God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay
A glorious angel: then, if angels fight,
Weak men muft fall; for heaven ftill guards the
right.

Enter SALISBURY.

Welcome, my lord; How far off lies your power? SAL. Nor near, nor further off, my gracious

lord,

Than this weak arm: Difcomfort guides my tongue,
And bids me fpeak of nothing but defpair.
One day too late, I fear, my noble lord,
Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth:
O, call back yesterday, bid time return,

And thou fhalt have twelve thousand fighting men!
To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late,

O'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy ftate; For all the Welfhmen, hearing thou wert dead, Are gone to Bolingbroke, difpers'd, and fled. AUM. Comfort, my liege: Why looks your grace fo pale?

K. RICH. But now, the blood of twenty thoufand

men

Did triumph in my face, and they are fled; And, till fo much blood thither come again, Have I not reason to look pale and dead?* All fouls that will be fafe, fly from my fide; For time hath fet a blot upon my pride.

4 Have I not reafon to look pale and dead?] So, in K. Henry IV. P. II:

"Even fuch a man

"So dull, fo dead in look, fo woe-begone,

66

Drew Priam's curtains in the dead of night."

Again, in A Midsummer Night's Dream:

So fhould a murderer look, fo dead, fo grim."

MALONE.

AUM. Comfort, my liege; remember who you

are.

K. RICH. I had forgot myfelf: Am I not king? Awake, thou fluggard' majesty! thou sleep'ft. Is not the king's name forty thoufand names?" Arm, arm, my name! a puny subject ftrikes At thy great glory.-Look not to the ground, Ye favourites of a king; Are we not high? High be our thoughts: I know, my uncle York Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who Comes here?

Enter SCROOP.

SCROOP. More health and happiness betide my liege,

Than can my care-tun'd tongue deliver him!

K. RICH. Mine ear is open, and my heart prepar'd;

The worst is worldly lofs, thou canft unfold.
Say, is my kingdom loft? why, 'twas my care;
And what lofs is it, to be rid of care?
Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?
Greater he shall not be; if he serve God,

-fluggard-] So the folio. The quartos have-coward. MALONE.

6 Is not the king's name forty thousand names?] Thus, in King

Richard III:

"Befides, the king's name is a tower of ftrength." See a fpeech of Antigonus, in Plutarch, of this kind, Vol. II. P. 199, 4to. Gr. S. W.

1 Mine ear is open, &c.] It feems to be the defign of the poet to raise Richard to efteem in his fall, and confequently to intereft the reader in his favour. He gives him only paffive fortitude, the virtue of a confeffor, rather than of a king. In his profperity we faw him imperious and oppreffive; but in his diftrefs he is wife, patient, and pious. JOHNSON.

We'll ferve him too, and be his fellow fo:
Revolt our fubjects? that we cannot mend;
They break their faith to God, as well as us:
Cry, woe, deftruction, ruin, lofs, decay;

The worst is-death, and death will have his day. SCROOP. Glad am I, that your highness is fo arm'd

To bear the tidings of calamity.
Like an unseasonable stormy day,

Which makes the filver rivers drown their fhores,
As if the world were all diffolv'd to tears;
So high above his limits fwells the rage

Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land
With hard bright steel, and hearts harder than steel.
White beards have arm'd their thin and hairless

fcalps

Against thy majefty; boys, with women's voices,
Strive to fpeak big, and clap their female joints'
In ftiff unwieldy arms against thy crown:
Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows"

7 White beards-] Thus the quartos. The first folio, with a ridiculous blunder,-White bears. STEEVENS.

8 and clap their female joints-] Mr. Pope more elegantly reads-and clafp-; which has been adopted by the fubfequent editors. But the emendation does not feem abfolutely neceffary. MALONE.

Clip would be ftill nearer than clafp. RITSON.
Lee, in his Mithridates, has imitated this paffage; A&t IV:
"The very boys, like Cupids drefs'd in arms,

"Clap their young harnefs'd thighs, and truft to battle."
STEEVENS,

Thy very beadfmen learn to bend their bows-] Such is the reading of all the copies; yet I doubt whether beadfmen be right, for the bow feems to be mentioned here as the proper weapon of a beadfman. The king's beadfmen were his chaplains. Trevifa calls himfelf the beadfman of his patron. Beadfman might likewife be any man maintained by charity to pray for his benefactor. Hanmer reads the very beadfman, but thy is better. JOHNSON.

2

Of double-fatal yew against thy state;
Yea, diftaff women manage rufty bills

Against thy feat: both young and old rebel,
And all goes worse than I have power to tell.
K. RICH. Too well, too well, thou tell'st a tale
fo ill.

Where is the earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot?
What is become of Bushy? where is Green?'

The reading of the text is right enough: "As boys strive to fpeak big, and clafp their effeminate joints in ftiff unwieldy arms," &c. "fo his very beadsmen learn to bend their bows against him." Their does not abfolutely denote that the bow was their ufual or proper weapon; but only taken up and appropriated by them on this occafion. PERCY.

2 Of double-fatal yew-] Called fo, because the leaves of the yew are poison, and the wood is employed for inftruments of death. WARBURTON.

From fome of the ancient ftatutes it appears that every Englishman, while archery was practised, was obliged to keep in his house either a bow of yew or fome other wood. It should seem therefore that yews were not only planted in church-yards to defend the churches from the wind, but on account of their use in making bows; while by the benefit of being fecured in enclofed places, their poisonous quality was kept from doing mifchief to cattle. STEEVENS.

3 Where is the earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot?

What is become of Busby? where is Green?] Here are four of them named ; and, within a very few lines, the king hearing they had made their peace with Bolingbroke, calls them three Judaffes. But how was their peace made? Why, with the lofs of their heads. This being explained, Aumerle fays:

"Is Bufhy, Green, and the earl of Wiltshire dead ?" So that Bagot ought to be left out of the question: and, indeed he had made the best of his way for Chester, and from thence had escaped into Ireland.

The poet could not be guilty of fo much forgetfulness and abfurdity. The transcribers muft have blundered. It seems probable to me that he wrote, as I have conjecturally altered the text:

Where is the earl of Wiltshire? where is he got? i. e. into what corner of my dominions is he flunk and abfconded. THEOBALD.

That they have let the dangerous enemy
Measure our confines with fuch peaceful fteps?
If we prevail, their heads fhall pay for it.

I warrant, they have made peace with Bolingbroke. SCROOP. Peace have they made with him, indeed, my lord.

K. RICH. O villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption!

Dogs, eafily won to fawn on any man!

Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that fting my heart!

Three Judaffes, each one thrice worse than Judas! Would they make peace? terrible hell make war Upon their spotted fouls for this offence!

SCROOP. Sweet love, I fee, changing his property, Turns to the fourest and most deadly hate :Again uncurfe their fouls; their peace is made With heads, and not with hands: thofe whom you

curfe,

Have felt the worft of death's destroying wound, And lie full low, grav'd in the hollow ground.

This emendation Dr. Warburton adopts. Hanmer leaves a blank after Wiltshire. I believe the author, rather than transcriber, made a mistake. Where is he got, does not found in my ear like an expreffion of Shakspeare. JOHNSON.

I agree with Johnfon in thinking that this was a mistake of the author's, because we find a mistake of the fame nature in the fecond act, where Bolingbroke fays, that Bristol castle was held by Bufhy and Bagot; yet it is certain that Bagot was not taken at Bristol, for we find him afterwards accufing Aumerle of treafon; and in the parting fcene between him, Green, and Bufhy, he declares his intention of flying to the King in Ireland. M. MASON.

Perhaps Shakspeare intended to mark more ftrongly the pertur bation of the king by making him inquire at firft for Bagot, whofe loyalty, on further recollection, might fhow him the impropriety of his queftion. MALONE.

grav'd] The verb, to grave, is not peculiar to