He shortens four years of my fon's exile:
But little vantage fhall I reap thereby;

For, ere the fix years, that he hath to spend,
Can change their moons, and bring their times about,
My oil-dry'd lamp, and time-bewafted light,
Shall be extinct with age, and endless night;
My inch of taper will be burnt and done,
And blindfold death not let me fee my fon.

K. Rich. Why, uncle, thou haft many years to live.
Gaunt. But not a minute, king, that thou can't give :
Shorten my days thou canst with fullen forrow,
And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow 5;
Thou canst help time to furrow me with age,
But ftop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;

Thy word is current with him for my death;
But, dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.
K. Rich. Thy fon is banish'd upon good advice,
Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave;
Why at our juftice feem'st thou then to lour?
Gaunt. Things fweet to taste, prove in digestion
four.

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 fmooth his fault I would have been more mild :
Alas, I look'd, when some of you should say,
I was too ftrict, to make mine own away;
But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue,
Against my will, to do myself this wrong
A partial flander 7 fought I to avoid,
And in the fentence my own life destroy'd.

K. Rich

Aud pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow:] It is matter of very melancholy confideration, that all human advantages confer more power of doing evil than good. JOHNSON.

• O, bad it been a ftranger,] This couplet is wanting in

the folio. STEEVENS.

A partial flander] That is, the reproach of partiality.

K. Rich. Coufin, farewel :-and, uncle, bid him fo; Six years we banish him, and he shall go. [Flourish. [Exit. Aum. Coufin, farewel: what presence must not know,

From where you do remain, let paper show.

Mar. My lord, no leave take I; for I will ride, As far as land will let me, by your fide.

Gaunt. Oh, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,

That thou return'ft no greeting to thy friends?
Boling. I have too few to take my leave of you,
When the tongue's office fhould be prodigal
To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.

Gaunt. Thy grief is but thy abfence for a time.
Boling. Joy abfent, grief is prefent for that time.
Gaunt. What is fix winters? they are quickly gone.
Boling. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour

ten.

Gaunt. Call it a travel that thou tak'ft for pleasure. Boling. My heart will figh, when I miscall it so, Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.

Gaunt. The fullen paffage of thy weary steps Efteem a foil, wherein thou art to fet

The precious jewel of thy home-return.

8

Boling. Nay, rather, every tedious ftride I make

This is a just picture of the struggle between principle and affection. JOHNSON.

This couplet, which is wanting in the folio edition, is arbitrarily placed by the modern editors at the conclufion of Gaunt's fpeech. In the three oldeft quartos it follows the fifth line of it. In the fourth quarto, which feems copied from the folio, the paffage is omitted. STEEVENS,

Boling. Nay, rather, every tedious ftride I make] This, and the fix verses which follow, I have ventured to fupply from the old quarto. The allufion, it is true, to an apprenticeship, and becoming a journeyman, is not in the fublime tafte; nor, as Horace has expreffed it, "fpirat tragicum fatis:" however, as there is no doubt of the paffage being genuine, the lines are not so despicable as to deferve being quite loft. THEOBALD.

Will but remember me, what a deal of world
I wander from the jewels that I love.
Must I not serve a long apprenticehood
To foreign paffages; and in the end,
Having my freedom, boaft of nothing elfe,
But that I was a journeyman to grief??

Gaunt. All places that the eye of heaven vifits,
Are to a wife man ports and happy havens :
Teach thy neceffity to reason thus;

There is no virtue like neceffity.

Think not, the king did banish thee;
But thou the king: Woe doth the heavier fit,
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
Go fay-I fent thee forth to purchafe honour,
And not-the king exil'd thee: or fuppofe,
Devouring peftilence hangs in our air,
And thou art flying to a frefher clime.
Look, what thy foul holds dear, imagine it
To lie that way thou go'ft, not whence thou com'ft:
Suppofe the finging birds, muficians;

The grafs whereonhou tread'ft, the presence ftrow'd;
The flowers, fair ladies; and thy fteps, no more,
Than a delightful measure or a dance:

9

journeyman to grief?] I am afraid our author in this place defigned a very poor quibble, as journey fignifies both travel and a day's work. However, he is not to be cenfured for what he himself rejected. JOHNSON.

The quarto, in which thefe lines are found, is faid in its titlepage to have been corrected by the author; and the play is indeed more accurately printed than most of the other fingle copies. There is now however no certain method of knowing by whom the rejection was made. STEEVENS.

All places that the eye of heaven vifits, &c.] The fourteen verfes that follow are found in the first edition. POPE.

I am inclined to believe, that what Mr. Theobald and Mr. Pope have restored were expunged in the revifion by the author: if thefe lines are omitted, the fenfe is more coherent. Nothing is more frequent among dramatic writers, than to fhorten their dialogues for the stage. JOHNSON.

For

2

For gnarling forrow hath lefs power to bite
The man that mocks at it, and fets it light.
Boling. Oh, who can hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking on the frofty Caucafus?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite,
By bare imagination of a feaft?
Or wallow naked in December snow,
By thinking on fantastic fummer's heat?
Oh, no! the apprehenfion of the good
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse:
Fell forrow's tooth doth never rankle more,
Than when it bites, but lanceth not the fore.
Gaunt, Come, come, my fon, I'll bring thee on thy
way:

Had I thy youth, and caufe, I would not stay. Boling. Then, England's ground, farewel; fweet foil, adieu;

My mother, and my nurfe, that bears me yet!
Where e'er I wander, boaft of this I can,-
Though banish'd, yet a true-bo Englishman3.

[Exeunt.

2 Ob, 'who can hold a fire in his hand, &c.] It has been remarked, that there is a paffage refembling this in Tully's Fifth Book of Tufculan Queftions. Speaking of Epicurus, he fays: "Sed una fe dicit recordatione acquiefcere præteritarum voluptatum ut fi quis æftuans, cum vim caloris non facile patiatur, recordari velit fe aliquando in Arpinati noftro gelidis fluminibus circumfufum fuiffe. Non enim video, quomodo fedare poffint mala præfentia præteritæ voluptates." The Tufculan Questions of Cicero had been tranflated early enough for Shakespeare to have seen them. STEEVENS.

+3

yet a true-born Englishman.] Here the first act ought to end, that between the first and fecond acts there may be time for John of Gaunt to accompany his fon, return, and fall fick. Then the first scene of the second act begins with a natural converfation, interrupted by a meffage from John of Gaunt, by which the king is called to vifit him, which vifit is paid in the following fcene. As the play is now divided, more time paffes between the two laft fcenes of the first act, than between the first act and the fecond. JOHNSON.

SCENE

SCENE IV.

The court.

Enter king Richard, and Bagot, &c. at one door, and the lord Aumerle at the other.

K. Rich. We did obferve.-Coufin Aumerle, How far brought you high Hereford on his way? Aum. I brought high Hereford, if you call him fo, But to the next high-way, and there I left him. K. Rich. And, fay, what store of parting tears were fhed?

Aum. 'Faith, none by me: except the north-eaft wind,

Which then blew bitterly against our faces,
Awak'd the sleepy rheum; and fo, by chance,
Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.

K. Rich. What faid our coufin, when you parted with him?

Aum. Farewel:

And for my heart disdained that my tongue
Should fo prophane the word, that taught me craft
To counterfeit oppreffion of fuch grief,

That words feem'd buried in my forrow's grave.
Marry, would the word farewel have lengthen'd hours,
And added years to his short banishment,
He should have had a volume of farewels;
But, fince it would not, he had none of me.

K. Rich. He is our coufin, coufin; but 'tis doubt, When time fhall call him home from banishment, Whether our kinfman come to fee his friends. Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green, Obferv'd his courtship to the common people :How he did feem to dive into their hearts, With humble and familiar courtesy;

What reverence he did throw away on flaves;