And thou

K. RICH.

a lunatick lean-witted fool,'

derstand it differently from the learned commentator, being perhaps not quite fo zealous for Shakspeare's political reputation. The reafoning of Gaunt, I think, is this: By fetting the royalties to farm thou haft reduced thyself to a ftate below fovereignty, thou art now no longer king but landlord of England, fubject to the fame reftraint and limitations as other landlords: by making thy condition a ftate of law, a condition upon which the common rules of law can ope rate, thou art become a bondflave to the law; thou haft made thyJelf amenable to laws from which thou wert originally exempt.

Whether this explanation be true or no, it is plain that Dr. Warburton's explanation of bondslave to the law, is not true.

JOHNSON.

Warburton's explanation of this paffage is too abfurd to require confutation; and his political obfervation is equally ill-founded. The doctrine of abfolute fovereignty might as well have been learned in the reign of Elizabeth, as in that of her fucceffor. She was, in fact, as abfolute as he wifhed to be.

Johnfon's explanation is in general juft; but I think that the words, of law, muft mean, by law, or according to law, as we fay, of courfe, and of right, inftead of by right, or by course.Gaunt's reafoning is this" Having let your kingdom by lease, you are no longer the king of England, but the landlord only; your ftate is by law, fubject to the law." M. MASON.

and

Mr. Heath explains the words ftate of law fomewhat differently: Thy royal eftate, which is established by the law, is now in virtue of thy having leafed it out, fubjected," &c. MALONE.

8 Gaunt, And thou

K. Rich. —a lunatick lean-witted fool,] In the difpofition of these lines I have followed the folio, in giving the word thou to the king; but the regulation of the first quarto, 1597, is perhaps preferable, being more in our poet's manner:

Gaunt. And thou

K. Rich. a lunatick, lean-witted fool,

And thou a mere cypher in thy own kingdom, Gaunt was going to fay. Richard interrupts him, and takes the word thou in a different fenfe, applying it to Gaunt, instead of himself. Of this kind of retort there are various inftances in these plays.

The folio repeats the word And:

Prefuming on an ague's privilege,
Dar'ft with thy frozen admonition

Make pale our cheek; chafing the royal blood,
With fury, from his native refidence.
Now by my feat's right royal majefty,
Wert thou not brother to great Edward's fon,
This tongue that runs fo roundly in thy head,
Should run thy head from thy unreverend fhoulders.
GAUNT. O, fpare me not, my brother Edward's
fon,

For that I was his father Edward's fon;
That blood already, like the pelican,

Haft thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd:
My brother Glofter, plain well-meaning foul,
(Whom fair befal in heaven 'mongft happy fouls!)
May be a precedent and witnefs good,

That thou refpect'ft not spilling Edward's blood:
Join with the prefent fickness that I have;
And thy unkindness be like crooked age,
To crop at once a too-long wither'd flower."

lean-witted-] Dr. Farmer observes to me that the fame expreffion occurs in the 106th Pfalm:

" and fent leannefs withal into their foul." •

STEEVENS.

And thy unkindness be like crooked age, To crop at once a too-long wither'd flower.] Thus ftand these lines in all the copies, but I think there is an error. Why should Gaunt, already old, call on any thing like age to end him? How can age be faid to crop at once? How is the idea of crookedness connected with that of cropping? I fuppofe the poet dictated

thus:

And thy unkindness be time's crooked edge

To crop at once

That is, let thy unkindness be time's fcythe to crop.

Edge was eafily confounded by the ear with age, and one mistake once admitted made way for another. JOHNSON.

Shakspeare, I believe, took this idea from the figure of Time, who was reprefented as carrying a fickle as well as a Scythe. A fickle was anciently called a crook, and fometimes, as in the fol

Live in thy shame, but die not fhame with thee!—
These words hereafter thy tormentors be!-
Convey me to my bed, then to my grave:-
Love they to live, that love and honour have.

[Exit, borne out by his Attendants.

K. RICH. And let them die, that age and fullens have;

For both haft thou, and both become the grave, YORK.' Befeech your majefty, imputę his words To wayward ficklinefs and age in him:

lowing inftances, crooked may mean armed with a crook. So, in Kendall's Epigrams, 1577:

"The regall king and crooked clowne
"All one alike death driveth downe."

Again, in the 100th Sonnet of Shakspeare:

"Give my love, fame, faster than time waftes life,
"So thou prevent'ft his scythe and crooked knife.”

Again, in the 119th:

"Love's not Time's fool, though rofy lips and checks
"Within his bending fickle's compafs come."

It may be mentioned, however, that crooked is an epithet bestowed on age in the tragedy of Locrine, 1595:

"Now yield to death o'erlaid by crooked age."

Locrine has been attributed to Shakspeare; and in this paffage quoted from it, no allufion to a scythe can be fuppofed. Our poet's expreffions are fometimes confufed and abortive. STEEVENS.

Again, in A Flourish upon Fancie, by N. B. [Nicholas Breton,] 1577:

"Who, when that he awhile hath bin in fancies schoole, "Doth learne in his old crooked age to play the doting foole." MALONE.

Shakspeare had probably two different but kindred ideas in his mind; the bend of age, and the fickle of time, which he confounded together. M. MASON.

9 Love they] That is, let them love. JOHNSON.

'Beseech your majefty,] The old copies redundantly read—
I do befeech, &c.

Mr. Ritfon would regulate the paffage differently (and perhaps rightly) by omitting the words-in him:

He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear
As Harry duke of Hereford, were he here.

K.RICH. Right; you say true: as Hereford's love, fo his :

As theirs, fo mine; and all be as it is.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.3

NORTH. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty.

K. RICH. What says he now ?4

NORTH.

Nay, nothing; all is faid: His tongue is now a ftringlefs inftrument; Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent. TORK. Be York the next that must be bankrupt

fo!

Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.

K. RICH. The ripest fruit first falls, and fo doth he;

His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be:5
So much for that.- -Now for our Irish wars:
We must fupplant those rough rug-headed kerns;
Which live like venom, where no venom elfe,
But only they, hath privilege to live.

I do befeech your majefty, impute

His words to wayward ficklinefs and age. STEEVENS. Northumberland.] was Henry Percy, Earl of Northum berland. WALPOLE.

What fays he now ?] I have fupplied the adverb-now, (which is wanting in the old copy) to complete the measure.

STEEVENS.

our pilgrimage must be:] That is, our pilgrimage is yet M. MASON.

where no venom elfe,] This alludes to a tradition that

And, for these great affairs do afk fome charge,
Towards our affiftance, we do feize to us
The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables,
Whereof our uncle Gaunt did ftand poffefs'd.
YORK. How long fhall I be patient? Ah, how
long

Shall tender duty make me fuffer wrong?

Not Glofter's death, nor Hereford's banishment, Not Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private

wrongs,

Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke
About his marriage," nor my own difgrace,
Have ever made me four my patient cheek,
Or bend one wrinkle on my fovereign's face.-
I am the last of noble Edward's fons,

Of whom thy father, prince of Wales, was first;
In war was never lion rag'd more fierce,
In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
Than was that young and princely gentleman:
His face thou haft, for even fo look'd he,
Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;"
But, when he frown'd, it was against the French,
And not againft his friends: his noble hand

St. Patrick freed the kingdom of Ireland from venomous reptiles every kind. So, in Decker's Honeft Whore, P. II. 1630:

of

66

that Irish Judas,

"Bred in a country where no venom profpers,

"But in his blood."

Again, in Fuimus Troes, 1635:

"As Irish earth doth poison poisonous beafts." STEEVENS. • Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke

About his marriage,] When the duke of Hereford, after his banishment, went into France, he was honourably entertained at that court, and would have obtained in marriage the only daughter of the duke of Berry, uncle to the French king, had not Richard prevented the match. STEEVENS.

↑ Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours ;] i. e. when he was of thy age. MALONE.