four of whom he flew with his own hand," and from whom he muft have received many wounds, furely fuch an event must have reached the ears of Froifart, who had a great regard for the king, having received from him at his departure from England a goblet of filver and gilt, waying two marke of filver, and within it a C. nobles; by the whych (he adds) I am as yet the better, and fhal be as longe as I live; wherefore I am bounde to praye to God for his foule, and wyth muche forowe I wryte of his deathe." 66 Nor is this ftory of his murder confiftent with the account (which is not controverted) of his body being brought to London and expofed in Cheapfide for two hours, (" his heade on a blacke quifhen, and his yjage open,") where it was viewed, fays Froifart, by twenty thoufand perfons. The account given by Stowe, who feems to have had before him a Manufcript Hiftory of the latter part of Richard's life, written by a perfon who was with him in Wales, appears much more probable. He fays," he was imprifoned in Pomfrait Caftle, where xv dayes and nightes they vexed him with continuall hunger, thirft, and cold, and finally bereft him of his life, with fuch a kind of death as never before that time was knowen in England, faith Sir John Fortifcute," probably in his Declaration touching the title of the Houfe of Yorke, a work yet, I believe, fomewhere exifting in MS. Sir John Fortefcue was called to the bar a few years after the death of Richard: living therefore fo near the time, his teftimony is of the highest weight. And with him Harding, who is fuppofed to have been at the battle of Shrewsbury in 1403, concurs: "Men fayd for-hungered he was." Chron. 1543, fol. 199. So alfo Walfingham, who wrote in the time of Henry V. and Polydore Virgil. The Percies in the Manifefto which they published against King Henry IV. in the third yeare of his reign, the day before the battle of Shrewsbury, exprefsly charge him with having "carried his fovereign lord traiteroufly within the caftell of Pomfret, with |