YORK. Take not, good coufin, further than you fhould,

Left you mis-take: The heavens are o'er your head.

BOLING. I know it, uncle; and oppose not Myself against their will.-But who comes here?"

Enter PERCY.

Well, Harry; what, will not this castle yield?? PERCY. The castle royally is mann'd, my lord, Against thy entrance.

BOLING. Royally!

Why, it contains no king?

PERCY.

Yes, my good lord, It doth contain a king; king Richard lies Within the limits of yon lime and stone: And with him are lord Aumerle, lord Salisbury, Sir Stephen Scroop; befides a clergyman Of holy reverence, who, I cannot learn.

NORTH. Belike, it is the bishop of Carlisle.

6 I know it, uncle; and oppose not

Myfelf against their will.-But who comes here?] Thefe lines fhould be regulated thus:

I know it, uncle; and oppofe not myself

Against their will. But who comes here?

Such is the regulation of the old copies. MALONE.

I regard the word myself, as an interpolation, and conceive Shakspeare to have written

and oppose not

Against their will.

To oppofe may be here a verb neuter. So, in K. Lear:

66

a fervant, thrill'd with remorfe, "Oppos'd against the act." STEEVENS, Well, Harry; what, will not this caftle yield?] deftroys the metre by reading-Welcome, Harry; tion is Sir T. Hanmer's. STEEVENS.

The old copy
The emenda

BOLING. Noble lord,

[TO NORTH.

Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle;

*

Through brazen trumpet fend the breath of parle
Into his ruin'd ears, and thus deliver.
Harry Bolingbroke

On both his knees, doth kifs king Richard's hand;
And fends allegiance, and true faith of heart,
To his most royal perfon: hither come
Even at his feet to lay my arms and power;
Provided that, my banishment repeal'd,
And lands reftor'd again, be freely granted:
If not, I'll use the advantage of my power,
And lay the fummer's duft with fhowers of blood,
Rain'd from the wounds of flaughter'd Englishmen:
The which, how far off from the mind of Boling-
broke

It is, fuch crimson tempest should bedrench
The fresh green lap of fair king Richard's land,
My stooping duty tenderly shall show.

Go, fignify as much; while here we march
Upon the graffy carpet of this plain.—

[NORTHUMBERLAND advances to the Caftle, with
a Trumpet.

Let's march without the noife of threat'ning drum,
That from the caftle's totter'd battlements
Our fair appointments may be well perus'd.
Methinks, king Richard and myself should meet
With no lefs terror than the elements

• Noble lord,

Go to the rude ribs, &c.] It is obfervable that our author in his addreffes to perfons, often begins with an hemiftich. So, in Troilus and Creffida, Act II. fc. iii:

66

Agam. Princes,

"What grief hath fet the jaundice on your cheeks?" This obfervation may be of ufe in other places, where in the old copies, by the mistake of the tranfcriber, the metre is deftroyed by this regulation not being obferved. MALONE.

Of fire and water, when their thund'ring shock
At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.
Be he the fire, I'll be the yielding water:
The rage be his, while on the earth I rain
My waters; on the earth, and not on him.
March on, and mark king Richard how he looks.

A parle founded, and anfwered by another trumpet within. Flourish. Enter on the walls King R1CHARD, the Bishop of Carlisle," AUMERLE, SCROOP, and SALISBURY.

YORK. See, fee, king Richard doth himself appear,2

As doth the blushing difcontented fun
From out the fiery portal of the eaft;
When he perceives the envious clouds are bent
To dim his glory, and to ftain the track
Of his bright paffage to the occident.
Yet looks he like a king; behold, his eye,
As bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth
Controlling majefty; Alack, alack, for woe,
That any harm fhould ftain fo fair a fhow!

K. RICH. We are amaz'd; and thus long have we flood

To watch the fearful bending of thy knee,

[To NORTHUMBERLAND. Because we thought ourself thy lawful king: And if we be, how dare thy joints forget

9

the Bishop of Carlisle,] was Thomas Merkes. WALPOLE. 2 See, Jee, king Richard doth himself appear,] The following fix lines are abfurdly given to Bolingbroke, who is made to condemn his own conduct and difculp the king's. It is plain these fix and the four following all belong to York. WARBURTON.

It fhould be obferved that the four laft of thefe lines are in all the copies given to York. STEEVENS.

Το pay their awful duty to our prefence?
If we be not, fhow us the hand of God
That hath difmifs'd us from our stewardship;
For well we know, no hand of blood and bone
Can gripe the facred handle of our scepter,
Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp.

And though you think, that all, as you have done,
Have torn their fouls, by turning them from us,
And we are barren, and bereft of friends;
Yet know, my mafter, God omnipotent,
Is muft'ring in his clouds, on our behalf,
Armies of peftilence; and they shall strike
Your children yet unborn, and unbegot,
That lift your vaffal hands against my head,
And threat the glory of my precious crown.
Tell Bolingbroke, (for yond', methinks, he is,)
That every stride he makes upon my land,
Is dangerous treafon: He is come to ope
The purple teftament of bleeding war;3
But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,
Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers' fons
Shall ill become the flower of England's face; +
Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace

3 The purple teftament of bleeding war;] I once thought that Shakspeare might have had the facred book (which is frequently covered with purple leather) in his thoughts; but the following note renders fuch a fuppofition extremely doubtful. MALONE.

I believe our author ufes the word teftament in its legal fenfe. Bolingbroke is come to open the teftament of war, that he may perufe what is decreed there in his favour. Purple is an epithet referring to the future effufion of blood. STEEVENS.

Mr. Steevens is certainly right in his interpretation of this paffage. See Julius Cafar:

Now, while your purpled hands do reek and fmoke,

"Fulfil your pleafure." MALONE.

But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,

Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers' fons

Shall ill become the flower of England's face:] By the flower of England's face is meant the choiceft youths of England, who shall

To fcarlet indignation, and bedew

Her pastures' grafs with faithful English blood. NORTH. The King of heaven forbid, our lord the king

Should fo with civil and uncivil arms

Be rufh'd upon! Thy thrice-noble coufin,
Harry Bolingbroke, doth humbly kiss thy hand,
And by the honourable tomb he fwears,
That ftands upon thy royal grandfire's bones;
And by the royalties of both your bloods,
Currents that fpring from one moft gracious head;
And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt; '

3

The flower

be slaughtered in this quarrel, or have bloody crowns. of England's face, to defign her choiceft youth, is a fine and noble expreffion. Pericles, by a fimilar thought, faid" that the deftruction of the Athenian youth was a fatality like cutting off the fpring from the year." WARBURTON.

Dr. Warburton reads-light in peace, but live in peace is more fuitable to Richard's intention, which is to tell him, that though he should get the crown by rebellion, it will be long before it will live in peace, be fo fettled as to be firm. The flower of England's face, is very happily explained. JOHNSON.

The flower of England's face, I believe, means England's flowery face, the flowery furface of England's foil. The fame kind of expreffion is ufed in Sidney's Arcadia, p. 2: " opening the cherry of her lips," i. e. her cherry lips. Again, p. 240, edit. 1633: " the fweet and beautiful flower of her face." Again, Drayton, in Mortimer's Epiftle to Queen Ifabell: "And in the field advance our plumy creft, "And march upon fair England's flow'ry breaft.'

STEEVENS.

2 Her paftures' grafs-] Old copies-paftors. Corrected by Mr. Theobald. MALONE.

3 And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt;] Dr. Warburton would read

And by the warlike hand of buried Gaunt ;

and this, no doubt, was Shakspeare's meaning, though he has affectedly misplaced the epithets. Thus, in King John, we have— "There is no malice in this burning coal,"

inftead of

"There is no malice burning in this coal."