British Classical Authors. Select Specimens of the National Literature of England and America, with Biographical Sketches and an Historical Outline of English Literature. Poetry and Prose

You urg'd me as a judge; but I had rather You would have bid me argue like a father: [O, had it been a stranger, not my child, To smooth his fault I should have been more mild:

A partial slander sought I to avoid,
And in the sentence my own life destroy'd.]
Alas, I look'd when some of you should say,
I was too strict, to make mine own away;
But you gave leave to mine unwilling tongue,
Against my will, to do myself this wrong.
K. Rich. Cousin, farewell:-and, uncle,
bid him so; 525
Six years we banish him, and he shall go.
[Flourish. Exeunt K. Richard and Train.
Aum. Cousin, farewell: what presence
must not know,
From where do you remain, let paper
show.
no leave take I; for I
will ride
me by your side. 530
purpose dost thou
hoard thy words,
That thou return'st no greeting to thy
friends?

Mar. My lord,
As far as land will let
Gaunt. O, to what

Boling. I have too few to take my leave

of you, When the tongue's office should be prodigal To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart. 535 Gaunt. Thy grief is but thy absence for a time. Boling. Joy absent, grief is present for that time. Gaunt. What is six winters? they are quickly gone. Boling. To men in joy; but grief makes

one our ten. Gaunt. Call it a travel that thou tak'st for pleasure. 540 Boling. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so, Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage. Gaunt. The sullen passage of thy weary steps

Where'er I wander, boast of this I can,
Though banish'd, yet a true-born English-

man.

[Exeunt. Enter King Richard, Bagot and Green; Aumerle following.

Scene IV-A Room in the King's Palace.

590

As were our England in reversion his,
And he our subjects' next degree in hope.
Green. Well, he is gone; and with him
go these thoughts.

625

Now for the rebels, which stand out in
Ireland;
Expedient (1) manage must be made, my
liege,
Ere further leisure yield them further

means,

For their advantage and your highness'
loss.
K. Rich. We will ourself in person to
this war.

And, for our coffers, with too great a

K. Rich. We did observe.-Cousin Aumerle, Ilow far brought you high Hereford on his way? Aum. I brought high Hereford, if you call him so, But to the next highway, and there I left him. K. Rich. And, say, what store of parting tears were shed? Aum. 'Faith, none for me, (1) except the nord-east wind, Which then blew bitterly against our face. Awak'd the sleepy rheum; and so, by chance, 595 Did grace our hollow parting with a tear. K. Rich. What said our cousin when Our substitutes at home shall have blank you parted with him? 635

Aum. Farewell!
And, for my heart disdained that my tongue
Should so profane the word, that taught
me craft

600

To counterfeit oppression of such grief, That words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.

Marry, would the word farewell have
lengthen'd hours,

And added years to his short banishment,
He should have had a volume of farewells;
But, since it would not, he had none of me.
K. Rich. He is our cousin, cousin; but
'tis doubt,
When time shall call him home from ban-
ishment,

Whether our kinsman come to see his

friends.

well

court

630

And liberal largess, are grown somewhat
light,

We are enforc'd to farm our royal realm;
The revenue whereof shall furnish us
For our affairs in hand: If that come
short,

charters; Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich, them for large sums of gold,

They shall subscribe

And send them after to supply our wants;
For we will make for Ireland presently.
Enter Bushy.

K. Rich. Now put it, God, in his phy-
sician's mind,

To help him to his grave immediately!
The lining of his coffers shall make coats
To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.—
Come, gentlemen, let's all go visit him; 650
Pray God, we may make haste, and come
too late!

ACT II.

[Exeunt.

Scene I.-London. A Room in Ely-House.

Gaunt on

Gaunt.

a couch; the Duke of York, and others standing by him.

Will the king come? that I may breathe my last

And had the tribute of his supple knee, 620
With – “Thanks, my countrymen, my loving In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth.

friends;'

(1) None on my part.

(1) Prompt-suitable-disengaged from entangle

ments.

youth and ease have taught to glose;

| This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress, built by nature for herself,
Against infection (1) and the hand of war; 695
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands; 700
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm,
this England,

This nurse, this teeming womb of royal
kings,
Fear'd by their breed, and famous for their
birth,

More are men's ends mark'd than their Renowned for their deeds as far from

York. No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds, As praises of his state: then, there are found Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound 670 The open ear of youth doth always listen; Report of fashions in proud Italy, Whose manners still our tardy apish nation Limps after in base imitation. Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity, 675 (So it be new, there's no respect how vile,) That is not quickly buzz'd into his ears? Then all too late comes counsel to be heard, Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard. Direct not him, whose way himself will choose; "Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose. Gaunt. Methinks I am a prophet new inspir'd;

680

And thus, expiring, do foretell of him:
His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last;
For violent fires soon burn out themselves:
Small showers last long, but sudden storms
are short;

He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes:

With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder:

Light vanity, insatiate cormorant, Consuming means, soon preys upon itself. This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

home,

For Christian service, and true chivalry, 705
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry
Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's son:
This land of such dear souls, this dear
dear land,

Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leas'd out, (I die pronouncing it) 710
Like to a tenement, or pelting (2) farm;
England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious
siege
Of watery Neptune,
With inky blots, and rotten parchment
bonds;

is now bound in with
shame,

715

That England, that was wont to conquer others,

Hath made a shameful conquest of itself. Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life, How happy then were my ensuing death! Enter King Richard and Queen; Aumerle, Bushy. Green, Bagot, Ross, and Willoughby. York. The king is come: deal mildly with his youth; 720 being rag'd, do rage the more. our noble uncle, Lancaster?

For young hot colts,

Queen. How fares

K. Rich. What comfort, man? How is't with aged Gaunt? Gaunt. O, how that name befits my

composition!

Old Gaunt, indeed, and gaunt in being old:

725

Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast;

(1) All the ancient copies read infection. Farmer suggested the substitution of infestion, an abbreviation of infestation, which appears to have designated those violent incursions of an enemy-those annoying, joydepriving (infestus) ravages-to which an unprotected frontier is peculiarly exposed. Still, infection, being a word of which there can be no doubt of the meaning. is to be preferred. if we can be content to receive the idea in a limited sense--that the sea in some soit kept out pestilence, though not absolutely. (2) Pelting, invariably means something petty-of little worth. word seems related to pultry.

The

SHAKESPEARE.

And who abstains from meat, that is not gaunt?

For sleeping England long time have I watch'd;

Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt:

The pleasure that some fathers feed upon 730 Is my strict fast,-I mean my children's looks;

And, therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt;

Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave, Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.

K. Rich. Can sick men play so nicely with their names? 735 Gaunt. No; misery makes sport to mock itself: Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me, I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.

K. Rich. Should dying men flatter with those that live?

Gaunt. Oh! no;

K. Rich. I am in Gaunt. Now, He

Gaunt. No, no; men living flatter those 740 that die. K. Rich. Thou, now a dying, say'st thou flatter'st me. thou diest, though I the sicker be. health, I breathe, and see thee ill. that made me knows I see thee ill; Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill. Thy death-bed is no lesser than the land Wherein thou liest in reputation sick: And thou, too careless patient as thou art, Committ'st thy anointed body to the cure Of those physicians that first wounded thee. A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown, Whose compass is no bigger than thy head; And yet, incaged in so small a verge, The waste is no whit lesser than thy land. O, had thy grandsire, with a prophet's eye, Seen how his son's son should destroy his

sons,

From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,

Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd, Which art possess'd now to depose thyself. Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world, It were a shame to let this land by lease: But, for thy world, enjoying but this land: Is it not more than shame to shame it so? Landlord of England art thou, and not king: Thy state of law is bondslave to the law; And

K. Rich. And thou a lunatic lean-witted fool,

Presuming on an ague's privilege,
Dar'st with thy frozen admonition

blood,
Make pale our cheek: chasing the royal

770

With fury, from his native residence.
Now by my seat's right royal majesty,
Wert thou not brother to great Edward's

son,

head,
This tongue, that runs so roundly in thy

Should run thy head

Gaunt. O, spare

from thy unreverend shoulders. me not, my brother Edward's son,

775

For that I was his father Edward's son;
That blood already, like the pelican,
rous'd.
Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly ca-

soul,
My brother Gloster, plain well-meaning

souls!
Whom fair befal in heaven 'mongst happy

780

May be a precedent and witness good,
blood:
That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's

Join with the present sickness that I have;
And thy unkindness be like crooked age,
To crop at once a too-long wither'd flower.
Live in thy shame, but die not shame with
thee:

These words hereafter thy tormentors be!
Convey me to my bed, then to my grave:
Love they to live, that love and honour
have.

790

[Exit, borne out by his Attendants. K. Rich. And let them die, that age and sullens have; and both become the grave.

For both hast thou,

York. I do beseech your majesty, impute
his words

To wayward sickliness and age in him:
He loves you, on my life, and holds you

dear

As Harry, duke of Hereford, were he here. K. Rich. Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his:

As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.

Enter Northumberland.

North. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty.

K. Rich. What says he?

North.

Nay, nothing; all is said: 800 His tongue is now a stringless instrument; spent. Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath

York. Be York the next that must be

bankrupt so! Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe. K. Rich. The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he; our pilgrimage must be Now for our Irish wars:

His time is spent, So much for that.

805

We must supplant those rough rug-headed | But by fair sequence and succession?

kerns, Which live like venom, where no venom else,

But only they, hath privilege to live. 810
And, for these great affairs do ask some
charge,

Towards our assistance, we do seize to us
The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables,
Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand pos-
sess'd.
York. How long shall I be patient? Ah,
how long
Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?
Not Gloster's death, nor Hereford's banish-
ment,
Nor Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private
wrongs,

815

Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke
About his marriage, nor my own disgrace, 820
Have ever made me sour my patient cheek,
Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.
I am the last of noble Edward's sons,
Of whom thy father, prince of Wales, was

first;

In war was never lion rag'd more fierce, 825
In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
Than was that young and princely gentle-

man:

His face thou hast, for even so look'd he,
Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;
But when he frown'd, it was against the
French
830
And not against his friends: his noble hand
Did win what he did spend, and spent not
that

Which his triumphant father's hand had won:
His hands were guilty of no kindred's blood,
But bloody with the enemies of his kin. 835
O, Richard, York is too far gone with grief,
Or else he never would compare between.
K. Rich. Why, uncle, what's the matter?
York.
O, my liege,
Pardon me, if you please; if not, 1, pleas'd
Not to be pardon'd, am content withal. 840
Seek you to seize, and gripe into your
hands,

The royalties and rights of banish'd Here-
ford?
Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not Hereford
live?

Was not Gaunt just? and is not Harry true?
Did not the one deserve to have an heir? 845
Is not his heir a well-deserving son?
Take Hereford's rights away, and take from
time

His charters, and his customary rights;
Let not to-morrow then ensue (1) to-day;
Be not thyself; for how art thou a king, 850

(1) Follow.

Now, afore God (God forbid, I say true!)
If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,
Call in his letters-patent that he hath
By his attorneys-general to sue
His livery, (1) and deny his offer'd homage,
You pluck a thousand dangers on your
head,

855

You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts,
And prick my tender patience to those
thoughts

Which honour and allegiance cannot think.860
K. Rich. Think what you will; we seize
into our hands
His plate, his goods, his money, and his
lands.

York. I'll not be by the while. My liege,
farewell;

What will ensue hereof there's none can tell;
But by bad courses may be understood, 865
That their events can never fall out good.

[Exit.

K. Rich. Go, Bushy, to the earl of Wilt-
shire straight:

Bid him repair to us to Ely-house
To see this business: To-morrow next
We will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow: 870
And we create, in absence of ourself,
Our uncle York lord governor of England,
For he is just and always lov'd us well.
Come on, our queen: to-morrow must we
part;

Be merry, for our time of stay is short. 875
[Flourish. Exeunt King, Queen, Bushy, Aum.,
Green and Bagot.

North. Well, lords, the duke of Lancaster is dead.

Ross. And living too; for now his son is duke.

Willo. Barely in title, not in revenue. North. Richly in both, if justice had her right.

Ross. My heart is great; but it must break with silence, Ere't be disburthen'd with a liberal tongue. North. Nay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak more That speaks thy words again to do thee harm!

Willo. Tends that thou'dst speak to the duke of Hereford?

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