What Eve, what ferpent hath fuggefted thee
To make a fecond fall of curfed man?

Why dost thou fay, king Richard is depos'd? Dar'ft, thou, thou little better thing than earth, Divine his downfal? Say, where, when, and how, Cam'st thou by thefe ill tidings? fpeak, thou wretch.

GARD. Pardon me, madam: little joy have I, To breathe this news; yet, what I fay, is true. King Richard, he is in the mighty hold

Of Bolingbroke; their fortunes both are weigh'd:
In your lord's scale is nothing but himself,
And fome few vanities that make him light;
But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,
Befides himself, are all the English peers,
And with that odds he weighs king Richard down.
Poft you to London, and you'll find it fo;
I speak no more than every one doth know.
QUEEN. Nimble mifchance, that art fo light of
foot,

Doth not thy embaffage belong to me,
And am I laft that knows it? Ö, thou think'st
To serve me laft, that I may longest keep
Thy forrow in my breast.-Come, ladies, go,
To meet at London London's king in woe.-
What, was I born to this! that my fad look
Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?—
Gardener, for telling me this news of woe,
I would, the plants thou graft'ft, may never grow.4
[Exeunt Queen and Ladies.

judgement as well as my own, the irregularities of our author's measure are too frequently occafioned by grofs and manifest interpolations. STEEVENS.

4 I would, the plants, &c.] This execration of the queen is fomewhat ludicrous, and unfuitable to her condition; the gar

GARD. Poor queen! fo that thy state might be no worse,

I would my skill were subject to thy curse.—
Here did the drop a tear; here, in this place,
I'll fet a bank of rue, sour herb of grace:
Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,
In the remembrance of a weeping queen.

[Exeunt.

dener's reflection is better adapted to the state both of his mind and his fortune. Mr. Pope, who has been throughout this play very diligent to reject what he did not like, has yet, I know not why, fpared the laft lines of this act. JOHNSON.

I would, the plants thou graft'ft, may never grow.] So, in The Rape of Lucrece:

"This bastard graft fhall never come to growth."

MALONE.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

London. Westminster Hall.

The Lords Spiritual on the right fide of the throne; the Lords temporal on the left; the Commons below. Enter BOLINGBROKE, AUMERLE, SURREY, NORTHUMBERLAND, PERCY, FITZWATER," another Lord, Bishop of Carlisle, Abbot of Westminster, and Attendants. Officers behind, with BAGOT.

BOLING. Call forth Bagot:

Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind;

What thou doft know of noble Glofter's death; Who wrought it with the king, and who perform'd The bloody office of his timeless end.

BAGOT. Then fet before my face the lord Aumerle. BOLING. Coufin, ftand forth, and look upon that

man.

BAGOT. My lord Aumerle, I know, your daring tongue

Weftminster Hall.] The rebuilding of Westminster Hall, which Richard had begun in 1397, being finished in 1399, the first meeting of parliament in the new edifice was for the purpose of depofing him. MALONE.

6 Surrey,] Thomas Holland earl of Kent. He was brother to John Holland duke of Exeter, and was created duke of Surrey in the 21st year of King Richard the Second, 1397. The dukes of Surrey and Exeter were half brothers to the king, being fons of his mother Joan, (daughter of Edmond earle of Kent) who after the death of her fecond husband, Lord Thomas Holland, married Edward the Black Prince. MALONE.

Fitzwater,] The chriftian name of this nobleman was Walter. WALPOLE.

% kis timeless end.] Timeless for untimely. WARBURTON.

.

Scorns to unfay what once it hath deliver'd.
In that dead time when Glofter's death was plotted,
I heard you say,—Is not my arm of length,
That reacheth from the refful English court
As far as Calais, to my uncle's head?

Amongst much other talk, that very time,
I heard you say, that you had rather refuse
The offer of an hundred thousand crowns,
Than Bolingbroke's return to England;
Adding withal, how bleft this land would be,
In this your coufin's death.

AUM.
Princes, and noble lords,
What anfwer fhall I make to this bafe man?
Shall I fo much difhonour my fair stars,"
On equal terms to give him chastisement?
Either I muft, or have mine honour foil'd
With the attainder of his fland'rous lips.
There is my gage, the manual feal of death,
That marks thee out for hell: I fay, thou lieft,
And will maintain, what thou haft faid, is falfe,
In thy heart-blood, though being all too base
To ftain the temper of my knightly fword.

BOLING. Bagot, forbear, thou shalt not take it up. AUM. Excepting one, I would he were the best In all this prefence, that hath mov'd me so.

FITZ. If that thy valour stand on fympathies,'

9my fair ftars,] I rather think it fhould be ftem, being of the royal blood. WARBURTON.

I think the prefent reading unexceptionable. The birth is fuppofed to be influenced by the ftars, therefore our author, with his ufual licenfe takes ftars for birth. JOHNSON.

We learn from Pliny's Natural Hiftory, that the vulgar error affigned the bright and fair ftars to the rich and great:" Sidera fingulis attributa nobis, et clara divitibus, minora pauperibus," &c. Lib. I. cap. viii. ANONYMOUS.

2

If that thy valour ftand on sympathies,] Here is a translated

There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine:
By that fair fun that fhows me where thou ftand'st,
I heard thee fay, and vauntingly thou fpak'ft it,
That thou wert cause of noble Glofter's death.
If thou deny'st it, twenty times thou lieft;
And I will turn thy falfehood to thy heart,
Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.'

fenfe much harfher than that of ftars explained in the foregoing note. Aumerle has challenged Bagot with fome hefitation, as not being his equal, and therefore one whom, according to the rules of chivalry, he was not obliged to fight, as a nobler life was not to be ftaked in a duel against a baser. Fitzwater then throws down his gage, a pledge of battle; and tells him that if he ftands upon fympathies, that is, upon equality of blood, the combat is now offered him by a man of rank not inferior to his own. Sympathy is an affection incident at once to two fubjects. This community of affection implies a likeness or equality of nature, and thence our poet transferred the term to equality of blood.

JOHNSON.

3 my rapier's point.] Shakspeare deferts the manners of the age in which his drama was placed, very often without neceffity or advantage. The edge of a fword had ferved his purpose as well as the point of a rapier, and he had then escaped the impropriety of giving the English nobles a weapon which was not seen In England till two centuries afterwards. JOHNSON.

Mr. Ritfon cenfures this note in the following terms: "It would be well however, though not quite fo eafy for fome learned critic to bring fome proof in fupport of this and fuch like affertions. Without which the authority of Shakspeare is at least equal to that of Dr. Johnfon." It is probable that Dr. Johnfon did not fee the neceffity of citing any authority for a fact fo well known, or fufpect that any perfon would demand one. If an authority however only is wanted, perhaps, the following may be deemed fufficient to juftify the Doctor's obfervation: " at that time two other Englishmen, Sir W. Stanley, and Rowland Yorke, got an ignominious name of traytors. This Yorke, borne in London, was a man moft negligent and lazy, but defperately hardy; he was in his time moft famous among thofe who refpected fencing, having been the firft that brought into England that wicked and pernicious faftion to fight in the fields in duels with a rapier called a tucke, onely for the thruft: the English having till that very time ufed to fight with backe fwords, flafbing and cutting one the other,