"T is well done.

Hast. We have sent forth already. Arch. My friends, and brethren in these great affairs, I must acquaint you that I have receiv'd New-dated letters from Northumberland; Their cold intent, tenour and substance, thus:Here doth he wish his person, with such powers As might hold sortance with his quality; The which he could not levy; whereupon He is retir'd, to ripe his growing fortunes, To Scotland: and concludes in hearty prayers, That your attempts may overlive the hazard And fearful meeting of their opposite.

Mowb. Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground,

And dash themselves to pieces.

Hast.

Enter a Messenger.

Now, what news?

Mess. West of this forest, scarcely off a mile, In goodly form comes on the enemy:

And, by the ground they hide, I judge their

number

Upon, or near, the rate of thirty thousand. Mowb. The just proportion that we gave them

out.

peace;

What doth concern your coming?
West.
Then, my lord,
Unto your grace do I in chief address
The substance of my speech. If that rebellion
Came like itself, in base and abject routs,
Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rags,
And countenanc'd by boys and beggary;
I say, if damn'd commotion so appear'd,
In his true, native, and most proper shape,
You, reverend father, and these noble lords,
Had not been here, to dress the ugly form
Of base and bloody insurrection
With your fair honours. You, lord archbishop,—
Whose see is by a civil peace maintain'd;
Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath
touch'd;

Whose learning and good letters peace hath

tutor'd;

Whose white investments 2 figure innocence,
The dove and very blessed spirit of peace,-
Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself,
Out of the speech of peace, that bears such

grace,

b

Into the harsh and boist'rous tongue of war?
Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,
Your pens to lances, and your tongue divine
To a loud trumpet, and a point of war?

Arch. Wherefore do I this ?- -so the question stands.

Briefly to this end:-We are all diseas'd;
And, with our surfeiting, and wanton hours,
Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,
And we must bleed for it: of which disease
Our late king, Richard, being infected, died.
But, my most noble lord of Westmoreland,
I take not on me here as a physician;

Nor do I, as an enemy to peace,
Troop in the throngs of military men :
But, rather, shew a while like fearful war,
To diet rank minds, sick of happiness;
And purge the obstructions, which begin to stop
Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.
I have in equal balance justly weigh'd

What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,

And find our griefs heavier than our offences. We see which way the stream of time doth

And have the summary of all our griefs,
When time shall serve, to shew in articles;
Which, long ere this, we offer'd to the king,
And might by no suit gain our audience :
When we are wrong'd, and would unfold our
griefs,

We are denied access unto his person

Even by those men that most have done us

wrong.a

The dangers of the days but newly gone,
(Whose memory is written on the earth
With yet-appearing blood,) and the examples
Of every minute's instance, (present now,)
Have put us in these ill-beseeming arms:
Not to break peace, or any branch of it;
But to establish here a peace indeed,
Concurring both in name and quality.

West. When ever yet was your appeal denied?
Wherein have you been galled by the king?
What peer hath been suborn'd to grate on you?
That you should seal this lawless bloody book
Of forg'd rebellion with a seal divine,
[And consecrate commotion's bitter edge? b]
Arch. My brother, general! the common-
wealth!

[To brother born an household cruelty,] I make my quarrel in particular.

West. There is no need of any such redress; Or, if there were, it not belongs to you. Mowb. Why not to him, in part; and to us all, That feel the bruises of the days before; And suffer the condition of these times To lay a heavy and unequal hand Upon our honours?

West. O my good lord Mowbray, Construe the times to their necessities, And you shall say indeed, it is the time, And not the king, that doth you injuries. Yet, for your part, it not appears to me, Either from the king, or in the present time,

a The twenty-five lines here ending are not found in the quarto.

b This line is omitted in the folio.

c We have pointed this passage in a manner which, it appears to us, in some degree removes the obscurity. It is ordinarily read as follows:

"My brother general, the commonwealth,
To brother born an household cruelty,
I make my quarrel in particular."

The second line of the three is not found in the folio; and this gives us the key to our reading. The Archbishop is impa tient of Westmoreland's further question, and addressing him as general, exclaims, My brother! The Commonwealth! These are sufficient causes for our hostility. He then adds, "I make my quarrel in particular:" and the second line retained from the quarto explains why. In the first part of this play we are told of,

"The Archbishop-who bears hard

His brother's death at Bristol, the lord Scroop." The Cambridge Editors are of opinion that several lines have been omitted, and those which remain displaced.

That you should have an inch of any ground
To build a grief on: Were you not restor❜d
To all the duke of Norfolk's seigniories,
Your noble and right-well-remember'd father's?
Mob. What thing, in honour, had my father
lost,

That need to be reviv'd, and breath'd in me?
The king, that lov'd him, as the state stood then,
Was force perforce compell'd to banish him:
And then, that Harry Bolingbroke, and he,
Being mounted, and both roused in their seats,
Their neighing coursers daring of the spur,
Their armed staves in charge, their beavers
down,3

Their eyes of fire sparkling through sights of steel,

And the loud trumpet blowing them together; Then, then, when there was nothing could have staid

My father from the breast of Bolingbroke,
O, when the king did throw his warder down,
His own life hung upon the staff he threw :
Then threw he down himself; and all their lives,
That, by indictment, and by dint of sword,
Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke.
West. You speak, lord Mowbray, now you
know not what :

The earl of Hereford was reputed then
In England the most valiant gentleman;
Who knows on whom fortune would then have
smil'd?

But, if your father had been victor there,
He ne'er had borne it out of Coventry :
For all the country, in a general voice,

Cried hate upon him; and all their prayers, and love,

Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on, And bless'd and grac'd indeed, more than the king."

But this is mere digression from my purpose.— Here come I from our princely general,

To know your griefs; to tell you from his

grace,

That he will give you audience: and wherein
It shall appear that your demands are just,
You shall enjoy them; everything set off,
That might so much as think you enemies.
Mob. But he hath forc'd us to compel this
offer;

And it proceeds from policy, not love.

West. Mowbray, you overween, to take it so; This offer comes from mercy, not from fear: For, lo! within a ken, our army lies:

The thirty-seven lines here ending were first printed in the folio.

Upon mine honour, all too confident
To give admittance to a thought of fear.
Our battle is more full of names than yours,
Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
Our armour all as strong, our cause the best;
Then reason wills our hearts should be as
good:-

Say you not then, our offer is compell'd.

Mowb. Well, by my will, we shall admit no parley.

West. That argues but the shame of your offence:

A rotten case abides no handling.

Hast. Hath the prince John a full commission, In very ample virtue of his father,

To hear, and absolutely to determine
Of what conditions we shall stand upon?
West. That is intended in the general's name :
I muse you make so slight a question.

Arch. Then take, my lord of Westmoreland,
this schedule;

For this contains our general grievances :
Each several article herein redress'd;

All members of our cause, both here and hence,
That are insincw'd to this action,
Acquitted by a true substantial form;
And present execution of our wills
To us, and to our purposes, consign'd:a
We come within our awful banks again,
And knit our powers to the arm of peace.
West. This will I shew the general. Please
you, lords,

In sight of both our battles we may meet:
And either end in peace, which heaven so frame,
Or to the place of difference call the swords
Which must decide it.
Arch,

My lord, we will do so. [Exit WEST. Mowb. There is a thing within my bosom tells me,

That no conditions of our peace can stand. Hast. Fear you not that: if we can make our peace

Upon such large terms, and so absolute,

a Consign'd. The folio either reads consin'd or confin'd the si and the fi being so much alike in the old typography, that it is difficult to distinguish them. There can be no doubt we think that consign'd is the true reading, having the sense of ratified, confirmed.

b Awful. It has been supposed by some that awful is here used in the place of lawful. In the Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act IV. Scene I., we refer to this passage under the impression that by "awful banks" was meant, legitimate bounds, orderly limits. It may be reasonably conjectured, however, that, in the passage before us, the word awful is used in the sense of reverential;-that those who are in arms against the king, having their grievances redressed, will come again within their bounds of awe towards him; the word awful is not used actively, as producing awe, but passively, capable of awe.

As our conditions shall consist upon,
Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.
Mowb. Ay, but our valuation shall be such,
That every slight and false-derived cause,
Yea, every idle, nice, and wanton reason,
Shall, to the king, taste of this action:
That were our royal faiths martyrs in love,
We shall be winnow'd with so rough a wind,
That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff,
And good from bad find no partition.

Arch. No, no, my lord; Note this,—the king is weary

Of dainty and such picking grievances:
For he hath found, to end one doubt by death,
Revives two greater in the heirs of life.
And therefore will he wipe his tables clean;
And keep no tell-tale to his memory,
That may repeat and history his loss

To new remembrance: For full well he knows,
He cannot so precisely weed this land
As his misdoubts present occasion:
His foes are so enrooted with his friends,
That, plucking to unfix an enemy,
He doth unfasten so and shake a friend.
So that this land, like an offensive wife,
That hath enrag'd him on to offer strokes,
As he is striking, holds his infant
And hangs resolv'd correction in the arm
That was uprear'd to execution.

up,

Hast. Besides the king hath wasted all his rods

On late offenders, that he now doth lack
The very instruments of chastisement :
So that his power, like to a fangless lion,
May offer, but not hold.

'Tis very true:

Arch. And therefore be assur'd, my good lord marshal, If we do now make our atonement well, Our peace will, like a broken limb united, Grow stronger for the breaking.

Mowb.

Be it so. Here is return'd my lord of Westmoreland. Re-enter WESTMORELAND.

West. The prince is here at hand: Pleaseth your lordship

To meet his grace just distance 'tween our armies ?

Mowb. Your grace of York, in Heaven's name then forward.

Arch. Before, and greet his grace :-
:-my

we come.

lord, [Exeunt.

Royal. Dr. Johnson would read loyal. But royal faith is here put for the faith due to a king. So in Henry VIII.; "The citizens have shewn at full their royal minds "

SCENE II.-Another Part of the Forest.

Enter, from one side, MOWBRAY, the ARCHBISHOP, HASTINGS, and others: from the other side, PRINCE JOHN of Lancaster, WESTMORELAND, Officers, and Attendants.

P. John. You are well encounter'd here, my cousin Mowbray :

Good day to you, gentle lord archbishop :
And so to you, lord Hastings, and to all.
My lord of York, it better shew'd with you,
When that your flock, assembled by the bell,
Encircled you, to hear with reverence
Your exposition on the holy text,
Than now to see you here an iron man,
Cheering a rout of rebels with your drum,
Turning the word to sword, and life to death.
That man, that sits within a monarch's heart,
And ripens in the sunshine of his favour,
Would he abuse the countenance of the king,
Alack, what mischiefs might he set abroach,
In shadow of such greatness! With you, lord

bishop,

It is even so :-Who hath not heard it spoken,
How deep you were within the books of God?
To us, the speaker in his parliament;

To us the imagin'd voice of Heaven itself;
The very opener and intelligencer,

Between the grace, the sanctities of heaven,
And our dull workings: O, who shall believe,
But you misuse the reverence of your place;
Employ the countenance and grace of heaven,
As a false favourite doth his prince's name,
In deeds dishonourable? You have taken up,
Under the counterfeited zeal of God,
The subjects of his substitute, my
And, both against the peace of heaven and

him,

Have here up-swarm'd them.

Arch.

father;

Good my lord of Lancaster, 1 am not here against your father's peace: But, as I told my lord of Westmoreland, The time misorder'd doth, in common sense, Crowd us, and crush us, to this monstrous

P. John. You are too shallow, Hastings, much too shallow,

To sound the bottom of the after-times.

West. Pleaseth your grace, to answer them directly,

How far-forth you do like their articles?

P. John. I like them all, and do allow them well:

And swear here by the honour of my blood,
My father's purposes have been mistook;
And some about him have too lavishly
Wrested his meaning and authority.

My lord, these griefs shall be with speed redress'd;

Upon my life, they shall. If this may please you,

Discharge your powers unto their several counties,

As we will ours: and here, between the armies,
Let's drink together friendly, and embrace;
That all their eyes may bear those tokens home,
Of our restored love and amity.

Arch. I take your princely word for these redresses.

P. John. I give it you, and will maintain my word:

And thereupon I drink unto your grace. Hast. Go, captain, [to an Officer.] and deliver to the army

This news of peace; let them have pay, and part:

I know it will well please them; Hie thee, captain. [Exit Officer. Arch. To you, my noble lord of Westmore

up,

Each hurries towards his home, and sportingplace.

West. Good tidings, my lord Hastings; for

the which

I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason :
And

you, lord archbishop,-and you, lord Mow.
bray,

Of capital treason I attach both.

you

Mowb. Is this proceeding just and honourable?
West. Is your assembly so?

Arch. Will you thus break your faith ?
I pawn'd thee none:

P. John.

I promis'd you redress of these same grievances,

271