And say, withal, I think he held the right.

Ver. Stay, lords, and gentlemen; and pluck no more, Till you conclude-that he, upon whose side

The fewest roses are cropp'd from the tree,

Shall yield the other in the right opinion.

Som. Good master Vernon, it is well objected ;4 If I have fewest, I subscribe in silence.

Plan. And I.

Ver. Then, for the truth and plainness of the case, I pluck this pale, and maiden blossom here, Giving my verdict on the white rose side.

Som. Prick not your finger as you pluck it off;
Lest, bleeding, you do paint the white rose red,
And fall on my side so against your will.

Ver. If I, my lord, for my opinion bleed,
Opinion shall be surgeon to my hurt,
And keep me on the side where still I am.
Som. Well, well, come on: who else?

Law. Unless my study and my books be false,

The argument you held, was wrong in you; [To SOM. In sign whereof, I pluck a white rose too.

Plan. Now, Somerset, where is your argument?

Som. Here, in my scabbard; meditating that,

Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red.

Plan. Mean time, your cheeks do counterfeit our

roses;

For pale they look with fear, as witnessing
The truth on our side.

Som. No, Plantagenet,

'Tis not for fear; but anger,-that thy cheeks
Blush for pure shame, to counterfeit our roses;
And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error.
Plan. Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset ?
Som. Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet?
Plan. Ay, sharp and piercing, to maintain his truth;
Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood.

Som. Well, I'll find friends to wear my bleeding-roses, That shall maintain what I have said is true,

Where false Plantagenet dare not be seen.

Plan. Now, by this maiden blossom in my hand,

I scorn thee and thy fashion, peevish boy.

Suf. Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet.
Plan. Proud Pool, I will; and scorn both him and thee.

[8] Properly thrown in our way, justly proposed.

JOHNS.

Suf. I'll turn my part thereof into thy throat. Som. Away, away, good William De-la-Poole ! We grace the yeoman, by conversing with him.

War. Now, by God's will, thou wrong'st him,Somerset : His grandfather was Lionel, duke of Clarence, Third son to the third Edward king of England; Spring crestless yeomen from so deep a root?1 Plan. He bears him on the place's privilege,2 Or durst not, for his craven heart, say thus.

Som. By him that made me, I'll maintain my words
On any plot of ground in Christendom:
Was not thy father, Richard, earl of Cambridge,
For treason executed in our late king's days?
And, by his treason, stand'st not thou attainted,
Corrupted, and exempt from ancient gentry ?3
His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood;
And, till thou be restored, thou art a yeoman.
Plan. My father was attached, not attainted;
Condemn'd to die for treason, but no traitor ;
And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset,
Were growing time once ripen'd to my will.
For your partaker Pool, and you yourself,
I'll note you in my book of memory,

To scourge you for this apprehension :4
Look to it well; and say you are well warn'd.

Som. Ay, thou shalt find us ready for thee still :
And know us, by these colours, for thy foes;
For these my friends, in spite of thee, shall wear.
Plan. And, by my soul, this pale and angry rose,
As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate,
Will I for ever, and my faction, wear;
Until it wither with me to my grave,
Or flourish to the height of my degree.

[Exit.

Suf. Go forward, and be chok'd with thy ambition! And so farewell, until I meet thee next.

Som. Have with thee, Pool.-Farewell, ambitious Richard.

[Exit.

Plan. How I am brav'd, and must perforce endure it!

[9] The author mistakes. Plantagenet's paternal grandfather was Edmund of Langley, Duke of York. His maternal grandfather was Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, who was the son of Philippa the daughter of Lionel, Duke of Clarence. The duke therfore was his maternal great great grand. father MAL. [1] .. those who have no right to arms. WARB. [2] The Temple, being a religious house, was an asylum, a place of exemp tion, from violence revenge, and bloodshed. JOHNS.

[3] Exempt for excluded. [4] Apprehension, that is opinion, WARB.

War. This blot, that they object against your house,

Shall be wip'd out in the next parliament,

Call'd for the truce of Winchester and Gloster:
And, if thou be not then created York,
I will not live to be accounted Warwick.
Meantime, in signal of my love to thee,
Against proud Somerset, and William Pool,
Will I upon thy party wear this rose:
And here I prophecy,-This brawl to-day,
Grown to this faction, in the Temple garden,
Shall send between the red rose, and the white,
A thousand souls to death, and deadly night.

Plan. Good master Vernon, I am bound to you,
That you on my behalf would pluck a flower.
Ver. In your behalf still will I wear the same.
Law. And so will I.

Plan. Thanks, gentle sir.

Come, let us four to dinner: I dare say,

This quarrel will drink blood another day.

The same.

SCENE V.

[Exeunt.

A Room in the Tower. Enter MORTIMER,4
brought in a chair by two Keepers.

Mor. Kind keepers of my weak decaying age,
Let dying Mortimer here rest himself.-
Even like a man new-haled from the rack,
So fare my limbs with long imprisonment:
And these grey locks, the pursuivants of death, 5
Nestor-like aged, in an age of care,

[4] Mr. Edwards in his MS notes observes that Shakspeare has varied from the true history to introduce this scene between Mortimer and Richard Plantagenet. Edmund Mortimer served under Henry V in 1422, and died unconfined in Ireland in 1424. Holinshed says, that Mortimer was one of the mourners at the funeral of Henry the V. STEEV.

I am aware, and could easily show, that some of the most interesting events, not only in the Chronicles of Hall and Holinshed, but in the Histories of Rapin, Hume and Smollet, are perfectly fabulous and unfounded, which are nevertheless constantly cited and regarded as incontrovertible facts. But, if modern writers, standing as it were, upon the shoulders of their predecessors, and possessing innumerable other advantages, are not always to be depended on, what allowances ought we not to make for those who had neither Rymer, nor Dugdale, nor. Sandford to consult, who could have no access to the treasuries of Cotton or Harley, nor were permitted the inspection of a public record? If this were the case with the historian, what can be expected from the dramatist? He naturally took for fact what he found in history, and is by no means answerable for the misinformation of his authority. RITSON.

[5] Pursuivants. The heralds that, forerunning death, proclaim its apa proach. JOHNS.

Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer.

These eyes,-like lamps whose wasting oil is spent,-
Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent:

Weak shoulders, overborne with burd'ning grief,
And pithless arms, 7 like to a wither'd vine

That droops his sapless branches to the ground :-
Yet are these feet,-whose strengthless stay is numb,
Unable to support this lump of clay,
Swift-winged with desire to get a grave,
As witting, I no other comfort have.-

But tell me, keeper, will my nephew come?

1 Keep. Richard Plantagenet, my lord, will come :
We sent unto the Temple, to his chamber;
And answer was return'd, that he will come.
Mor. Enough; my soul shall then be satisfy’d.---
Poor gentleman! his wrong doth equal mine.
Since Henry Monmouth first began to reign,
(Before whose glory I was great in arms,)
This loathsome sequestration have I had ;
And even since then hath Richard been obscur'd,
Depriv'd of honour and inheritance:
But now, the arbitrator of despairs,

Just death, kind umpire of men's miseries, &
With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence;
I would, his troubles likewise were expir'd,

That so he might recover what was lost.

Enter RICHARD PLANTAGENET.

1 Keep. My lord, your loving nephew now is come. Mor. Richard Plantagenet, my friend? Is he come Plan. Ay, noble uncle, thus ignobly us'd,

Your nephew, late-despised Richard, comes.

Mor. Direct mine arms, I may embrace his neck, And in his bosom spend my latter gasp:

O, tell me, when my lips do touch his cheeks,

That I may kindly give one fainting kiss.

And now declare, sweet stem from York's great stock, Why didst thou say of late thou wert despis'd?

Plan. First, lean thine aged back against mine arm; And, in that ease, I'll tell thee my disease. 9. This day, in argument upon a case,

Some words there grew 'twixt Somerset and me:

[7] Pith was used for marrow, and figuratively, for strength
8 That is, he that terminates or concludes misery. JOHNS.
[2] Disease seems to be here uneasiness, or discontent. JOHNS.

4*

VOL. V.

JOHNS

Among which terms he used his lavish tongue,
And did upbraid me with my father's death:
Which obloquy set bars before my tongue,
Else with the like I had requited him :
Therefore, good uncle,-for my father's sake,
In honour of a true Plantagenet,

And for alliance sake,-declare the cause
My father, earl of Cambridge, lost his head.

Mor. That cause, fair nephew, that imprison'd me, And hath detain'd me, all my flow'ring youth, Within a loathsome dungeon, there to pine,

Was cursed instrument of his decease.

Plan. Discover more at large what cause that was; For I am ignorant, and cannot guess.

Mor. I will; if that my fading breath permit,
And death approach not ere my tale be done.
Henry the Fourth, grandfather to this king,
Depos'd his nephew Richard; Edward's son,
The first-begotten, and lawful heir

Of Edward king, the third of that descent:
During whose reign, the Percys of the north,
Finding his usurpation most unjust,

Endeavour'd my advancement to the throne.
The reason mov'd these warlike lords to this,
Was-for that (young king Richard thus remov'd,
Leaving no heir begotten of his body)

I was the next by birth and parentage;
For by my mother I derived am

From Lionel duke of Clarence, the third son
To king Edward the Third, whereas he,
From John of Gaunt doth bring his pedigree,
Being but fourth of that heroic line.

But mark as, in this haughty great attempt,"
They laboured to plant the rightful heir,
I lost my liberty, and they their lives.
Long after this, when Henry the Fifth-
Succeeding his father Bolingbroke-did reign,
Thy father, earl of Cambridge-then deriv'd
From famous Edmund Langley, duke of York-
Marrying my sister, that thy mother was,
Again, in pity of my hard distress,
Levied an army; weening to redeem,
And have install'd me in the diadem: