K. RICH.

--a lunatick lean-witted fool,

Presuming on an ague's privilege,

Dar'st with thy frozen admonition

Make pale our cheek; chasing the royal blood,
With fury, from his native residence.
Now by my seat's right royal majesty,

Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son,
This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head,

Should run thy head from thy unreverend shoul

ders.

GAUNT. O, spare me not, my brother Edward's

son,

For that I was his father Edward's son;

That blood already, like the pelican,

Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd:
My brother Gloster, plain well-meaning soul,
(Whom fair befal in heaven 'mongst happy souls!)
May be a precedent and witness good,

"Thy state of law," may be briefly interpreted "thy legal state; "that rank in the state and these large demesnes which the constitution has allotted to thee, are now bond-slave to the law; being subject to the same legal restrictions as every ordinary pelting farm that has been let on lease. MALONE.

3 Gaunt. And thou▬▬

K. Rich. a lunatick LEAN-WITTED fool,] In the disposition of these lines I had followed the folio, in giving the word thou to the king; but the regulation of the first quarto, 1597, is perhaps preferable, being more in our poet's manner :

"Gaunt. And thou

"K. Rich.

a lunatick, lean-witted fool." And thou a mere cypher in thy own kingdom, Gaunt was going to say. Richard interrupts him, and takes the word thou in a different sense, applying it to Gaunt, instead of himself. Of this kind of retort there are various instances in these plays. The folio repeats the word And:

lean-witted-" Dr. Farmer observes to me that the same

expression occurs in the 106th Psalm :

That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood:
Join with the present sickness that I have;
And thy unkindness be like crooked age,
To crop at once a too-long wither'd flower

4 And thy unkindness be like CROOKED AGE,

To crop at once a too-long wither'd flower.] Thus stand these lines in all the copies, but I think there is an error. Why should Gaunt, already old, call on any thing like age to end him? How can age be said to crop at once? How is the idea of crookedness connected with that of cropping? I suppose the poet dictated thus:

"And thy unkindness be time's crooked edge

"To crop at once

That is, let thy unkindness be time's scythe to crop.' Edge was easily confounded by the ear with age, and one mistake once admitted made way for another. JOHNSON.

Shakspeare, I believe, took this idea from the figure of Time, who was represented as carrying a sickle as well as a scythe. A sickle was anciently called a crook, and sometimes, as in the following instances, crooked may mean armed with a crook. So, in Kendall's Epigrams, 1577:

"The regall king and crooked clowne

"All one alike death driveth downe." Again, in the 100th Sonnet of Shakspeare:

"Give my love, fame, faster than time wastes life,
"So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.”

Again, in the 119th:

"Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
"Within his bending sickle's compass come."

It may be mentioned, however, that crooked is an epithet bestowed on age in the tragedy of Locrine, 1595:

age."

"Now yield to death o'erlaid by crooked Locrine has been attributed to Shakspeare; and in this passage quoted from it, no allusion to a scythe can be supposed. Our poet's expressions are sometimes confused and abortive.

STEEVENS.

I do not believe that our author had the figure of Time in his thoughts; but merely gave to age the same epithet which is given to it by many of his contemporaries and predecessors. So, in A Flourish upon Fancie, by N. B. [Nicholas Breton,] 1577:

"Who, when that he awhile hath bin in fancies schoole, "Doth learne in his old crooked age to play the doting foole." Again, in Sylvester's translation of Dubartus, 4to. 1605, p.251:

Live in thy shame, but die not shame 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 by his Attendants. K. RICH. And let them die, that age and sullens have;

For both hast thou, and both become the grave. YORK. I do beseech your majesty, impute his words

To wayward sickliness and age in him:

He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear
As Harry duke of Hereford, were he here.

K. RICH. Right; you say true: as Hereford's love, so his :

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

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND".

NORTH. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty.

"Fathers, if you desire your children sage "Should by their blessings blesse your crooked age." Again, in Tuberville's Songs and Sonets, 8vo. 1567:

"Would death would spare to spoyle,

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"And crooked age to rase,

(As they are wont by course of kinde)

"P's beautie in this case." MALONE.

Shakspeare had probably two different but kindred ideas in his mind; the bend of age, and the sickle of time, which he confounded together. M. MASON.

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

6 'Beseech your majesty,] The old copies redundantly read"I do beseech," &c.

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Mr. Ritson would regulate the passage differently (and perhaps rightly,) by omitting the words-in him:

"I do beseech your majesty, impute

"His words to wayward sickliness and age." STEEVENS. 7 Northumberland.] Was Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. WALPOLE,

K. RICH. What says he?

NORTH. Nay, nothing; all is said:

His tongue is now a stringless instrument;
Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.
YORK. Be York the next that must be bankrupt
so!

Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.

K. RICH. The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth
he;

His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be9:
So much for that.-Now for our Irish wars:
We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns;
Which live like venom, where no venom else',
But only they, hath privilege to live.

And for these great affairs do ask some charge,
Towards our assistance, we do seize to us
The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables,
Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.
YORK. How long shall I be patient? Ah, how
long

Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?
Not Gloster's death, nor Hereford's banishment,

8 What says he Now?] I have supplied the adverb-now, (which is wanting in the old copy,) to complete the measure. STEEVENS.

Of these short addresses in prose, in the midst of a metrical dialogue, we have numberless instances in Shakspeare, particularly in this very play. MALONE.

9our pilgrimage must be:] That is, our pilgrimage is yet to come.' M. MASON.

I

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

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that Irish Judas,

"Bred in a country where no venom prospers,

"But in his blood."

Again, in Fuimus Troes, 1633 :

"As Irish earth doth poison poisonous beasts."

See also, Thomas Lupton's Fourth Book of Notable Things, 4to. bl. 1. STEEVENS.

Not Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,
Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke
About his marriage 2, nor my own disgrace,
Have ever made me sour my patient cheek,
Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.-
I am the last of noble Edward's sons,

Of whom thy father, prince of Wales, was first ;
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 hast, for even so look'd he,
Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours 3;
But, when he frown'd, it was against the French,
And not against his friends: his noble hand
Did win what he did spend, 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.
O, 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 please; if not, I pleas'd
Not to be pardon'd, am content withal.
Seek you to seize, and gripe into your hands,
The royalties and rights of banished Hereford ?
Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not Hereford live?
Was not Gaunt just? and is not Harry true?
Did not the one deserve to have an heir?
Is not his heir a well-deserving son?

2 Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke

About his marriage,] When the duke of Hereford, after his banishment, went into 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.

3 Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours ;] i. e. when he was of thy age. MALONE.