Even like a man new haled from the rack,
So fare my limbs with long imprisonment :
And these gray locks, the pursuivants of death,'
Nestor-like aged, in an age of care,
Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer.

And death approach not ere my tale be donc.
Henry the Fourth, grandfather to this king,
Depos'd his nephew Richard; Edward's son,
The first-begotten, and the lawful heir
Of Edward king, the third of that descent:

spent,

Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent :2

Weak shoulders, overborne with burd'ning grief,
And pithless' arms, like to a wither'd vine
That droops his sapless branches to the ground:-
Yet are these feet-whose strengthless stay is numb,
Unable to support this lump of clay,-
Swift-winged with desire to get a grave,
As witting I no other comfort have.-
But tell me, keeper, will my nephew come?

1 Keep. Richard Plantagenet, my lord, will come: We sent unto the Temple, to his chamber; And answer was return'd that he will come.

Mor. Enough; my soul shall then be satisfied. Poor gentleman! his wrong doth equal mine. Since Henry Monmouth first began to reign (Before whose glory I was great in arms,) This loathsome sequestration have I had; And even since then hath Richard been obscur'd, Deprived of honour and inheritance: But now, the arbitrator of despairs, Just death, kind umpire of men's miseries, With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence; I would, his troubles likewise were expir'd, That so he might recover what was lost.

Enter RICHARD PLANTAGENET.

1 Keep. My lord, your loving nephew now is

stock,

Why didst thou say-of late thou wert despis'd? Plan. First, lean thine aged back against mine arm;

And, in that ease, I'll tell thee my disease.

This day, in argument upon a case,
Some words there grew 'twixt Somerset and me:
Among which terms he used his lavish tongue,
And did upbraid me with my father's death;
Which obloquy set bars before my tongue,
Else with the like I had requited him:
Therefore, good uncle,-for my father's sake,
In honour of a true Plantagenet,
And for alliance' sake,-declare the cause
My father, earl of Cambridge, lost his head.
Mor. That cause, fair nephew, that imprison'd me,
And hath detain'd 'me, all my flow'ring youth,
Within a loathsome dungeon, there to pine,
Was cursed instrument of his decease.
Plan, Discover more at large what cause that was;
For I am ignorant, and cannot guess.

Mor. I will; if that my fading breath permit, Edmund Mortimer, who was trusted and employed by Henry V. throughout his reign, died of the plague in his own castle at Trim, in Ireland, in 1424-5; being then only thirty-two years old.

I The heralds that, fore-running death, proclaim its approach.

2 Erigent is here used for end.

3 Pith is used figuratively for strength.

4 That is, he who terminates or concludes misery. 5 Lately despised.

6 Disease for uneasiness, trouble, or grief. It is used in this sense by other ancient writers.

7 Nephew has sometimes the power of the Latin nepos, signifying grandchild, and is used with great laxity among our ancient English writers. It is here used in stead of cousin.

Finding his usurpation most unjust,
Endeavour'd my advancement to the throne:
The reason mov'd these warlike lords to this,
Was-for that (young King Richard thus remov'd,
Leaving no heir begotten of his body)
I was the next by birth and parentage;
For by my mother I derived am

From Lionel duke of Clarence, the third son
To King Edward the Third, whereas he,
From John of Gaunt doth bring his pedigree,
Being but fourth of that heroic line.
But mark; as, in this haughty great attempt,
They laboured to plant the rightful heir,
I lost my liberty, and they their lives.
Long after this, when Henry the Fifth,-
Succeeding his father Bolingbroke,--did reign,
Thy father, earl of Cambridge,-then deriv'd
From famous Edmund Langley, duke of York,-
Marrying my sister, that thy mother was,
Again, in pity of my hard distress,
Levied an army; weening to redeem,
And have install'd me in the diadem:
But, as the rest, so fell that noble earl,
And was beheaded. Thus the Mortimers,
In whom the title rested, were suppress'd.

Plan. Of which, my lord, your honour is the last. Mor. True; and thou seest, that I no issue have; And that my fainting words do warrant death: Thou art my heir; the rest, I wish thee gather :10 But yet be wary in thy studious care.

Plan. Thy grave admonishments prevail with me:
But yet, methinks, my father's execution
Was nothing less than bloody tyranny.

Mor. With silence, nephew, be thou politic;
Strong-fixed is the house of Lancaster,
And, like a mountain, not to be remov'd."1
But now thy uncle is removing hence;

As princes do their courts, when they are cloy'd
With long continuance in a settled place.

Plan. O, uncle, 'would, some part of my young

[Dies.

Plan. And peace, no war, befall thy parting soul! In prison hast thou spent a pilgrimage, And like a hermit overpass'd thy days.-Well, I will lock his counsel in my breast; And what I do imagine, let that rest.-Keepers, convey him hence; and I myself Will see his burial better than his life.-

[Exeunt Keepers, bearing out MORTIMER. Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer, Chok'd with ambition of the meaner sort :"

at Southampton, the night before Henry sailed from that town for France, on the information of this very earl of March.

10 i. e. I acknowledge thee to be my heir; the conse. quences which may be collected from thence I recom mend it thee to draw.

11 Thus Milton, Paradise Lost, book iv. ;'Like Teneriffe or Atlas unremov'd.'

12 The same thought occurs in the celebrated dialogue between Horace and Lydia. There is some resem. blance to it in the following lines, supposed to be addressed by a married lady, who died very young, to her husband. Malone thinks that the inscription is in the church of Trent :

'Immatura peri; sed tu diuturnior annos Vive meos, conjux optime, vive tuos.' 13 i. e. oppressed by those whose right to the crown was not so good as his own.