That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a fhameful conquest of itself:
O, would the scandal vanifh with my life,
How happy then were my enfuing death!

Enter King RICHARD, and Queen ;3 AUMERLE,4 BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT, Ross,5 and WILLOUGHBY."

YORK. The king is come: deal mildly with his

youth;

For young hot colts, being rag'd, do rage the more." QUEEN. How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster ? K. RICH. What comfort, man? How is't with aged Gaunt?

GAUNT. O, how that name befits my compofition! Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old : Within me grief hath kept a tedious faft;

And it afterwards appears that the person who farmed the realm was the Earl of Wiltshire, one of his own favourites.

3

M. MASON.

Queen ;] Shakspeare, as Mr. Walpole fuggefts to me, has deviated from hiftorical truth in the introduction of Richard's queen as a woman in the present piece; for Anne, his first wife, was dead before the play commences, and Ifabella, his fecond wife, was a child at the time of his death. MALONE.

4 Aumerle,] was Edward, eldest fon of Edmund Duke of York, whom he fucceeded in the title. He was killed at Agincourt. WALPOLE.

S Rofs,] was William Lord Roos, (and fo fhould be printed,) of Hamlake, afterwards Lord Treafurer to Henry IV. WALPOLE.

6 Willoughby.] was William Lord Willoughby of Erefby, who afterwards married Joan, widow of Edmund Duke of York. WALPOLE.

1 For young hot colts, being rag'd, do rage the more.] Read: being rein'd, do rage the more. RITSON.

And who abftains from meat, that is not gaunt?
For fleeping England long time have I watch'd;
Watching breeds leannefs, leannefs is all gaunt:
The pleasure, that fome fathers feed upon,.

Is my strict fast, I mean-my children's looks;
And, therein fafting, haft thou made me gaunt:
Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,
Whofe hollow womb inherits nought but bones.

K. RICH. Can fick men play so nicely with their

names?

GAUNT. No, mifery makes sport to mock itself: Since thou doft feek to kill my name in me, I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.

K. RICH. Should dying men flatter with thofe that live?

GAUNT. No, no; men living flatter thofe that die.

K. RICH. Thou, now a dying, fay'ft-thou flatter'ft me.

GAUNT. Oh! no; thou dieft, though I the ficker

be.

K. RICH. I am in health, I breathe, and see thee

ill.

GAUNT. Now, He that made me, knows I fee

thee ill;

Ill in myself to fee, and in thee feeing ill.8
Thy death-bed is no leffer than the land,
Wherein thou lieft in reputation fick :
And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
Commit'ft thy anointed body to the cure

Ill in myself to fee, and in thee feeing ill.] I cannot help fuppofing that the idle words-to fee, which deftroy the measure, fhould be omitted. STEEVENS.

Of those physicians that first wounded thee:
A thousand flatterers fit within thy crown,
Whofe compass is no bigger than thy head;
And yet, incaged in fo finall a verge,
The wafte is no whit leffer than thy land.
O, had thy grandfire, with a prophet's eye,
Seen how his fon's fon fhould deftroy his fons,
From forth thy reach he would have laid thy fhame;
Depofing thee before thou wert poffefs'd,
Which art poffefs'd now to depofe thyfelf."
Why, coufin, wert thou regent of the world,
It were a fhame, to let this land by leafe :
But, for thy world, enjoying but this land,
Is it not more than fhame, to fhame it fo?
Landlord of England art thou now, not king:
Thy state of law is bondslave to the law;1

• Which art poffefs'd now to depofe thyfelf.] Poffefs'd, in this fecond inftance, was, I believe, defigned to mean-afflicted with madness occafioned by the internal operation of a dæmon. So, in The Comedy of Errors: Both man and mafter is poffefs'd." STEEVENS.

Σ

Thy ftate of law is bondЛlave to the law;] State of law, i. e. legal fovereignty. But the Oxford editor alters it to ftate o'er law, i. e. abfolute fovereignty. A doctrine, which, if ever our poet learnt at all, he learnt not in the reign when this play was written, Queen Elizabeth's, but in the reign after it, King James's. By bondflave to the law, the poet means his being inflaved to his favourite fubjects. WARBURTON.

This fentiment, whatever it be, is obfcurely expreffed. I understand it differently from the learned commentator, being perhaps not quite fo zealous for Shakspeare's political reputation. The reafoning of Gaunt, I think, is this: By fetting the royalties to farm thou haft reduced thyself to a state below fovereignty, thou art now no longer king but landlord of England, fubject to the fame restraint and limitations as other landlords: by making thy condition a ftate of law, a condition upon which the common rules of law can operate, thou art become a bondflave to the law; thou haft made thyfelf amenable to laws from which thou wert originally exempt.

And thou

K. RICH.

a lunatick lean-witted fool,3

Prefuming on an ague's privilege,

Dar'ft with thy frozen admonition

Make pale our cheek; chafing the royal blood,
With fury, from his native refidence.

Whether this explanation be true or no, it is plain that Dr. Warburton's explanation of bondflave to the law, is not true. JOHNSON.

Warburton's explanation of this paffage is too abfurd to require confutation; and his political obfervation is equally ill-founded. The doctrine of abfolute fovereignty might as well have been learned in the reign of Elizabeth, as in that of her fucceffor. She was, in fact, as abfolute as he wished to be.

Johnfon's explanation is in general juft; but I think that the words, of law, muft mean, by law, or according to law, as we fay, of course, and of right, inftead of by right, or by courfe. -Gaunt's reafoning is this" Having let your kingdom by lease, you are no longer the king of England, but the landlord only; and your state is by law, fubject to the law." M. MASON.

Mr. Heath explains the words state of law fomewhat differently: "Thy royal eftate, which is established by the law, is now in virtue of thy having leafed it out, fubjected," &c. MALONE. 3 Gaunt. And thou

K. Rich.a lunatick lean-witted fool,] In the difpofition of thefe lines I have 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 fay. Richard interrupts him, and takes the word thou in a different fenfe, applying it to Gaunt, instead of himself. Of this kind of retort there are various inftances in these plays. The folio repeats the word And:

Gaunt, And

K. Rich. And thou, &c. MALONE.

lean-witted-] Dr. Farmer obferves to me that the

fame expreffion occurs in the 106th Pfalm:

Now by my feat's right royal majefty,

Wert thou not brother to great Edward's fon,
This tongue that runs fo roundly in thy head,
Should run thy head from thy unreverend fhoulders.

· GAUNT. O, fpare me not, my brother Edward's fon,

For that I was his father Edward's fon;
That blood already, like the pelican,

Haft thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd:
My brother Glofter, plain well-meaning foul,
(Whom fair befal in heaven 'mongft happy fouls!)
May be a precedent and witnefs good,

That thou refpect'ft not fpilling 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 ftand thefe lines in all the copies, but I think there is an error. Why fhould Gaunt, already old, call on any thing like age to end him? How can age be faid to crop at once? How is the idea of crookednefs connected with that of cropping? I fuppofe the poet dictated thus:

And thy unkindness be time's crooked edge

To crop at once

That is, let thy unkindness be time's fcythe to crop.

Edge was eafily confounded by the ear with age, and one miftake once admitted made way for another. JOHNSON.

Shakspeare, I believe, took this idea from the figure of Time, who was reprefented as carrying a fickle as well as a fcythe. A fickle was anciently called a crook, and fometimes, as in the following inftances, 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, fafter than time waftes life,
"So thou prevent'ft his fcythe and crooked knife."