Suddenly taken; and hath sent post-haste,
To entreat your majesty to visit him.

K. Rich. Where lies he?

Bushy. At Ely-house.

K. Rich. Now put it, heaven, in his physician's mind,

To help him to his grave immediately!

The lining of his coffers shall make coats
To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.
Come, gentlemen, let's all go visit him:

'Pray God, we may make haste, and come too late!

[Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I. London. A Room in Ely-house.

GAUNT on a Couch; the DUKE OF YORK1, and others standing by him.

Gaunt. Will the king come? that I my last

may

breathe

In wholesome counsel to his unstaied youth.

York. Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath;

For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.

Gaunt. O, but they say, the tongues of dying men Enforce attention, like deep harmony:

Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain.

For they breathe truth, that breathe their words in

pain.

1 Edmond duke of York was the fifth son of Edward III. and was born, in 1441, at Langley, near St. Albans, Herts; from whence he had his surname. 'He was of an indolent disposition, a lover of pleasure, and averse to business; easily prevailed upon to lie still, and consult his own quiet, and never acting with spirit upon any occasion.'-Lowth's William of Wykeham, p. 205.

He, that no more must say, is listen'd more Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose2;

More are men's ends mark'd, than their lives before:
The setting sun, and musick at the close3,

As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last;
Writ in remembrance, more than things long past:
Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear,
My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.

York. No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,
As, praises of his state: then, there are found
Lascivious metres; to whose venom sound
The open ear of youth doth always listen:
Report of fashions in proud Italy*;
Whose manners still our tardy apish nation
Limps after, in base imitation,

Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity (So it be new, there's no respect how vile), That is not quickly buzz'd into his ears? Then all too late comes counsel to be heard, Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard 5. Direct not him, whose way himself will choose; 'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.

2 To insinuate, to lie, to flatter.

3 This I suppose to be a musical term,' says Steevens. So in Lingua, 1607 :—

'I dare engage my ears the close will jar.'

Surely this is a supererogatory conclusion. Shakspeare evidently means no more than that music is sweetest in its close; or when the last sweet sounds rest on the delighted ear. But Steevens's soul, like that of his great coadjutor, does not seem to have been attuned to harmony. The context might however have shown him how superfluous his supposition was; and I have to apologize for diverting the attention of the reader from this beautiful passage for a moment.

4 The poet has charged the times of King Richard II. with a folly not perhaps known then, but very frequent in his own time, and much lamented by the wisest of our ancestors.

5 Where the will rebels against the notices of the understanding.

Gaunt. Methinks, I am a prophet new inspir'd; And thus, expiring, do foretell of him:

His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last;

For violent fires soon burn out themselves:
Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;
He tires betimes, that spurs too fast betimes;
With eager feeding, food doth choke the feeder:
Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,

Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise;

This fortress, built by nature for herself,
Against infection7, and the hand of war;
This happy breed of men, this little world;
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands;

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth,

6 i. e. hasty, violent.

7 Johnson raised a doubt whether we should not read invasion here. Farmer and Malone, upon the authority of a misprint in Allot's England's Parnassus, where this passage is quoted, 'Against intestion,' &c. propose to read infestion, a word of their own coinage. Malone's long note proves nothing: he thinks that we could receive no other infection from abroad than the plague; but it is evident that the poet may allude to the infection of vicious manners and customs. It is true that infestation was in use for a troubling, molesting, or disturbing:' but as all the old copies read infection, there seems to be no sufficient reason for disturbing the text.

8 i. e. by reason of their breed. The quarto of 1598 reads thus:

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

In Greene's Farewell to Follie, 1598, we have a passage resembling this: My lordes of Buda, feared for your valour, and famous for your victories, let not the private will of one be the ruin of a mighty kingdom.'

Renowned for their deeds as far from home
(For Christian service, and true chivalry),
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,
Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's son:
This land of such dear souls, 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 9 farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds;
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself:
O, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!

Enter KING RICHARD, and Queen 10; AUMErle,
BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT, Ross 11, and WIL-
LOUGHBY 12.

York. The king is come: deal mildly with his youth; For young hot colts, being rag'd 13, do rage the more. Queen. How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?

9 In this 22d yeare of King Richard, the common fame ranne that the king had letten to farme the realme unto Sir William Scrope, earle of Wiltshire, and then treasurer of England, to Syr John Bushey, Sir John Bagot, and Sir Henry Greene, Knightes.'-Fabian.

Pelting is paltry, pitiful, petty.

10 Shakspeare has deviated from historical truth in the introduction of Richard's queen as a woman; for Anne, his first wife, was dead before the period at which the commencement of the play is laid; and Isabella, his second wife, was a child at the time of his death.

11 i. e. William Lord Ross, of Hamlake, afterwards lord treasurer to Henry IV.

12 William Lord Willoughby, of Eresby.

13 Ritson proposes to read:

being rein'd, do rage the more.'

K. Rich. What comfort, man? How is't with aged Gaunt?

Gaunt. O, how that name befits my composition! Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt14 in being old: Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast;

And who abstains from meat, that is not gaunt?
For sleeping England long time have I watch'd;
Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt:
The pleasure, that some fathers feed upon,
Is my strict fast, I mean-my children's looks;
And, therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt:
Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,
Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.
K. Rich. Can sick men play so nicely with their
names?

Gaunt. No, misery makes sport to mock itself:
Since thou dost 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?

Gaunt. No, no; men living flatter those that die. K. Rich. Thou, now a dying, say'st-thou flatter'st me.

Gaunt. Oh! no; thou diest, though I the sicker be. K. Rich. I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill. Gaunt. Now, He that made me, knows I see thee

ill:

Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.
Thy deathbed is no lesser than thy land,
Wherein thou liest in reputation sick:
And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
Committ'st thy anointed body to the cure
Of those physicians that first wounded thee:
A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,
Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;
14 Meagre, thin.