The pleasure, that fome fathers feed upon,
Is my ftrict faft, I mean-my children's looks;
And, therein fafting, thou haft made me gaunt:
Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,
Whofe hollow womb inherits nought but bones.
K. Rich. Can fick men play so nicely with their
names?

Gaunt. No, mifery makes sport to mock itself:
Since thou doft feek 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. No, no; men living flatter thofe that die. K. Rich. Thou, now a dying, fay'st-thou flatter'st

me.

Gaunt. Oh! no; thou dy'ft, though I the ficker be. K. Rich. I am in health, I breathe, I fee thee ill. Gaunt. Now, He that made me, knows I fee thee ill; Ill in myself to fee, and in thee seeing ill. Thy death-bed is no leffer than the land, Wherein thou lieft in reputation fick; And thou, too carelefs tient as thou art, Giv'ft thy anointed body to the cure Of those physicians that firft wounded thee: A thousand flatterers fit within thy crown, Whose compass is no bigger than thy head; And yet, incaged in fo small a verge, The wafte is no whit leffer than thy land. Oh, had thy grandfire, with a prophet's eye, Seen how his fon's fon fhould destroy his fons, From forth thy reach he would have laid thy fhame Depofing thee before thou wert poffefs'd, Who art poffefs'd now to depofe thyself. Why, coufin, wert thou regent of the world, It were a fhame, to let this land by lease : But, for thy world, enjoying but this land, Is it not more than fhame, to fhame it fo? Landlord of England art thou now, not king: M 2

Thy

?Thy state of law is bond-flave to the law; And-

K. Rich. Thou, a lunatic lean-witted fool, Prefuming on an ague's privilege,

Dar'ft with thy frozen admonition

Make pale our cheek; chafing the royal blood,
With fury, from his native refidence.

Now by my feat's right royal majesty,
Wert thou not brother to great Edward's fon,
This tongue, that runs fo roundly in thy head,
Should run thy head from thy unreverend shoulders.
Gaunt. Oh, fpare me not, my brother Edward's fon,
For that I was his father Edward's fon;

That blood already, like the pelican,

Haft thou tap'd out, and drunkenly carows'd:
My brother Glofter, plain well-meaning foul,
(Whom fair befal in heaven 'mongst happy fouls!)
May be a precedent and witnefs good,

That thou refpect'ft not spilling Edward's blood :
Join with the prefent fickness that I have;

7 Thy fate of law is bond-flave to the law;] State of law, i. e. legal fou'reignty. But the Oxford editor alters it to ftate o'er law, i. e. abfolute fov'reignty. A doctrine, which, if our poet ever learnt at all, he learnt not in the reign when this play was written, queen Elizabeth's, but in the reign after it, king James's. By bond-flave to the law, the poet means his being inflaved to his favourite fubjects. WARBURTON.

This fentiment, whatever it be, is obfcurely expreffed. I understand it differently from the learned commentator, being perhaps not quite fo zealous for Shakespeare's political reputation. The reafoning of Gaunt, I think, is this: By fetting the royalties to farm thou haft reduced thyfelf to a ftate below fovereignty, thou art now no longer king but landlord of England, fubject to the fame refraint and limitations as other landlords;, by making thy condition a ftate of law, a condition upon which the common rules of law can ope rate, thou art become a bond-flave to the law; thou haft made thy-. felf amenable to laws from which thou wert originally exempt.

Whether this interpretation be true or no, it is plain that Dr. Warburton's explanation of bond-flave to the law, is not true.

JOHNSON.

And

And thy unkindness be like crooked age, To crop at once a too-long wither'd flower. Live in thy fhame, but die not fhame 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. [Exit, borne out. K. Rich. And let them die, that age and fullens have; For both haft thou, and both become the grave. York. 'Beseech your majefty, impute his words To wayward ficklinefs and age in him : He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear As Harry duke of Hereford, were he here.

And thy unkindness be like crooked age,

To crop at once a too-long wither'd flower.]

age

Thus ftand thefe lines in all the copies, but I think there is an er-
ror. Why fhould Gaunt, already old, call on any thing like
to end him? How can age be faid to crop at once? How is the idea
of crookedness connected with that of cropping? I fuppofe the poet
dictated thus:

And thy unkindnefs be time's crooked edge

To crop at once.

That is, let thy unkindness be time's feythe to crop.

Edge was eafily confounded by the ear with age, and one mistake once admitted made way for another. JOHNSON.

Shakespeare, I believe, took this idea from the figure of Time, who was reprefented as carrying a fickle as well as a feythe. A fickle was anciently called a crook, and fometimes, as in the following inftances, crooked may mean armed with a crook. So, in the 100th fonnet of Shakespeare:

"Give me, my love, fame, fafter than time wastes life, "So thou prevent'ft his fcythe and crooked knife."

Again, in the 119th:

"Love's not Time's fool, though rofy lips and cheeks "Within his bending fickle's compafs come.

It may be mentioned, however, that crooked is an epithet bestowed on age in the Tragedy of Locrine, !595:

"Now yield to death o'erlaid by crooked age."

Locrine has been attributed to Shakespeare; and in this paffage quoted from it, no allufion to a feythe can be fuppofed. Our poet's expreffions are fometimes abortive. STEEVENS.

Love they] That is, let them love. JOHNSON.

K. Rich. Right; you fay true: as Hereford's love, fo his;

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

Enter Northumberland.

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

K. Rich. What fays he?

North. Nay, nothing; all is faid: His tongue is now a ftringless instrument; Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent. York. Be York the next that must be bankrupt fo! Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.

K. Rich. The ripeft fruit firft falls, and fo doth he;
His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be :
So much for that.Now for our Irish wars:
We must fupplant thofe rough rug-headed kerns;
Which live like venom, where no venom else',
But only they, hath privilege to live.

And, for thefe great affairs do ask fome charge,-
Towards our affistance, we do feize to us

The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables,
Whereof our uncle Gaunt did ftand poffefs'd.

York. How long fhall I be patient? Oh, how long
Shall tender duty make me fuffer wrong?
Not Glofter's death, nor Hereford's banishment,
Not Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,
Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke

About

-where no venom elfe,] This alludes to a tradition that St. Patrick freed the kingdom of Ireland from venomous reptiles of every kind. So, in Decker's Honeft Whore, P. II. 1630: -that Irish Judas,

"Bred in a country where no venom prospers,

"But in his blood."

Again, in Fuimus Troes, 1603:

"As Irifh earth doth poifon poifonous beafts," STEEVENS, 2 Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke

About his marriage, &c.]

When the duke of Hereford, after his banishment, went into

France,

About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,
Have ever made me four my patient cheek,
Or bend one wrinkle on my fovereign's face.-
I am the laft of noble Edward's fons,

Of whom thy father, prince of Wales, was firft;
In war was never lion rag'd more fierce,
In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
Than was that young and princely gentleman:
His face thou haft, for even fo look'd he,
Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;
But, when he frown'd, it was against the French,
And not againft his friends: his noble hand
Did win what he did fpend, 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.
Oh, 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 pleafe; if not, I pleas'd
Not to be pardon'd, am content withal.

Seek you to feize, and gripe into your hands,
The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?
Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not Hereford live?
Was not Gaunt juft? and is not Harry true?
Did not the one deferve to have an heir?

Is not his heir a well-deferving fon?

Take Hereford's rights away, and take from time
His charters, and his customary rights;
Let not to-morrow then enfue to-day;
Be not thyfelf, for how art thou a king,
But by fair fequence and fucceffion?
Now, afore God (God forbid, Ifay true!)

France, he was honourably entertained at that court, and would have obtained in marriage the only daughter of the duke of Berry, uncle to the French king, had not Richard prevented the match. STEEVENS.