Bol. Strong as a tower in hope, I cry amen. Sur. [To an Officer.] Go bear this lance to Thomas, duke of Norfolk.

1 Her. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself, On pain to be found false and recreant,

To prove the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray.
A traitor to his God, his king, and him;
And dares him to set forward to the fight.

2 Her. Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk,

On pain to be found false and recreant,
Both to defend himself, and to approve
Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
To God, his sovereign, and to him, disloyal;
Courageously, and with a free desire,
Attending but the signal to begin.

batants.

Sur. Sound, trumpets; and set forward, com[A Charge sounded. Stay; the king hath thrown his warder down."

Rich. Let them lay by their helmets and their

spears,

And both return back to their chairs again. -
Withdraw with us; and let the trumpets sound,
While we return these dukes what we decree.

[A long flourish.

7 Thus in Holinshed: "The duke of Norfolke was not fullie set forward, when the king cast down his warder, and the heralds cried, Ho, ho." Likewise Daniel, relating the same thing in his Civil Wars:

"When, lo! the king chang'd suddenly his mind,
Casts down his warder, to arrest them there."

The warder was a kind of truncheon or staff used in presiding at such trials, and the combat was to go on or stop, according as the president threw this up or down.

H

[To the Combatants.] Draw near,

And list, what with our council we have done.
For that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd
With that dear blood which it hath fostered;
And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect
Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' swords;
And for we think the eagle-winged pride
Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,
With rival-hating envy, set on you

8

To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle
Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;
Which so rous'd up with boisterous untun'd drums,
With harsh-resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,
And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,
Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace,
And make us wade even in our kindred's blood;
Therefore, we banish you our territories : —
You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,"
Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields,
Shall not regreet our fair dominions,

But tread the stranger paths of banishment.

--

Bol. Your will be done. This must my comfort be, That sun that warms you here shall shine on me; And those his golden beams, to you here lent, Shall point on me, and gild my banishment.

Rich. Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom, Which I with some unwillingness pronounce: The sly slow hours 10 shall not determinate

8 This and the four noble lines following are not in the folio.

H.

9 That is, loss of life; as we should still say, -"Your life shall be the penalty." All the quartos have life both here and at the close of the king's next speech: the folio has death in the former, and life in the latter place.

H.

10 So in all the old copies. Pope very unwarrantably changed sly slow to fly-slow, yet in his Essay on Man he has the line,

The dateless limit of thy dear exile:
The hopeless word of - never to return

Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.

Nor. A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,
And all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth:
A dearer merit," not so deep a maim

As to be cast forth in the common air,
Have I deserved at your highness' hands.
The language I have learn'd these forty years,
My native English, now I must forego;
And now my tongue's use is to me no more
Than an unstringed viol or a harp;
Or like a cunning instrument, cas'd up,
Or, being open, put into his hands

That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
Within my mouth you have enjail'd my tongue,
Doubly porcullis'd, with my teeth, and lips;
And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance
Is made my jailer to attend on me.
I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,

Too far in years to be a pupil now;

What is thy sentence, then, but speechless death, Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?

Rich. It boots thee not to be compassionate: After our sentence plaining comes too late.

12

"All sly slow things with circumspective eye." Did he make the change in order to hide his unoriginality? Even this is a better excuse than those can allege, who have admitted his change. For the use of dear in the next line, see Twelfth Night, Act v. sc. 1, note 3.

H.

11 As Shakespeare has before used model for the thing modelled. that is, the copy; so here he uses merit for the thing merited, that is, the reward. This interchange of the subjective and the objective is quite frequent with him, as in his use of fears for the things or persons feared.

H.

12 Compassionate is here used in the sense of complaining. No other instance of the word in this sense has been found.

Nor. [Retiring.] Then, thus I turn me from my country's light,

To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.

Rich. Return again, and take an oath with thee. Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands; Swear by the duty that you owe to God, (Our part therein we banish with yourselves,) To keep the oath that we administer :— You never shall (so help you truth and God!) Embrace each other's love in banishment; Nor never look upon each other's face; Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile This lowering tempest of your home-bred hate; Nor never by advised purpose meet,

To plot, contrive, or complot any ill,

'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land. Bol. I swear.

Nor. And I, to keep all this.

13

Bol. Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy;
By this time, had the king permitted us,
One of our souls had wander'd in the air,
Banish'd this frail sepulchre of our flesh,
As now our flesh is banish'd from this land:
Confess thy treasons, ere thou fly the realm;
Since thou hast far to go, bear not along
The clogging burden of a guilty soul.

Nor. No, Bolingbroke: if ever I were traitor,

13 That is, "So far I speak to you, as to mine enemy," an elliptical way of speaking by no means uncommon. Ritson well observes that " Bolingbroke only uses the phrase by way of caution, lest Mowbray should think he was about to address him as a friend." The old copies till the second folio read, - -"So fare as to mine enemy;" which Mr. Collier retains, explaining it to mean, -"So fare as I wish mine enemy to fare;"" a mode of expression," says Mr. Dyce, " to which, I apprehend, no parallel exists in our early writers." Far, being then commonly written farre, might easily be misprinted fare.

H.

My name be blotted from the book of life,
And I from heaven banished, as from hence!
But what thou art, God, thou, and I do know;
And all too soon, I fear, the king shall rue. —
Farewell, my liege: Now no way can I stray:
Save back to England, all the world's my way.

[Exit. Rich. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes I see thy grieved heart: thy sad aspect Hath from the number of his banish'd years Pluck'd four away. - [To BOLING.] Six frozen winters spent,

Return with welcome home from banishment.

Bol. How long a time lies in one little word!
Four lagging winters, and four wanton springs,
End in a word: Such is the breath of kings.
Lan. I thank my liege, that in regard of me
He shortens four years of my son's exile;
But little vantage shall I reap thereby ;

For, ere the six years that he hath to spend
Can change their moons, and bring their times about,
My oil-dried lamp, and time-bewasted light,
Shall be extinct with age, and endless night:
My inch of taper will be burnt and done,
And blindfold death not let me see my son.

Rich. Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.
Lan. But not a minute, king, that thou canst
give:

Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow,
And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow.
Thou canst help Time to furrow me with age,
But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage :
Thy word is current with him for my death;
But, dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.
Rich. Thy son is banish'd upon good advice,