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And thus, expiring, do foretell of him :-
His rafh fierce blaze of riot cannot laft;
For violent fires foon burn out themselves:
Small fhowers laft long, but fudden ftorms are
fhort;

He tires betimes, that fpurs too fast betimes;
With eager feeding, food doth choke the feeder:
Light vanity, infatiate cormorant,

Confuming means, foon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this fcepter'd ifle,
This earth of majesty, this feat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradife;

This fortress, built by nature for herself,
Against infection,' and the hand of war;
This happy breed of men, this little world;
This precious ftone set in the filver sea,
Which ferves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of lefs happier lands;

This bleffed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,

This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,

4—rash] That is, hafty, violent. JOHNSON. So, in K. Henry IV. Part I:

"Like aconitum, or rash gunpowder." MALONE.

s Against infection,] I once fufpected that for infection we might read invafion; but the copies all agree, and I fuppofe Shakspeare meant to say, that islanders are fecured by their fituation both from war and peftilence. JOHNSON.

In Allot's England's Parnaffus, 1600, this paffage is quotedAgainft inteftion," &c. perhaps the word might be infeftion, if fuch a word was in ufe.. FARMER.

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6- lefs happier lands;] So read all the editions, except Sir T. Hanmer's, which has lefs happy. I believe, Shakspeare, from the habit of faying more happier, according to the custom of his time, inadvertently writ lefs happier. JOHNSON,

Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth,"
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
(For Christian fervice, and true chivalry,).
As is the fepulcher in ftubborn Jewry,
Of the world's ranfom, bleffed Mary's fon:
This land of fuch dear fouls, 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 farm:8
England, bound in with the triumphant fea,
Whose rocky fhore beats back the envious fiege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with fhame,

1 Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth,] The first edition in quarto, 1598, reads:

Fear'd by their breed, and famous for their birth. The quarto, in 1615:

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

The firft folio, though printed from the fecond quarto, reads as the firft. The particles in this author feem often to have been printed by chance. Perhaps the paffage, which appears a little difordered, may be regulated thus:

royal kings,

Fear'd for their breed, and famous for their birth,
For Chriftian fervice, and true chivalry;
Renowned for their deeds as far from home

As is the fepulcher. JOHNSON.

The first folio could not have been printed from the second quarto, on account of many variations as well as omiffions. The quarto 1608 has the fame reading with that immediately preceding it. STEEVENS.

Fear'd by their breed,] i. c. by means of their breed.

8 This land

Is now leas'd out (I die pronouncing it,)

MALONE.

Like to a tenement, or pelting farm :] "In this 22d yeare of King Richard (fays Fabian) the common fame ranne, that the kinge had letten to farm the realme unto Sir William Scrope, earle of Wiltfhire, and then treasurer of England, to Syr John Bushey, Sir John Bagot, and Sir Henry Grene, knightes." MALONE.

With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds;*
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a fhameful conqueft of itself:
O, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my enfuing death!

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Enter King RICHARD, and Queen; AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT, Ross,' and WILLOUGHBY."

YORK. The king is come: deal mildly with his youth;

With inky blots,] I fufpect that our author wrote-inky bolts. How can blots bind in any thing? and do not bolts correfpond better with bonds? Inky bolts are written reftrictions. So, in The Honeft Man's Fortune, by Beaumont and Fletcher, Act IV. fc. i:

66

manacling itself

"In gyves of parchment." STEEVENS.

2 rotten parchment bonds;] Alluding to the great fums raised by loans and other exactions, in this reign, upon the English fubjects. GREY.

Gaunt does not allude, as Grey fuppofes, to any loans or exactions extorted by Richard, but to the circumftances of his having actually farmed out his royal realm, as he himself ftyles it. In the laft fcene of the first act he says:

"And, for our coffers are grown fomewhat light, "We are enforc'd to farm our royal realm." And it afterwards appears that the perfon who farmed the realm was the Earl of Wiltshire, one of his own favourites.

M. MASON. 3-Queen;] Shakspeare, as Mr. Walpole fuggefts to me, has deviated from hiftorical truth in the introduction of Richard's queen as a woman in the prefent piece; for Anne, his first wife, was dead before the play commences, and Ifabella, his fecond wife, was a child at the time of his death. MALONE.

4

Aumerle,] was Edward, eldest fon of Edmund Duke of York, whom he fucceeded in the title. He was killed at Agincourt. WALPOLE.

5

Rofs,] was William Lord Roos, (and fo fhould be printed,) of Hamlake, afterwards Lord Treasurer to Henry IV.

WALPOLE.

For young hot colts, being rag'd, do rage the more."

QUEEN. How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster? K. RICH. What comfort, man? How is't with aged Gaunt?

GAUNT. O, how that name befits my compofition!

Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old:
Within me grief hath kept a tedious faft;
And who abstains from meat, that is not gaunt?
For fleeping England long time have I watch'd;
Watching breeds leannefs, leannefs is all gaunt:
The pleasure, that some fathers feed upon,
Is my ftrict faft, I mean-my children's looks;
And, therein fafting, haft thou made me gaunt:
Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,
Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.
K. RICH. Can fick men play fo nicely with their
names?

GAUNT. No, mifery makes sport to mock itself:
Since thou doft feek to kill my name in me,
I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.

6

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, fay'st-thou flatter'ft me.

GAUNT. Oh! no; thou dieft, though I the ficker be.

Willoughby.] was William Lord Willoughby of Eresby, who afterwards married Joan, widow of Edmund Duke of York. WALPOLE.

For young hot colts, being rag'd, do rage the more.] Read—
-being rein'd, do rage the more." RITSON.

K. RICH. I am in health, I breathe, and see thee

ill.

GAUNT. Now, He that made me, knows I fee thee ill;

Ill in myself to fee, and in thee feeing ill.
Thy death-bed is no leffer than thy land,
Wherein thou lieft in reputation fick ;
And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
Commit'ft thy anointed body to the cure
Of those physicians that first wounded thee:
A thousand flatterers fit within thy crown,
Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;
And yet, incaged in fo small a verge,

The wafte is no whit leffer than thy land.
O, had thy grandfire, with a prophet's eye,
Seen how his fon's fon fhould destroy his fons,
From forth thy reach he would have laid thy
fhame;

Depofing thee before thou wert poffefs'd,
Which art poffefs'd now to depofe thyself.
Why, coufin, wert thou regent of the world,
It were a shame, to let this land by lease:
But, for thy world, enjoying but this land,
Is it not more than fhame, to fhame it fo?
Landlord of England art thou now, not king:
Thy state of law is bondflave to the law;"

8 Ill in myself to fee, and in thee feeing ill.] I cannot help fuppofing that the idle words to fee, which destroy the measure, ihould be omitted. STEEVENS.

9 Thy ftate of law is bondflave to the law;] State of law, i. e. legal fovereignty. But the Oxford editor alters it to ftate o'er law, i. e. abfolute fovereignty. A doctrine, which, if ever our poet learnt at all, he learnt not in the reign when this play was written, Queen Elizabeth's, but in the reign after it, King James's. By bondflave to the law, the poet means his being inflaved to his favourite fubjects. WARBURTON.

This fentiment, whatever it be, is obfcurely expressed. I un

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