Enter a Gardener and two Servants. But stay, here come the gardeners : Let's step into the shadow of these trees.— My wretchedness unto a row of pins, They'll talk of state: for every one doth so Against a change: woe is forerun with woe. [QUEEN and Ladies retire. Gard. Go, bind thou up yon' dangling apri

cocks,

Which, like unruly children, make their sire
Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight:
Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
Go thou, and, like an executioner,

Cut off the heads of too-fast-growing sprays,
That look too lofty in our commonwealth :
All must be even in our government.
You thus employ'd, I will go root away
The noisome weeds, that without profit suck
The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.

I Serv. Why should we, in the compass of a pale,

Keep law, and form, and due proportion,
Showing, as in a model, our firm estate,
When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,
Is full of weeds; her fairest flowers choked

up,

Her fruit-trees all unpruned, her hedges ruin'd, Her knots disorder'd, and her wholesome herbs Swarming with caterpillars?

Hold thy peace :—

Gard. He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf: The weeds, that his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,

That seem'd in eating him to hold him up,

Are pluck'd up, root and all, by Bolingbroke ; I mean the earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.

I Serv. What, are they dead?

Gard. They are; And Bolingbroke hath seized the wasteful king.— Oh! what pity is it,

That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land,
As we this garden! We at time of year

Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees;
Lest, being over-proud with sap and blood,
With too much riches it confound itself:
Had he done so to great and growing men,
They might have lived to bear, and he to taste,
Their fruits of duty. Superfluous branches
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live :
Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,
Which waste and idle hours hath quite thrown
down.

I Serv. What, think you then, the king shall be deposed?

Gard. Depress'd he is already; and deposed, 'Tis doubt, he will be; letters came last night To a dear friend of the good duke of York's, That tell black tidings.

Queen. O, I am press'd to death through want of speaking!

[Coming forward.] Thou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden,

How dares thy harsh-rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?

What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested thee To make a second fall of cursèd man?

Why dost thou say king Richard is deposed? Dar'st thou, thou little better thing than earth, Divine his downfall? Say where, when, and

how

Cam'st thou by these ill-tidings? speak, thou wretch.

Gard. Pardon me, madam: little joy have I To breathe these news: yet what I say is true. King Richard, he is in the mighty hold

Of Bolingbroke; their fortunes both are weigh'd:
In your lord's scale is nothing but himself,
And some few vanities that make him light;
But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,
Besides himself, are all the English peers,
And with that odds he weighs king Richard down.
Post you to London, and you'll find it so :
I speak no more than every one doth know.
Queen. Nimble mischance, that art so light of
foot,

Doth not thy embassage belong to me,
And am I last that knows it? O, thou think'st
To serve me last, that I may longest keep
Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go,
To meet at London London's king in woe.
What, was I born to this! that my sad look
Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?
Gardener, for telling me this news of woe,
I would the plants thou graft'st may never grow.
[Exeunt QUEEN and Ladies.
Gard. Poor queen! so that thy state might be

no worse,

I would my skill were subject to thy curse.-
Here did she fall a tear; here, in this place,
I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace :
Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,
In the remembrance of a weeping queen.

[Exeunt.

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ACT IV.

SCENE I.-London. Westminster Hall. The Lords spiritual on the right side of the throne ; the Lords temporal on the left; the Commons below.

Enter BOLINGbroke,_AumerLE, SURREY, NORTHUMBERLAND, PERCY, FITZWATER, another Lord, BISHOP OF CARLISLE, ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER, and Attendants. Officers behind with BAGOT.

Bolingbroke.

ALL forth Bagot.

Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind;
What thou dost know of noble Gloster's

death;

Who wrought it with the king, and who perform'd The bloody office of his timeless end.

Bagot. Then set before my face the lord Aumerle.

Boling. Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.

Bagot. My lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue

Scorns to unsay what once it hath deliver'd.
In that dead time when Gloster's death was
plotted,

I heard you say,-Is not my arm of length,
That reacheth from the restful English court
As far as Calais, to my uncle's head?-
Amongst much other talk, that very time,
I heard you say, that you had rather refuse
The offer of an hundred thousand crowns,
Than Bolingbroke's return to England;

Adding withal, how bless'd this land would be In this your cousin's death.

Aum. Princes, and noble lords, What answer shall I make to this base man? Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars, On equal terms to give him chastisement? Either I must, or have mine honour soil'd With the attainder of his slanderous lips.There is my gage, the manual seal of death, That marks thee out for hell: I say, thou liest, And will maintain what thou hast said is false, In thy heart-blood, though being all too base To stain the temper of my knightly sword.

Boling. Bagot, forbear, thou shalt not take it

up.

Aum. Excepting one, I would he were the best
In all this presence, that hath moved me so.
Fitz. If that thy valour stand on sympathies,
There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine:
By that fair sun that shows me where thou
stand'st,

I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it,
That thou wert cause of noble Gloster's death.
If thou deny'st it twenty times, thou liest ;
And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,
Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.
Aum. Thou dar'st not, coward, live to see
the day.

Fitz. Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.

Aum. Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this.

Percy. Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true,

In this appeal, as thou art all unjust :

And, that thou art so, there I throw my gage,