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Verbatim to rehearse the method of my pen:
No prelate; such is thy audacious wickedness,
Thy lewd, pestiferous, and diffentious pranks,
As very infants prattle of thy pride.
Thou art a most pernicious usurer;
Froward by nature, enemy to peace;
Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems
A man of thy profession, and degree;
And for thy treachery, What's more manifest?
In that thou laid'st a trap to take my life,
As well at London bridge, as at the Tower?
Beside, I fear me, if thy thoughts were fifted,
The king, thy sovereign, is not quite exempt
From envious malice of thy swelling heart.

WIN. Glofter, I do defy thee. -Lords, vouchsafe
To give me hearing what I shall reply.
If I were covetous, ambitious, or perverse,
As he will have me, How am I so poor?
Or how haps it, I seek not to advance
Or raise myself, but keep my wonted calling?
And for diffention, Who preferreth peace
More than I do, -except I be provok'd?
No, my good lords, it is not that offends;
It is not that, that hath incens'd the duke:
It is, because no one should sway but he;
No one, but he, should be about the king;
And that engenders thunder in his breast,
And makes him roar these accufations forth.
But he shall know, I am as good-
GLO.

Thou bastard of my grandfather!

As good?

3 If I were covetous, ambitious, or perverse, ] I suppose this redundant line originally flood

Were I covetous, ambitious, &c. STEEVENS.

Thou bastard of my grandfather!] The Bishop of Winchester

WIN. Ay, lordly fir! For what are you, I pray, But one imperious in another's throne?

GLO. Am I not the protector, saucy priest?
WIN. And am not I a prelate of the church?

GLO. Yes, as an outlaw in a castle keeps,

And useth it to patronage his theft.

WIN. Unreverent Glofter!

GLO.

Thou art reverent

Touching thy spiritual function, not thy life.

WIN. This Rome shall remedy.

WAR.

Roam thither then."

Ѕом. My lord, it were your duty to forbear.
WAR. Ay, fee the bishop be not overborne.

was an illegitimate son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancafter, by Katharine Swynford, whom the duke afterwards married.

MALONE.

*the protector; ] I have added the article-the, for the fake of metre. STEEVENS.

6 This Rome shall remedy.] The old copy, unmetricallyRome shall remedy this.

The transposition is Sir Thomas Hanmer's. STEEVENS.

7 Roam thither then.] Roam to Rome. To roam is supposed to be derived from the cant of vagabonds, who often pretended a pilgrimage to Rome. JOHNSON.

The jingle between roam and Rome is common to other writers. So, in Nash's Lenten Stuff, &c. 1599: three hundred thousand people roamed to Rome for purgatorie pills," &c.

STEEVENS.

• Som. My lord, it were your duty to forbear. &c.) This line, in the old copy, is joined to the former hemiftich spoken by Warwick. The modern editors have very properly given it to Somerset for whom it seems to have been designed.

Ay, fee the bishop be not overborne,

was as erroneoufly given in the next speech to Somerset, inftead of Warwick, to whom it has been fince restored. STEEVENS.

The corre&ion was made by Mr. Theobald. MALONE

٦

SOM. Methinks, my lord should be religious, And know the office that belongs to such.

WAR. Methinks his lordship should be humbler;

It fitteth not a prelate so to plead.

SOM. Yes, when his holy state is touch'd so near. WAR. State holy, or unhallow'd, what of that? Is not his grace protector to the king?

PLAN. Plantagenet, I see, must hold his tongue; Lest it be faid, Speak, firrah, when you should; Must your bold verdict enter talk with lords? Else would I have a fling at Winchester.

[Afide.

K. HEN. Uncles of Glofter, and of Winchester,
The special watchmen of our English weal;
I would prevail, if prayers might prevail,
To join your hearts in love and amity.
O, what a scandal is it to our crown,
That two fuch noble peers as ye, should jar!
Believe me, lords, my tender years can tell,
Civil diffention is a viperous worm,

That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth.-
[A noise within; Down with the tawny coats!
What tumult's this?
WAR.

An uproar, I dare warrant,

Begun through malice of the bishop's men.

[A noise again; Stones! Stones!

Enter the Mayor of London, attended.

صن

MAY. O, mygood lords, -and virtuous Henry,

Pity the city of London, pity us!

The bishop and the duke of Glofter's men,

Forbidden late to carry any weapon,

Have fill'd their pockets full of pebble-stones;
And, banding themselves in contráry parts,

Do pelt so fast at one another's pate,
That many have their giddy brains knock'd out:
Our windows are broke down in every street,
And we, for fear, compell'd to shut our shops.

Enter, skirmishing, the retainers of Gloster and
Winchester, with bloody pates.

K. HEN. We charge you, on allegiance to our-
felf,

To hold your flaught'ring hands, and keep the

peace.

Pray, uncle Glofter, mitigate this strife. 1. SERV. Nay, if we be

Forbidden stones, we'll fall to it with our teeth.

2. SERV. Do what ye dare,

GLO. You of my household,

broil,

And set this unaccustom'd fight

we are as resolute.
[Skirmish again.
leave this peevish

aside.

3. SERV. My lord, we know your grace to be a

man

Just and upright; and, for your royal birth,
Inferior to none, but his majesty:3
And, ere that we will fuffer fuch a prince.
So kind a father of the commonweal,

2

unaccustom'd fight - ] Unaccustom'd is unfeemly, in

decent. JOHNSON.

The fame epithet occurs again in Romeo and Juliet, where it seems to mean-fuch as is uncommon, not in familiar use:

3

" Shall give him uch an unaccustom'd dram."

but his majesty:] Old copy, redundantly

but his majesty.

Perhaps, the line originally ran thus:

STEEVENS.

" To none inferior, but his majesty." STEEVENS..

۱

To be disgraced by an inkhorn mate,
We, and our wives, and children, all will fight,
And have our bodies slaughter'd by thy foes.

1. SERV. Ay, and the very parings of our nails Shall pitch a field, when we are dead.

GLO.

[ Skirmish again. Stay, stay, I say!

And, if you love me, as you say you do,
Let me perfuade you to forbear a while.

K. HEN. O, how this discord doth afflict my

foul!

Can you, my lord of Winchester, behold
My fighs and tears, and will not once relent?
Who should be pitiful, if you be not?
Or who should study to prefer a peace,
If holy churchmen take delight in broils?

WAR. My lord protector, yield; -yield Win

chester ;

1

Except you mean, with obftinate repulse,
To flay your fovereign, and destroy the realm.
You fee what mischief, and what murder too,

4

--- an inkhorn mate.) A bookman. JOHNSON.

It was a term of reproach at the time towards men of learning of men affecting to be learned. George Pettie in his Introduction to Guazzo's Civil Conversation, 1586, speaking of those he calls nice travellers, says, " if one chance to derive anie word from the Latine, which is insolent to their ears, (as perchance they will take that phrafe to be) they forthwith make a jest at it, and tearme it an Inkhorne tearme." REED.

5

Stay, lay, I say!] Perhaps the words-I say, should be omitted, as they only serve to disorder the metre, and create a difagreeable repetition of the word-say, in the next line.

STEEVENS.

6 My lord protector, yield; ] Old copy-Yield, my lord protector. This judicious transposition was made by Sir T. Hanmer.

STEEVENS.

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