EXTON. As full of valour, as of royal blood: Both have I fpilt; O, would the deed were good! For now the devil, that told me—I did well, Says, that this deed is chronicled in hell. This dead king to the living king I'll bear ;Take hence the rest, and give them burial here. [Exeunt. out the confent or the judgement of the lordes of the realm, by the space of fiftene daies and fo many nightes, (which is horrible among Chriftian people to be heard,) with hunger, thirst, and cold to perishe." Had the ftory of Sir Pierce of Exton been true, it undoubtedly muft have reached them. Their not mentioning it is decifive. If, however, we are to give credit to Sir John Hayward, this controverted point will not admit of difpute; for in The Firft Part of the Life and Reign of King Henry IV. 4to. 1599, after relating the ftory of King Richard's affaffination, he very gravely tells us, that after being felled to the ground, he with a faint and feeble voice groaned forth thefe words: My great grandfather Edward II." &c. Mr. Hume in his entertaining, but often fuperficial, Hiftory of England, has not been weak enough to infert this fictitious dying fpeech. He might, however, have inferted it with as much propriety as an abridgement of the oration of the Bishop of Carlisle, on the depofition of the king being propounded in parliament, which Hayward feigned in imitation of Livy, grounding himself on a few fentences preferved in our old Chronicles, which he has expanded into thirteen quarto pages. The writers of the Parliamentary History have in this matter been as careless as Mr. Hume. MALONE. 3 Dies.] The representation here given of the King's death is perfectly agreeable to Hall and Holinfhed. But the fact was otherwife. He refufed food for several days, and died of abftinence and a broken heart. See Walfingham, Otterbourne, the Monk of Evesham, the continuator of the Hiftory of Croyland, and the anonymous Godftow Chronicle. RITSON. Flourish. Enter BOLINGBROKE, and YORK, with Lords and Attendants. BOLING. Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear, Is that the rebels have confum'd with fire Our town of Cicefter in Gloftershire; But whether they be ta'en, or flain, we hear not. Enter NORTHUMBERLAND. Welcome, my lord: What is the news? NORTH. First, to thy facred state wish I all happiness. The next news is, I have to London fent The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent: * The manner of their taking may appear At large difcourfed in this paper here. [Prefenting a paper. BOLING. We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains; And to thy worth will add right worthy gains. Enter FITZWATER. FITZ. My lord, I have from Oxford fent to London of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent;] So the folio. The quarto reads of Oxford, Salisbury, Blunt, and Kent. It appears from the hiftories of this reign that the reading of the folio is right. MALONE. キ The heads of Brocas, and Sir Bennet Seely; Right noble is thy merit, well I wot. Enter PERCY, with the Bishop of Carlifle. PERCY. The grand confpirator, abbot of West- With clog of conscience, and four melancholy, 5 But here is Carlisle living, to abide BOLING. Carlisle, this is your doom: — The grand confpirator, abbot of Westminster, Hath yielded up his body to the grave;] This Abbot of Weftminfter was William de Colchefter. The relation here given of his death, after Holinfhed's Chronicle, is untrue, as he furvived the King many years; and though called "the grand confpirator," it is very doubtful whether he had any concern in the confpiracy; at least nothing was proved against him. RITSON. 6 Carlisle, this is your doom:] This prelate was committed to the Tower, but on the interceffion of his friends, obtained leave to change his prifon for Weftminster-Abbey. In order to deprive him of his fee, the Pope, at the King's inftance, tranflated him to a bishoprick in partibus infidelium; and the only preferment he could ever after obtain, was a rectory in Gloucestershire. He died in 1409. RITSON. High sparks of honour in thee I have seen Thus, in the old day of the Histore of King Lear Je "I see such sparks of honour in your face."" Hence, perlicks, Hilt as Mr Todd observes, Melton, in hi's. Arcades, v. 26: que bright her sour sparkle in your eyes." was ८ Enter EXTON, with Attendants bearing a coffin. EXTON. Great king, within this coffin I prefent Thy buried fear: herein all breathless lies The mightiest of thy greatest enemies, Richard of Bourdeaux, by me hither brought. BOLING. Exton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought A deed of flander, with thy fatal hand, EXTON. From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed. BOLING. They love not poison that do poison need, Nor do I thee; though I did with him dead, That blood fhould fprinkle me, to make me grow: To wash this blood off from my guilty hand :- Exeunt. This play is extracted from the Chronicle of Holinfhed, in which many paffages may be found which Shak fpeare has, with very little alteration, tranfplanted into his fcenes; particularly a fpeech of the Bishop of Carlisle, in defence of King Richard's unalienable right, and immunity from human jurifdiction. Jonfon who, in his Catiline and Sejanus, has inferted many fpeeches from the Roman hiftorians, was perhaps induced to that practice by the example of Shakspeare, who had condefcended fometimes to copy more ignoble writers. But Shakspeare had more of his own than Jonfon; and, if he fometimes was willing to fpare his labour, fhowed by what he performed at other times, that his extracts were made by choice or idleness rather than neceffity. This play is one of those which Shakspeare has apparently revised; but as fuccefs in works of invention is not always proportionate to labour, it is not finifhed at: laft with the happy force of fome other of his tragedies, nor can be faid much to affect the paffions, or enlarge the understanding. JOHNSON. The notion that Shakspeare revised this play, though it has long prevailed, appears to me extremely doubtful; or, to fpeak more plainly, I do not believe it. See further on this fubject in An Attempt to afcertain the order of his plays, Vol. I. MALONE. |