His weary joints would gladly rise, I know;

Our knees shall kneel till to the ground they grow:
His prayers are full of false hypocrisy ;

Ours of true zeal and deep integrity.

Our prayers do out-pray his; then let them have That mercy which true prayers ought to have. BOLING. Good aunt, stand up.

DUCH.

Nay, do not say-stand up;

But pardon, first; and afterwards, stand up.
An if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,
Pardon-should be the first word of thy speech.
I never long'd to hear a word till now;
Say-pardon, king: let pity teach thee how :
The word is short, but not so short as sweet;
No word like pardon, for kings' mouths so meet.
YORK. Speak it in French, king: say, pardonnez moy.
DUCH. Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?

Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,
That sett'st the word itself against the word!
Speak, pardon, as 't is current in our land;
The chopping French we do not understand:
Thine eye begins to speak, set thy tongue there :
Or, in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear;
That, hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce,
Pity may move thee pardon to rehearse.

BOLING. Good aunt, stand up.

DUCH.

I do not sue to stand,

Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.

BOLING. I pardon him, as heaven shall pardon me.
DUCH. O happy vantage of a kneeling knee!
Yet am I sick for fear: speak it again;

Twice saying pardon doth not pardon twain,
But makes one pardon strong.

BOLING.

I pardon him.

DUCH.

With all my heart

A god on earth thou art.

BOLING. But for our trusty brother-in-law 23, and the abbot,

With all the rest of that consorted crew,

Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels.

Chopping French. Chopping is here used in the sense of changing, which is derived from cheaping, trafficking. We still say a chopping wind. Malone, we apprehend, mistakes when he explains the word by jabbering. York exhorts the King, instead of saying pardon, to say pardonnez moy-excuse me. The Duchess will have pardon as "'t is current in our land." The chopping French-the French which changes the meaning of words-which sets "the word itself against the word"—she says, 66 we do not understand."

Good uncle, help to order several powers
To Oxford, or where'er these traitors are:
They shall not live within this world, I swear,
But I will have them, if I once know where.
Uncle, farewell,—and cousin, too, adieu:

Your mother well hath pray'd, and prove you true.

DUCH. Come, my old son;-I pray Heaven make thee new.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

Enter EXTON and a Servant.

EXTON. Didst thou not mark the king, what words he spake?
"Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?"
Was it not so?

EXTON. "Have I no friend?" quoth he: he spake it twice.
And urg'd it twice together; did he not?
SERV. He did.

b

EXTON. And speaking it, he wistly look'd on me;
As who should say,-I would thou wert the man
That would divorce this terror from my heart;
Meaning the king at Pomfret. Come, let's go ;
I am the king's friend, and will rid his foe.

SCENE V.-Pomfret. The Dungeon of the Castle.

Enter KING RICHARD.

K. RICH. I have been studying how to compare

This prison, where I live, unto the world:
And, for because the world is populous,
And here is not a creature but myself,

I cannot do it ;-yet I'll hammer it out.

[Exeunt.

• Heaven. This is the last passage of the play in which we have substituted, according to the authority of the folio of 1623, the word Heaven for God. It is to be observed that the editors of the folio have retained the name of the Most High when it is used in a peculiarly emphatic or reverential manner, and have not made the change to Heaven indiscriminately. The substitution of this word, in most cases, was made in obedience to a statute of James I. (3 Jac. I. c. 21); and it appears to us that the modern editors have not exercised good taste, to say the least of it, in restoring the readings of the earliest copies, which were issued at a time when the habits of society sanctioned the habitual, and therefore light, employment of the Sacred Name.

Wistly. So the old copies. Wistfully has crept into the modern editions without authority. Wistly is constantly used by the writers of Shakspere's time,-by Drayton, for example:"But when more wistly they did her behold."

So the folio. Modern editions, how I may compare.

And these same thoughts people this little world;
In humours like the people of this world,

For no thought is contented. The better sort,-
As thoughts of things divine,-are intermix'd
With scruples, and do set the faith itself
Against the faith";

As thus,—Come, little ones; and then again,
It is as hard to come, as for a camel
To thread the postern of a needle's eye.
Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot
Unlikely wonders: how these vain weak nails
May tear a passage through the flinty ribs
Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls;
And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.
Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves
That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,
Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars,
Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame,
That many have, and others must sit there:
And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
Bearing their own misfortunes on the back
Of such as have before endur'd the like.
Thus play I, in one person, many people,
And none contented: Sometimes am I king;
Then treason makes me wish myself a beggar,
And so I am: Then crushing penury
Persuades me I was better when a king;
Then am I king'd again: and by-and-by,

Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,
And straight am nothing:-but, whate'er I am,
Nor I, nor any man, that but man is,

With nothing shall be pleas'd till he be eas'd
With being nothing. Music do I hear?

Ha, ha! keep time:-How sour sweet music is,
When time is broke, and no proportion kept!

[Music.

. This little world. "The little world of man," as in "Lear.' Shakspere here uses the philosophy which is thus described by Raleigh:-" Because in the little frame of man's body there is a representation of the universal, and (by allusion) a kind of participation of all the parts there, therefore was man called microcosmos, or the little world."-('History of the World.")

So the folio. The quarto of 1597 reads "The word itself against the word;" which is, perhaps, better taken singly. But in the third scene of this act the Duchess uses precisely the same expression; and the sense of the word there being altogether different, the change was, we think, judicious. Modern editors have, however, rejected the reading which we adopt.

VOL. I.-HISTORIES.

N

So is it in the music of men's lives.
And here have I the daintiness of ear,
To check time broke in a disorder'd string;
But, for the concord of my state and time,
Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
For now hath time made me his numb'ring clock:
My thoughts are minutes; and, with sighs, they jar
Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,
Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,

Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears*.
Now, sir, the sounds that tell what hour it is

Are clamorous groans, that strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell: So sighs, and tears, and groans,
Show minutes, times, and hours :-but my time
Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy,
While I stand fooling here, his Jack o' the clock b.
This music mads me, let it sound no more;
For, though it have holpe madmen to their wits,
In me it seems it will make wise men mad.
Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me!
For 't is a sign of love; and love to Richard
Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.

• It is somewhat difficult to follow this reading. Richard says Time has made him a numbering clock. A clock and a watch were formerly the same instruments; a clock so called because it clicketh-a watch so called because it marks the watches, the ancient divisions of the day. Comparing, then, himself to such an instrument, he says, his thoughts jar, that is, tick their watches on (unto) his eyes, which are the outward part of the instrument-the dial-plate on which the hours are numbered,—whereto his finger, the dial's point, is pointing. These analogies may appear forced, and somewhat obscure; but it must be observed that, throughout the character of Richard, the poet has made him indulge in those freaks of the imagination which belong to weakness of character.

b Jack o' the clock. An automaton, such as formerly constituted one of the wonders of London before St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet Street; but which the ruthless hand of improvement has now swept away.

• A strange brvoch. According to Malone, the brooch, a valuable ornament, was out of fashion in Shakspere's time. In All's Well that Ends Well' we have, "the brooch and the toothpick, which wear not now." Love to Richard is, therefore, called a strange brooch, a thing of value out of fashion. But Mr. Dyce thinks that the word "sign" probably suggested the expression—a sign of love for Richard is a strange thing for any one to display, as he would a "brooch," or orna

ment.

Where no man ever comes, but that sad dog a
That brings me food, to make misfortune live?
GROOM. I was a poor groom of thy stable, king,
When thou wert king; who, travelling towards York,
With much ado, at length have gotten leave
To look upon my sometime royal master's face:
O, how it yearn'd my heart, when I beheld,
In London streets that coronation day,
When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary!
That horse that thou so often hast bestrid;
That horse that I so carefully have dress'd!
K. RICH. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,

How went he under him?
GROOM. So proudly as if he had disdain'd the ground.
K. RICH. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!

That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;
This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.
Would he not stumble? Would he not fall down,
(Since pride must have a fall,) and break the neck
Of that proud man that did usurp his back?
Forgiveness, horse! why do I rail on thee,
Since thou, created to be aw'd by man,

Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse;
And yet I bear a burthen like an ass,
Spur-gall'd, and tir'd by jauncing ↳ Bolingbroke.

b

Enter Keeper, with a dish.

KEEP. Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay.
K. RICH. If thou love me 't is time thou wert away.
GROOM. What my tongue dares not that my heart shall say.
KEEP. My lord will 't please you to fall to?

K. RICH. Taste of it first, as thou art wont to do.
KEEP. My lord, I dare not; Sir Pierce of Exton, who
Lately came from the king, commands the contrary.

K. RICH. The devil take Henry of Lancaster, and thee!
Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.
KEEP. Help, help, help!

Enter EXTON, and Servants, armed.

K. RICH. How now? what means death in this rude assault?

• Sad dog. Sad is here used in the sense of grave, gloomy.

[To the Groom.

[Exit.

[Beats the Keeper.

Jauncing. Richard compares himself to a spur-galled beast that Bolingbroke rides.-Jauncing -jaunting-hurriedly-moving Bolingbroke. It is possible, however, that it may be a contraction

of joyauncing.