To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,
Which fondly you would here impose on me ;
If to reprove you for this suit of yours,

So season'd with your faithful love to me,
Then, on the other side, I check'd my friends.
Therefore, to speak, and to avoid the first;
And then, in speaking, not to incur the last,-
Definitively thus I answer you.

Your love deserves my thanks; but my desert
Unmeritable, shuns your high request.
First, if all obstacles were cut away,
And that my path were even to the crown,
As the ripe revenue and due of birth;
Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,

So mighty, and so many, my defects,

That I would rather hide me from my greatness,--
Being a bark to brook no mighty sea,-
Than in my greatness covet to be hid,
And in the vapour of my glory smother'd.
But, God be thank'd, there is no need of me,
(And much I need to help you, if need were ;)
The royal tree hath left us royal fruit,
Which, mellow'd by the stealing hours of time;
Will well become the seat of majesty,
And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign..
On him I lay what you would lay on me,
The right and fortune of his happy stars,-

Which, God defend, that I should wring from him!

Buck. My lord, this argues conscience in your grace ; But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,

All circumstances well considered.

You say, that Edward is your brother's son ;
So say we too, but not by Edward's wife :
For first he was contract to lady Lucy,
Your mother lives a witness to his vow;
And afterwards by substitute betroth'd
To Bona, sister to the king of France.
These both put by, a poor petitioner,
A-care-craz'd mother to a many sons,
A beauty-waning and distressed widow,
Even in the afternoon of her best days,
Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,

[9] And I want much of the ability requisite to give you help, if help were needed

JOHNSON

Seduc'd the pitch and height of all his thoughts
To base declension and loath'd bigamy :

By her, in his unlawful bed, he got

This Edward, whom our manners call-the prince.
More bitterly could I expostulate,

Save that, for reverence to some alive,

I give a sparing limit to my tongue.
Then, good my lord, take to your royal self
This proffer'd benefit of dignity:

If not to bless us and the land withal,
Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry
From the corruption of abusing time,
Unto a lineal true-derived course.

May. Do, good my lord; your citizens entreat you. Buck. Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffer'd love. Cate. O, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit. Glo. Alas, why would you heap those cares on me? I am unfit for state and majesty:

I do beseech you, take it not amiss;

I cannot, nor I will not, yield to you.

Buck. If you refuse it,—as in love and zeal,
Loath to depose the child, your brother's son ;
As well we know your tenderness of heart,
And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,
Which we have noted in you to your kindred,
And equally, indeed, to all estates,-

Yet know, whe'r you accept our suit or no,
Your brother's son shall never reign our king;
But we will plant some other in your throne,
To the disgrace and downfall of your house.
And, in this resolution, here we leave you;
-Come, citizens, we will entreat no more.

[Exeunt BUCK. and Citizens Cate. Call them again, sweet prince, accept their suit If you deny them, all the land will rue it.

Glo. Will you enforce me to a world of cares?
Well, call them again; I am not made of stone,
But penetrable to your kind entreaties,
Albeit against my conscience and my soul.

[Exit CATE.

Re-enter BUCKINGHAM, and the rest.
-Cousin of Buckingham,—and sage, grave mén,
Since you will buckle fortune on my back,
To bear her burden, whe'r I will, or no,
I must have patience to endure the load :

But if black scandal, or foul-fac'd reproach,
Attend the sequel of your imposition,
Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me
From all the impure blots and stains thereof;
For God he knows, and you may partly see,
How far I am from the desire of this.

May. God bless your grace! we see it, and will say it. Glo. In saying so, you shall but say the truth. Buck. Then I salute you with this royal title,Long live king Richard, England's worthy king! All. Amen.

Buck. To-morrow may it please you to be crown'd? Glo. Even when you please, since you will have it so. Buck. To-morrow then we will attend your grace; And so, most joyfully, we take our leave.

Glo. [To the Bishops] Come, let us to our holy work

again :

Farewell, good cousin ;-farewell, gentle friends.

ACT IV.

[Exeunt,

SCENE I-Before the Tower. Enter, on one side, Queen ELIZABETH, Duchess of YORK, and Marquis of DORSET; on the other, ANNE, Duchess of GLOSTER, leading Lady MARGARET PLANTAGENET, CLARENCE's young Daughter.

Duchess.

WHO meets us here ?-my niece Plantagenet
Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloster?
Now, for my life, she's wand'ring to the Tower,
On pure heart's love, to greet the tender prince.-
Daughter, well met.

Anne. God give your graces both

A happy and a joyful time of day!

Q. Eliz. As much to you, good sister! Whither away Anne. No further than the Tower; and, as I guess,

Upon the like devotion as yourselves,

To gratulate the gentle princes there.

Q. Eliz. Kind sister, thanks; we'll enter all together :
Enter BRAKENBURY.

And, in good time, here the lieutenant comes.-
Master lieutenant, pray you, by your leave,
How doth the prince, and my young son of York?
Brak. Right well, dear madam: By your patience,

?

I may not suffer you to visit them;

The king hath strictly charg'd the contrary.
Q. Eliz. The king! who's that?

Brak. I mean, the lord protector.

Q. Eliz. The Lord protect him from that kingly title! Hath he set bounds between their love, and me? I am their mother, who shall bar me from them? Duch. I am their father's mother, I will see them. Anne. Their aunt I am in law, in love their mother: Then bring me to their sights; I'll bear thy blame, And take thy office from thee, on thy peril.

Brak. No, madam, no, I may not leave it so ;1 I am bound by oath, and therefore pardon me.

Enter STANLEY

[Exit

Stan. Let me but meet you, ladies, one hour hence, And I'll salute your grace of York as mother, And reverend looker-on of two fair queens.Come, madam, you must straight to Westminster,

[To the Duchess of GLOSTER.

There to be crowned Richard's royal queen.

Q. Eliz. Ah, cut my lace asunder!

That my pent heart may have some scope to beat,
Or else I swoon with this dead-killing news.

Anne. Despiteful tidings! O unpleasing news!
Dor. Be of good cheer.-Mother, how fares your grace?
Q. Eliz. O Dorset, speak not to me, get thee gone,
Death and destruction dog thee at the heels;
Thy mother's name is ominous to children :
If thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,
And live with Richmond, from the reach of hell.'
Go, hie thee, hie thee, from this slaughter-house,
Lest thou increase the number of the dead;
And make me die the thrall of Margaret's curse,-
Nor mother, wife, nor England's counted queen.
Stan. Full of wise care is this your counsel, madam :
-Take all the swift advantage of the hours;
You shall have letters from me to my son
In your behalf, to meet you on the way:
Be not ta'en tardy by unwise delay.

Duch. O ill-dispersing wind of misery!

D my accursed womb, the bed of death;

[1] That is, I may not so resign my office, which you offer to take on you at your

peril.

JOHNSON.

A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world,
Whose unavoided eye is murderous !2

Stan. Come, madam, come; I in all haste was sent.
Anne. And I with all unwillingness will go.-
O, would to God, that the inclusive verge
Of golden metal, that must round my brow,
Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brain !3
Anointed let me be with deadly venom;

And die, ere men can say-God save the queen!
Q. Eliz. Go, go, poor soul, I envy not thy glory;
To feed my humour, wish thyself no harm.

Anne. No! why ?-When he, that is my husband now, Came to me, as I follow'd Henry's corse;

When scarce the blood was well wash'd from his hands,
Which issu'd from my other angel husband,

And that dead saint which then I weeping follow'd ;
O, when, I say, I look'd on Richard's face,
This was my wish,-Be thou, quoth I, accurs'd,
For making me, so young, so old a widow !

And, when thou wedd'st, let sorrow haunt thy bed;
And be thy wife (if any be so mad)
More miserable by the life of thee,

-Than thou hast made me by my dear lord's death!
Lo, ere I can repeat this curse again,

Even in so short a space, my woman's heart
Grossly grew captive to his honey words,

And prov'd the subject of mine own soul's curse :
Which ever since hath held mine eyes from rest;
For never yet one hour in his bed

Did I enjoy the golden dew of sleep,

But with his timorous dreams was still awak'd."
Besides, he hates me for my father Warwick;
And will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me.

[2] The cockatrice is a serpent supposed to originate from a cock's egg. STEEV. [3] She seems to allude to the ancient mode of punishing a regicide, or any other egregious criminal, viz. by placing a crown of iron, heated red-hot, upon his head. In some of the monkish accounts of a place of future torment, a burning crown is likewise appropriated to those who deprived any lawful monarch of his kingdom.STEEVENS.John, the son of Vaivode Stephen, having defeated the army of Hungarian peasants, called Croisadoes, in 1514, caused their general, "called George, to be stript naked, upon whose head the executioner set a crown of hot burning iron." This is the fact to which Goldsmith alludes;

"Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel."

Though it was George, and not his brother Luke, who was so punished: but George's would not suit the poet's metre. The Earl of Athol, who was executed on account of the murder of James I. King of Scots, was previous to his death, "crowned with a hot iron." See Holinshed. RITSON.

[5] Tis recorded by Polydore Virgil, that Richard was frequently disturbed by JOHNSON. terrible dreams: this is therefore no fiction.