A dearer merit, not so deep a maim,'
As to be cast forth in the common air,
Have I deserved at your highness' hand.
The language I have learn'd these forty years,
My native English, now I must forego :
And now my tongue's use is to me no more,
Than an unstringed viol, or a harp ;
Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up,
Or, being open, put into his hands

That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,
Doubly portcullis'd, with my teeth, and lips;
And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance,
Is made my gaoler to attend on me.
I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
Too far in years to be a pupil now;

What is thy sentence then, but speechless death,
Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?
K. Rich. It boots thee not to be compassionate ;2
After our sentence, plaining comes too late.
Nor. Then thus I turn me from my country's light,
To dwell in solemn shades of endless night. [Retiring
K. Rich. Return again, and take an oath with thee.
Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;
Swear by the duty that you owe to heaven,
(Our part therein we banish with yourselves,)"
To keep the oath that we administer :—
You never shall (so help you truth and heaven!)
Embrace each other's love in banishment;
Nor never look upon each other's face;
Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile

This lowering tempest of your home-bred hate;
Nor never by advised purpose meet,
To plot, contrive, or complot any ill,

'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.
Boling. I swear.

[1] To deserve a merit, is a phrase of which I know not any example. I wish some copy would exhibit, A dearer mede, and not so deep a maim.' To deserve a meed or reward, is regular and easy. JOHNSON.

Compassionate; for plaintive. WARBURTON.

[3] It is a question much debated among the writers of the law of nations, whether a banished man may be still tied in his allegiance to the state which sent him. into exile. Tully and lord chancellor Clarendon declare for the affirmative: Hobbes and Puffendorf hold the negative. Our author, by this line, seems to be of the same opinion. WARBURTON.

[4] i. e. concerted, deliberated. STEEVENS.

Nor. And I, to keep all this.

Boling. Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy;5-
By this time, had the king permitted us,
One of our souls had wander'd in the air,
Banish'd this frail sepulchre of our flesh,
As now our flesh is banish'd from this land:
Confess thy treasons, ere thou fly the realm;
Since thou hast far to go, bear not along
The clogging burden of a guilty soul.

Nor. No, Bolingbroke; if ever I were traitor,
My name be blotted from the book of life,
And I from heav'n banish'd, as from hence !
But what thou art, heaven, thou, and I do know ;
And all too soon, I fear, the king shall rue.—
Farewell, my liege :-Now no way can I stray ;
Save back to England, all the world's my way.

K. Rich. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes

I see thy grieved heart: thy sad aspéct
Hath from the number of his banish'd years

[Exit.

Pluck'd four away ;-Six frozen winters spent,
Return [To BOLING.] with welcome home from banish-

ment.

Boling. How long a time lies in one little word!
Four lagging winters, and four wanton springs,
End in a word; Such is the breath of kings.
Gaunt. I thank my liege, that, in regard of me,
He shortens four years of my son's exile:
But little vantage shall I reap thereby ;
For, ere the six years, that he hath to spend,
Can change their moons, and bring their times about,
My oil-dried lamp, and time-bewasted light,
Shall be extinct with age, and endless night;
My inch of taper will be burnt and done,
And blindfold death not let me see my son.

K. Rich. Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.
Gaunt. But not a minute, king, that thou canst give :
Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow,
And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow :6
Thou canst help time to furrow me with age,

[5] The first folio reads fare: the second farre. Bolingbroke only uses the phrase by way of caution, lest Mowbray should think he was about to address him as a friend. Norfolk, says he, so far as a man may speak to his enemy, &c. RITSON.

[6] It is matter of very melancholy consideration, that all human advantages confer more power of doing evil than good. JOHNSON.

But stop 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 son is banish'd upon good advice,
Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave;

Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lower?

Gaunt. Things sweet to taste, prove in digestion sour. 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 my unwilling tongue,
Against my will, to do myself this wrong.

K. Rich. Cousin, farewell :-and, uncle, bid him so ; 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 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 side.

Gaunt. O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words, That thou return'st no greeting to thy friends? Boling. I have too few to take my leave of you, When the tongue's office should be prodigal To breathe th' abundant dolour of the heart. 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 hour ten. Gaunt. Call it a travel that thou tak'st for pleasure. Boling. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so, Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.

Gaunt. The sullen passage of thy weary steps

Esteem a foil, wherein thou art to set

The precious jewel of thy home-return.

Boling. Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make

[7] That is, the reproach of partiality. This is a just picture of the struggle between principle and affection. JOHNSON.

[8] This, and the six verses which follow, I have ventured to supply from the

old quarto. 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 passages; and in the end,
Having my freedom, boast of nothing else,
But that I was a journeyman to grief ?9

Gaunt. All places that the eye of heaven visits,1
Are to a wise man ports and happy havens :
Teach thy necessity to reason thus ;

There is no virtue like necessity.

Think not, the king did banish thee;

But thou the king: Woe doth the heavier sit,
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
Go, say-I sent thee forth to purchase honour,
And not-the king exil'd thee: or suppose,
Devouring pestilence hangs in our air,
And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it

To lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou com'st:
Suppose the singing birds, musicians;

The grass whereon thou tread'st, the presence strew'd ;* The flowers, fair ladies; and thy steps, no more

3

Than a delightful measure, or a dance :

For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
The man that mocks at it, and sets it light.
Boling. O, who can hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus ?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite,
By bare imagination of a feast?

Or wallow naked in December's snow,
By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?
O, no! the apprehension of the good,
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse:
Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more,
Than when it bites, but lanceth not the sore.

[9] I am afraid our author in this place designed a very poor quibble, as journey signifies both travel and a day's work. However he is not to be censured for what he himself rejected. JOHNSON.

[1] The fourteen verses 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 revision by the author: if these lines are omitted, the sense is more coherent. Nothing is more frequent among dramatic writers than to shorten their dialogues for the stage.

JOHNSON.

[2] Shakespeare has other allusions to the ancient practice of strewing rushes over the floor of the presence chamber. HENLEY.

[3] A measure was a formal court dance.

Gaunt. Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy

way:

Had I thy youth, and cause, I would not stay.

Boling. Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu ;

My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!
Where'er, I wander, boast of this I can,-
Though banish'd, yet a trueborn Englishman.

The same.

SCENE IV.

[Exeunt.

A Room in the King's Castle. Enter King RICHard, Bagot, and GREEN; AUMERLE following. K. Rich. We did observe.-Cousin Aumerle, How far brought you high Hereford on his way ? Aum. I brought high Hereford, if you call him so, But to the next high-way, and there I left him.

K. Rich. And, say, what store of parting tears were shed?

Aum. Faith, none by me: except the north-east wind, Which then blew bitterly against our faces,

Awak'd the sleeping rheum; and so, by chance,

Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.

K. Rich. What said our cousin, when you parted with

him?

Aum. Farewell:

And, for my heart disdained that my tongue

Should so profane the word, that taught me craft

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 banishment,
Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.
Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green,
Observ'd his courtship to the common people :-
How he did seem to dive into their hearts,
With humble and familiar courtesy ;
What reverence he did throw away on slaves;
Wooing poor craftsmen, with the craft of smiles,
And patient underbearing of his fortune,