London. A Street leading to the Tower.

Enter Queen, and Ladies.

QUEEN. This way the king will come; this is the way To Julius Cæfar's ill-erected tower,"

To whose flint bofom my condemned lord
Is doom'd a prifoner by proud Bolingbroke:
Here let us reft, if this rebellious earth
Have any refting for her true king's queen.'

Enter King RICHARD, and guards.

But foft, but fee, or rather do not fee,
My fair rose wither: Yet look up; behold;
That you in pity may diffolve to dew,

And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.-
Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did ftand;

6 To Julius Cæfar's ill-erected tower,] The Tower of London is traditionally faid to have been the work of Julius Cæfar. JOHNSON. By-ill-erected, I fuppofe, is meant-erected for bad purposes.

Here let us reft, if &c.] So, Milton:

STEEVENS.

"Here reft, if any rest can harbour here." JOHNSON. And Browne, in his Britannia's Paftorals, B. II. Song iii. 1613: Night and day upon the hard'ned stones

Refts, if a reft can be.

&c. HOLT WHITE.

8 Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did ftand;] The queen ufes comparative terms abfolutely. Inftead of faying, Thou who appeareft as the ground on which the magnificence of Troy was once erected, the fays

Ah, thou the model &c.

Thou map of honour;—

Thou picture of greatnefs. JOHNSON.

Model, it has already been obferved, is used by our author, for a thing made after a pattern. He is, I believe, fingular in this use

Thou map of honour; thou king Richard's tomb, And not king Richard; thou most beauteous inn," Why fhould hard-favour'd grief be lodg'd in thee, When triumph is become an alehouse guest?

K. RICH. Join not with grief, fair woman, do not fo,

To make my end too fudden: learn, good foul,
To think our former ftate a happy dream;
From which awak'd, the truth of what we are
Shows us but this: I am fworn brother, fweet,
To grim neceffity; and he and I

Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France,
And cloifter thee in fome religious house:

Our holy lives muft win a new world's crown, Which our profane hours here have ftricken down. QUEEN. What, is my Richard both in shape and

mind

Transform'd, and weakened? Hath Bolingbroke

of the word. Thou ruined majefty, fays the queen, that resembleft the defolated wafte where Troy once ftood. So before: "Who was the model of thy father's life.” In our author's Rape of Lucrece, fleep is called " the map of death.” MALONE.

9 -beauteous inn,] Inn does not here fignify a house of publick entertainment; but a dignified habitation. Lord Howard's magnificent feat in Effex is ftill called Audley-Inn. STEEVENS.

I cannot agree with Steevens. Inn means a house of entertainment, and is opposed to alehouse in the following line. M. Mason.

2 Join not with grief,] Do not thou unite with grief against me; do not, by thy additional forrows, enable grief to ftrike me down at once. My own part of forrow I can bear, but thy affliction will immediately deftroy me. JOHNSON.

Togrim neceffity;] I have reconciled my felf to neceffity, I am in a ftate of amity with the constraint which I have sustained. JOHNSON.

The expreffion-fworn brother, alludes to the fratres jurati, who, in the ages of adventure, bound themselves by mutual oaths, to fhare fortunes together. See Mr. Whalley's note on K. Henry V. Act II. fc. i. STEEVENS.

Depos'd thine intellect? hath he been in thy heart?
The lion, dying, thrufteth forth his paw,

And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
To be o'erpower'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like,
Take thy correction mildly? kifs the rod;
And fawn on rage with bafe humility,
Which art a lion, and a king of beafts?

K. RICH. A king of beasts, indeed; if aught but beasts,

I had been still a happy king of men.4

Good fometime queen, prepare thee hence for France:
Think, I am dead; and that even here thou takʼst,
As from my death-bed, my last living leave.
In winter's tedious nights, fit by the fire

With good old folks; and let them tell thee tales
Of woful ages, long ago betid:

And, ere thou bid good night, to quit their grief, Tell thou the lamentable fall of me,"

6

And send the hearers weeping to their beds.
For why, the fenfelefs brands will fympathize

--

king of men.] "Tis marvellous, that Mr. Upton did not quote this paffage as an evidence of our author's learning, and obferve, that a more faithful tranflation of Homer's ava adv could not have been made. STEEVENS.

S

to quit their grief,] To retaliate their mournful ftories. JOHNSON. 6 Tell thou the lamentable fall of me,] Thus the folio. So, in K. Henry VIII:

"And when you would say something that is fad,
Speak how I fell."

The reading, however, of the firft quarto, 1597, is alfo much in our author's manner:

Tell thou the lamentable tale of me. MALONE.

7 For why,] The poet fhould have ended this fpeech with the foregoing line, and have fpared his childish prattle about the fire. JOHNSON.

This is certainly childish prattle, as Johnfon calls it; but it is of the fame ftamp with the other fpeeches of Richard, after the landing of Bolingbroke, which are a ftrange medley of fenfe and puerility. M. MASON.

The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
And, in compaffion, weep the fire out:
And fome will mourn in afhes, fome coal-black,
For the depofing of a rightful king.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, attended.

NORTH. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is chang'd;

You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.
And, madam, there is order ta'en for you;
With all swift speed you must away to France.

K. RICH. Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal

The mounting Bolingbroke afcends my throne,-
The time shall not be many hours of age
More than it is, ere foul fin, gathering head,
Shall break into corruption: thou shalt think,
Though he divide the realm, and give thee half,
It is too little, helping him to all;

4

And he fhall think, that thou, which know'ft the way To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again, Being ne'er fo little urg'd, another way

To pluck him headlong from the ufurped throne. The love of wicked friends converts to fear; That fear, to hate; and hate turns one, or both, To worthy danger, and deferved death.

NORTH. My guilt be on my head, and there an end. Take leave, and part; for you must part forthwith. K. RICH. Doubly divorc'd?-Bad men, ye violate A twofold marriage; 'twixt my crown and me; And then, betwixt me and my married wife.

4 And he shall think,] The conjunction-And, without which the metre is deficient, was fupplied by Mr. Rowe. STEEVENS.

Let me unkifs the oath 'twixt thee and me;
And yet not fo, for with a kifs 'twas made.
Part us, Northumberland; I towards the north,
Where shivering cold and fickness pines the clime;
My wife to France; from whence, fet forth in pomp,
She came adorned hither like sweet May,
Sent back like Hallowmas," or fhort'st of day.

QUEEN. And must we be divided? must we part? K. RICH. Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.

QUEEN. Banish us both, and send the king with me. NORTH. That were fome love, but little policy." QUEEN. Then whither he goes, thither let me go." K. RICH. So two, together weeping, make one woe. Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here; Better far off, than-near, be ne'er the near'."

5 Let me unkifs the oath 'twixt thee and me;

And yet not fo, for with a kifs 'twas made.] A kifs appears to have been an established circumftance in our ancient nuptial ceremony. So, in Marston's Infatiate Countefs, 1613, the Duke, on parting with his wife, fays to her:

"The kifs thou gav'ft me in the church, here take." STEEVENS.

Hallowmas,] All-ballows, or all-hallowtide; the first of November. STEEVENS.

1 That were fome love, &c.] The quartos give this fpeech to the king. STEEVENS.

8 Then whither he goes, thither let me go.] So, in the Book of Ruth, i. 16: " for whither thou goeft, I will go." STEEVENS. 9 Better far off, than-near, be ne'er the near'.] To be never the nigher, or, as it is commonly spoken in the midland counties, ne'er the ne'er, is, to make no advance towards the good defired. JOHNSON. So, in The legend of Shore's wife, by Thomas Churchyard, Mirrour for Magiftrates, 1578:

"Compel the hauke to fit, that is unmann'd,

"Or make the hound untaught to draw the deere,
"Or bring the free againft his will in band,

"Or move the fad a pleasant tale to hear,

"Your time is loft, and you are never the near."