If you do wrongfully feize Hereford's rights,
Call in his letters patents that he hath
By his attornies-general to fue

His livery, and deny his offer'd homage,
You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,
You lose a thousand well-difpofed hearts,
And prick my tender patience to those thoughts
Which honour and allegiance cannot think.

K. Rich. Think what you will; we feize into our hands

His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands..
York. I'll not be, by the while: My liege, farewel:
What will enfue hereof, there's none can tell;
But by bad courfes may be understood,

That their events can never fall out good.

[Exit.

K.Rich. Go, Bushy, to the earl of Wiltshire straight;

Bid him repair to us to Ely-house,

To fee this bufinefs: To-morrow next

We will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow;
And we create, in abfence of ourself,
Our uncle York lord-governor of England,
For he is juft, and always lov'd us well.-
Come on, our queen: to-morrow muft we part;
Be merry, for our time of stay is fhort.

[Flourish. [Exeunt king, queen, &c. North. Well, lords, the duke of Lancaster is dead, Rofs. And living too; for now his fon is duke, Willo. Barely in title, not in revenue.

North. Richly in both, if justice had her right. Rofs. My heart is great; but it must break with filence,

Ere't be difburden'd with a liberal tongue.

North. Nay, fpeak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak more,

That speaks thy words again, to do thee harm!

3 deny his offer'd bomage,] That is, refufe to admit the ho◄ mage, by which he is to hold his lands. JOHNSON.

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

If it be fo, out with it boldly, man;

Quick is mine ear, to hear of good towards him.
Rofs. No good at all, that I can do for him;
Unless you call it good, to pity him,

Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.

North. Now, afore heaven, 'tis fhame, fuch wrongs are borne,

In him a royal prince, and many more
Of noble blood in this declining land.
The king is not himself, but bafely led
By flatterers; and what they will inform,
Merely in hate, 'gainst any of us all,
That will the king feverely profecute

'Gainft us, our lives, our children, and our heirs. Rofs. The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes,

And quite loft their hearts: the nobles he hath fin'd
For ancient quarrels, and quite loft their hearts.
Willo. And daily new exactions are devis'd;
As-blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what :
But what, o' God's name, doth become of this?
North. War hath not wasted it, for warr'd he hath
not,

But bafely yielded upon compromise

That which his ancestors atchiev'd with blows:
More hath he spent in peace, than they in wars.

Rofs. The earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.
Willo. The king's grown bankrupt, like a broken

man.

North. Reproach, and diffolution, hangeth over him.

Rofs. He hath not money for these Irish wars,
His burthenous taxations notwithstanding,
But by the robbing of the banish'd duke.

North. His noble kinfman:-Moft degenerate king! But, lords, we hear this fearful tempeft fing,

Yet

Yet feek no shelter to avoid the storm :
We fee the wind fit fore upon our fails,
And yet we ftrike not, but fecurely perish.
Rofs. We fee the very wreck that we muft fuffer;
And unavoided is the danger now,

For fuffering fo the caufes of our wreck.

North. Not fo; even through the hollow eyes of death,

I fpy life peering: but I dare not say,
How near the tidings of our comfort is.

Willo. Nay, let us fhare thy thoughts, as thou doft

ours.

Rofs. Be confident to fpeak, Northumberland: We three are but thy felf; and, fpeaking fo, Thy words are but as thoughts; therefore, be bold. North. Then thus:-I have from Port le Blanc, a bay

In Britany, receiv'd intelligence,

That Harry Hereford, Reignold lord Cobham,
That late broke from the duke of Exeter';

His

• And yet we strike not, &c.] To flrike the fails, is, to contrac them when there is too much wind. JOHNSON.

5 duke of Exeter ;] I fufpect that fome of these lines are tranfpofed, as well as that the poet had made a blunder in his enumeration of perfons. No copy that I have feen, will authorize me to make an alteration, though, according to Holinfhed, whom Shakespeare followed in great measure, more than one is neceffary.

All the perfons enumerated in Holinfhed's account of those embark'd with Bolingbroke, are here mentioned with great exact nefs, except "Thomas Arundell, fonne and heire to the late earle of Arundell, beheaded at the Tower-hill." See Holinfhed. And yet this nobleman, who appears to have been thus omitted by the poet, is the perfon to whom alone that circumstance relates of having broke from the duke of Exeter, and to whom alone, of all mentioned in the lift, the archbishop was related, he being uncle to the young lord, though Shakespeare by mistake calls him his brother. See Holinfhed, p. 496.

From thefe circumftances here taken notice of, which are applicable only to this lord in particular, and from the improbability that Shakespeare would omit fo principal a perfonage in his hifto

rian's

His brother, archbishop late of Canterbury,
Sir Thomas Erpingham, fir John Ramfton,

Sir John Norbery, fir Robert Waterton, and Francis
Quoint,

All thefe, well furnish'd by the duke of Bretagne,
With eight tall fhips, three thoufand men of war,
Are making hither with all due expedience,
And fhortly mean to touch our northern fhore:
Perhaps, they had ere this; but that they stay
The first departing of the king for Ireland.
If then we fhall fhake off our flavish yoke,
Imp out our drooping country's broken wing,
Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,
Wipe off the duft that hides our fcepter's gilt,
And make high majefty look like itself,
Away, with me, in poft to Ravenfpurg:
But if you faint, as fearing to do fo,
Stay, and be fecret, and myfelf will go.

rian's lift, I think it can scarce be doubted but that a line is loft in which the name of this Thomas Arundel had originally a place. STEEVENS. archbishop late of Canterbury,] Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, brother to the earl of Arundel who was beheaded in this reign, had been banished by the Parliament, and was afterwards deprived by the pope of his fee, at the request of the king; whence he is here called, late of Canterbury.

STEEVENS.

7 Imp out] As this expreffion frequently occurs in our author, it may not be amifs to explain the original meaning of it. When the wing-feathers of a hawk were dropped, or forced out by any accident, it was ufual to fupply as many as were deficient. This operation was called, to imp a hawk.

So, in The Devil's Charter, 1607:

"His plumes only imp the mufe's wings."

So, in Albumazar, 1615:

"Time's hafte, he feems to lofe a match with lobsters;
"And when we wish him ftay, he imps his wings
"With feathers plum'd with thought."

Turbervile has a whole chapter on The Way and Manner howe to ympe a Hawke's Feather, how-foever it be broken or broofed.

STEEVENS.

Rofs

Rofs. To horfe, to horse! urge doubts to them that fear.

Willo. Hold out my horfe, and I will firft be there.

Bufhy. Madam, your majefty is much too fad: You promis'd, when you parted with the king, To lay afide life-harming heavinefs,

And entertain a chearful disposition.

Queen. To please the king, I did; to please myself, I cannot do it; yet I know no caufe

Why I should welcome fuch a guest as grief,
Save bidding farewel to fo fweet a guest
As my fweet Richard: Yet again, methinks,
Some unborn forrow, ripe in fortune's womb,
Is coming toward me; and my inward foul.
9 With nothing trembles: at fomething it grieves,
More than with parting from my lord the king.
Bushy. Each fubftance of a grief hath twenty fha-
dows,

life-harming heaviness,] Thus the quarto, 1599. The quartos 1608, and 1615-halfe-harming; the folio-self-harming. STEEVENS.

With nothing trembles; yet at fomething grieves,] The fol lowing line requires that this should be read juft the contrary way: With fomething trembles, yet at nothing grieves. WARBURTON,

All the old editions read:

my inward foul

With nothing trembles; at fomething it grieves.

The reading, which Dr. Warburton corrects, is itself an innovation. His conjectures give indeed a better fenfe than that of any copy, but copies must not be needlefsly forfaken. JOHNSON.

I fuppofe it is the unborn forrow which the calls nothing, because it is not yet brought into existence. STEEVENS,