K. Rich. O, good! Convey?-Conveyers are you

all,2

That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.

[Exeunt K. RICHARD, some Lords, and a guard. Boling. On Wednesday next, we solemnly set down

Our coronation: lords, prepare yourselves.

[Exeunt all but the Abbot, Bishop of Carlisle, and AUMERle.

Abbot. A woeful pageant have we here beheld. Car. The woe's to come; the children yet unborn Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn. Aum. You holy clergymen, is there no plot To rid the realm of this pernicious blot? Abbot. Before I freely speak my mind herein, You shall not only take the sacrament To bury mine intents, but to effect Whatever I shall happen to devise :— I see your brows are full of discontent, Your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears; Come home with me to supper; I will lay A plot, shall show us all a merry day.

ACT V.

[Exeunt.

SCENE I. London. A Street leading to the Tower.

Enter Queen, and Ladies.

Queen. This way the king will come; this is the

way

Conveyers are you all,] To convey is a term often used in an ill sense, and so Richard understands it here. Pistol says of stealing, convey the wise it call; and to convey is the word for sleight of hand, which seems to be alluded to here. says the deposed prince, jugglers, who rise with dexterity by the fall of a good king. JOHNSON. 3 To bury-] To conceal, to keep secret.

Ye are all, this nimble

To Julius Cæsar's ill-erected tower,*
To whose flint bosom my condemned lord
Is doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke:
Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth
Have any resting for her true king's queen.

Enter King RICHARD, and Guards.

But soft, but see, or rather do not see,
My fair rose wither: Yet look up; behold;
That you in pity may dissolve to dew,

And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.-
Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand;
Thou map of honour; thou king Richard's tomb,
And not king Richard; thou most beauteous inn,
Why should hard-favour'd grief be lodg'd in thee,
When triumph is become an alehouse guest?

K. Rich. Join not with grief, fair woman, do

not so,

To make my end too sudden: learn, good soul,
To think our former state a happy dream;

From which awak'd, the truth of what we are
Shows us but this: I am sworn brother, sweet,
To grim necessity; and he and I

Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France,
And cloister thee in some religious house:.
Our holy lives must win a new world's crown,
Which our profane hours here have stricken down.
Queen. What, is my Richard both in shape and
mind

Transform'd, and weaken'd! Hath Bolingbroke

4 To Julius Caesar's ill-erected tower,] The Tower of London is traditionally said to have been the work of Julius Cæsar. By-ill-erected, perhaps, is meant-erected for bad purposes.

Join not with grief,] Do not thou unite with grief against me; do not, by thy additional sorrows, enable grief to strike me down at once. My own part of sorrow I can bear, but thy affliction will immediately destroy me. JOHNSON.

Depos'd thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?
The lion, dying, thrusteth forth his paw,
And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
To be o'erpower'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like,
Take thy correction mildly? kiss the rod;
And fawn on rage with base humility,
Which art a lion, and a king of beasts?

K. Rich. A king of beasts, indeed; if aught but
beasts,

I had been still a happy king of men.

Good sometime queen, prepare thee hence for
France:

Think, I am dead; and that even here thou tak'st,
As from my death-bed, my last living leave.
In winter's tedious nights, sit by the fire

With good old folks; and let them tell thee tales
Of woeful ages, long ago betid:

And, ere thou bid good night, to quit their grief,"
Tell thou the lamentable fall of me,

And send the hearers weeping to their beds.
For why, the senseless brands will sympathize
The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
And, in compassion, weep the fire out:
And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,
For the deposing of a rightful king.

North. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is
chang'd;

You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.
And, madam, there is order ta'en for you;
With all swift speed you must away to France.
K. Rich. Northumberland, thou ladder where-
withal

-to quit their grief,] To retaliate their mournful stories.

The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,→
The time shall not be many hours of age
More than it is, ere foul sin, gathering head,
Shall break into corruption: thou shalt think,
Though he divide the realm, and give thee half,
It is too little, helping him to all;

And he shall think, that thou, which know'st the way

To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,
Being ne'er so little urg'd, another way

To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.
The love of wicked friends converts to fear;
That fear, to hate; and hate turns one, or both,
To worthy danger, and deserved death.

North. My guilt be on my head, and there an end.

Take leave, and part; for you must part forthwith.
K. Rich. Doubly divorc'd?-Bad men, ye violate
A twofold marriage; 'twixt my crown and me;
And then, betwixt me and my married wife.—
Let me unkiss the oath betwixt thee and me;
And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made.-
Part us, Northumberland; I towards the north,
Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime;
My wife to France; from whence, set forth in
pomp,

She came adorned hither like sweet May,
Sent back like Hallowmas, or short'st of day.

Queen. And must we be divided? must we part? K. Rich. Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.

Queen. Banish us both, and send the king with

me.

North. That were some love, but little policy.

November.

Hallowmas,] All-hallows, or all-hallowtide; the first of

Queen. Then whither he goes, thither let me go. K. Rich. So two, together weeping, make one

woe.

Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here;
Better far off, than-near, be ne'er the near'.
Go, count thy way with sighs; I, mine with groans.
Queen. So longest way shall have the longest

moans.

K. Rich. Twice for one step I'll groan, the way being short,

And piece the way out with a heavy heart.
Come, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief,
Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief.
One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;
Thus give I mine, and thus I take thy heart.

[They kiss. Queen. Give me mine own again; 'twere no good part,

To take on me to keep,, and kill thy heart.

[Kiss again.

So, now I have mine own again, begone,
That I may strive to kill it with a groan.
K. Rich. We make woe wanton with this fond

delay:

Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say.

[Exeunt.

Better far off, than-near, be ne'er the near'.] The meaning is, it is better to be at a great distance, than being near each other, to find that we yet are not likely to be peaceably and happily united.