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KING HENRY IV.

PART I.*

L. V.

R

The next news is,-I have to London sent

The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent: The manner of their taking may appear

At large discoursed in this paper here.

[Presenting a paper. Boling. We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy

pains;

And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.

Enter FITZWATER.

Fitz. My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London The heads of Brocas, and sir Bennet Seely; Two of the dangerous consorted traitors, That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.

Boling. Thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot; Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.

Enter PERCY, with the Bishop of Carlisle. Percy. The grand conspirator, abbot of Westminster,

With clog of conscience, and sour melancholy,
Hath yielded up his body to the
grave;
But here is Carlisle living, to abide

Thy kingly doom, and sentence of his pride.
Boling. Carlisle, this is your doom :-

Choose out some secret place, some reverend room,
More than thou hast, and with it joy thy life;
So, as thou liv'st in peace, die free from strife:
For though mine enemy thou hast ever been,
High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.

Enter EXTON, with Attendants bearing a Coffin.
Exton. Great king, within this coffin I present
Thy buried fear: herein all breathless lies
The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,
Richard of Bourdeaux, by me hither brought.

Boling. Exton, I thank thee not; for thou hast

wrought

A deed of slander, with thy fatal hand,
Upon my head, and all this famous land.

Exton. From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.

Boling. They love not poison that do poison need,
Nor do I thee; though I did wish him dead,
I hate the murderer, love him murdered.

The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,
But neither my good word, nor princely favour:
With Cain go wander through the shade of night,
And never show thy head by day nor light.-
Lords, I protest, my soul is full of woe,

That blood should sprinkle me, to make me grow:
Come, mourn with me for what I do lament,
And put on sullen black incontinent;
I'll make a voyage to the Holy land,

To wash this blood off from my guilty hand:-
March sadly after; grace my mournings here,
In weeping after this untimely bier. [Exeunt.

This play is extracted from the Chronicle of Holinshed, in which many passages may be found which Shakspeare has, with very little alteration, transplanted into his scenes; particularly a speech of the Bishop of Carlisle, in defence of King Richard's unalienable right, and immunity from human jurisdiction.

Jonson, who, in his Catiline and Sejanus, has inserted many speeches from the Roman historians, was perhaps induced to that practice by the example of Shakspeare, who had condescended sometimes to copy more ignoble writers. But Shakspeare had more of his own than Jonson; and, if he sometimes was willing to spare his labour, showed by what he performed at other times, that his extracts were made by choice or idleness rather than necessity.

This play is one of those which Shakspeare has apparently revised; but as success in works of invention is not always proportionate to labour, it is not finished at last with the happy force of some other of his tragedies, nor can be said much to affect the passions, or enlarge the understanding. JOHNSON.

The notion that Shakspeare revised this play, though it has long prevailed, appears to me extremely doubtful; or, to speak more plainly, I do not believe it. MALONE.

ARCA