Flourish. Enter BOLINGBROKE, and YORK, with Lords and Attendants.

BOLING. Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear,

Is that the rebels have confum'd with fire

Our town of Cicefter in Glostershire;

But whether they be ta'en, or flain, we hear not.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.

Welcome, my lord: What is the news?

NORTH. First, to thy facred state wish I all happinefs.

The next news is,-I have to London fent
The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent: *
The manner of their taking may appear

At large difcourfed in this paper here.

[Prefenting a paper. BOLING. We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy

pains ;

And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.

Enter FITZ WATER.

FITZ. My lord, I have from Oxford fent to London

of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent;] So the folio. The quarto reads-of Oxford, Salisbury, Blunt, and Kent. It appears from the hiftories of this reign that the reading of the folio is right. MALONE.

The heads of Brocas, and Sir Bennet Seely;
Two of the dangerous conforted traitors,
That fought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.
BOLING. Thy pains, Fitzwater, fhall not be for-
got;

Right noble is thy merit, well I wot,

Enter PERCY, with the Bishop of Carlisle.

PERCY. The grand confpirator, abbot of Westminster,

With clog of confcience, and four melancholy,
Hath yielded up his body to the grave;
But here is Carlifle living, to abide

Thy kingly doom, and sentence of his pride.
BOLING. Carlisle, this is your doom:
Choose out fome fecret place, fome reverend room,
More than thou haft, and with it joy thy life;
So, as thou liv'ft in peace, die free from ftrife:
For though mine enemy thou haft ever been,
High fparks of honour in thee have I feen.

The grand confpirator, abbot of Westminster,

Hath yielded up his body to the grave;] This Abbot of Weftminfter was William de Colchefter. The relation here given of his death, after Holinfhed's Chronicle, is untrue, as he furvived the King many years; and though called " the grand confpirator," it is very doubtful whether he had any concern in the confpiracy; at least nothing was proved against him. RITSON.

6 Carlisle, this is your doom:] This prelate was committed to the Tower, but on the interceffion of his friends, obtained leave to change his prifon for Weftminster-Abbey. In order to deprive him of his fee, the Pope, at the King's inftance, tranflated him to a bishoprick in partibus infidelium; and the only preferment he could ever after obtain, was a rectory in Gloucestershire. He died in 1409. RITSON.

Enter EXTON, with Attendants bearing a coffin.

EXTON. Great king, within this coffin I present Thy buried fear: herein all breathless lies The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,

Richard of Bourdeaux, by me hither brought. BOLING. Exton, I thank thee not; for thou haft wrought

A deed of flander, with thy fatal hand,
Upon my head, and all this famous land.

EXTON. From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.

BOLING. They love not poison that do poison need,

Nor do I thee; though I did with him dead,
I hate the murderer, love him murdered.
The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,
But neither my good word, nor princely favour:
With Cain go wander through the fhade of night,
And never how thy head by day nor light.-
Lords, I proteft, my foul is full of woe,

That blood fhould fprinkle me, to make me grow :
Come, mourn with me for what I do lament,
And put on fullen black incontinent;
I'll make a voyage to the Holy land,

To wash this blood off from my guilty hand :-
March fadly after; grace my mournings here,
In weeping after this untimely bier. [Exeunt."

7 This play is extracted from the Chronicle of Holinfbed, in which many paffages may be found which Shak fpeare has, with very little alteration, tranfplanted into his fcenes; particularly a fpeech of the Bishop of Carlisle, in defence of King Richard's unalienable right, and immunity from human jurifdiction.

Jonfon who, in his Catiline and Sejanus, has inferted many fpeeches from the Roman historians, was perhaps induced to that

practice by the example of Shakspeare, who had condefcended fometimes to copy more ignoble writers. But Shakspeare had more of his own than Jonfon; and, if he fometimes was willing to fpare his labour, fhowed by what he performed at other times, that his extracts were made by choice or idleness rather than neceffity.

This play is one of thofe which Shakspeare has apparently revifed; but as fuccefs in works of invention is not always proportionate to labour, it is not finished at last with the happy force of fome other of his tragedies, nor can be faid much to affect the paffions, or enlarge the understanding. JOHNSON.

The notion that Shakspeare revised this play, though it has long prevailed, appears to me extremely doubtful; or, to speak more plainly, I do not believe it. See further on this subject in An Attempt to ascertain the order of his plays, Vol. I. MALONE.

KING HENRY IV.

PART I.*

VOL. VIII.

A a