Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?
So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,-
Who all this while hath revell'd in the night,
Whilft we were wand'ring with the antipodes,
Shall fee us rifing in our throne the east,
His treafons will fit blufhing in his face,
Not able to endure the fight of day,
But, felf-affrighted, tremble at his fin.
Not all the water in the rough-rude fea
Can wash the balm from an anointed king:
The breath of worldly men cannot depofe
The deputy elected by the Lord: 3

For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd,
To lift fhrewd steel against our golden crown,

3 The breath of worldly men, &c.] Here is the do&rine of inde feasible right expreffed in the ftrongeft terms; but our poet did not learn it in the reign of K. James, to which it is now the practice of all writers, whofe opinions are regulated by fashion or intereft, to impute the original of every tenet which they have been taught to think falfe or foolish. JOHNSON.

Far be it from me to palliate the conduct of the wretched James; but the truth is that the inherent rights of the people had been ill underfood, or rather were not acknowledged, by his predeceffors. The do&rine of the divine right of kings, and of the paffive obedience of fubje&s, have never been carried further in any country than in this island, while the house of Tudor fate on the throne. Of this fact, the Homilies, compofed during the reign of young Edward, and appointed in the Thirty-nine Articles to be read in churches, furnish ftriking and abundant proof. Take, as an inftance, the following extract from the Homily against Disobedience and wilful Rebellion: "As the name of the king is very often attri buted and given unto God in holy fcriptures, fo doth God himself in the fame fcriptures fometime vouchsafe to communicate his name with earthly princes, terming them Gods." Ift part. And in the 4th part, we are direâed to call to remembrance the heavy wrath and dreadful indignation of Almighty God agaiuft fubje&ts as do only but inwardly grudge, mutter, and murmur against their governors, though their inward treafon, fo privily hatched in their breafts come not to an open declaration of their doings." HOLT WHITE.

God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay
A glorious angel: then, if angels fight,

Weak men must fall; for heaven ftill guards the

right.

Enter SALISBURY.

Welcome, my lord; How far off lies

your power? SAL. Nor near, nor further off, my gracious

lord,

Than this weak arm: Discomfort guides my tongue,
And bids me fpeak of nothing but defpair.
One day too late, I fear, my noble lord,
Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth:
O, call back yesterday, bid time return,

And thou shalt have twelve thoufand fighting men!
To-day, to day, unhappy day, too late,
O'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy ftate;
For all the Welfhmen, hearing thou wert dead,
Are gone to Bolingbroke, difpers'd, and fled.
AUM. Comfort, my liege: Why looks your grace
fo pale?

K. RICH. But now, the blood of twenty thousand

men

Did triumph in my face, and they are fled; And, till fo much blood thither come again,

Have I not reason to look pale and dead?4 All fouls that will be fafe, fly from my fide; For time hath fet a blot upon my pride.

4 Have I not reason to look pale and dead?] So, in K. Henry IV.

P. II:

"Even fuch a man

"So dull, fo dead in look, fo woe-begone,
"Drew Priam's curtains in the dead of night.

Again, in A Midfummer Night's Dream:

་་

So fhould a murderer look, fo dead, fo grim."

MALONE.

AUM. Comfort, my liege; remember who you

are.

5

K. RICH. I had forgot myself: Am I not king?
Awake, thou fluggard majefty! thou fleep'ft.
Is not the king's name forty thousand names?"
Arm, arm, my name! a puny fubject ftrikes
At thy great glory.-Look not to the ground,
Ye favourites of a king; Are we not high?
High be our thoughts: I know, my uncle York
Hath power enough to ferve our turn. But who
Comes here?

Enter SCROOF.

SCROOP. More health and happinefs betide my liege,

Than can my care-tun'd tongue deliver him!

K. RICH. Mine ear is open,' and my heart pre-
par'd;

The worst is worldly lofs, thou canft unfold.
Say, is my kingdom loft? why, 'twas my care;
And what lofs is it, to be rid of care?
Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we ?
Greater he fhall not be; if he ferve God,

-Aluggard-] So the folio, The quartos have coward.

Is not the king's name forty thousand names?] Richard 111:

MALONE.
Thus, in King

“Befides, the king's name is a tower of ftrength. See a fpeech of Antigonus, in Plutarch, of this kind, Vol. II. P. 199, 4to. Gr. S. W.

7 Mine ear is open, &c.] It feems to be the defign of the poet to raise Richard to efteem in his fall, and confequently to intereft the reader in his favour. He gives him only paffive fortitude, the virtue of a confeffor, rather than of a king. In his profperity we faw him imperious and oppreffive; but in his diftrefs he is wife, patient, and pious. JOHNSON.

1

We'll ferve him too, and be his fellow fo:
Revolt our fubjects? that we cannot mend;
They break their faith to God, as well as us:
Cry, woe, deftruction, ruin, lofs, decay;
The worst is-death, and death will have his day.
SCROOP. Glad am I, that your highness is fo

arm'd

To bear the tidings of calamity.
Like an unseasonable ftormy day,

Which makes the filver rivers drown their fhores,
As if the world were all diffolv'd to tears;

So high above his limits fwells the rage

Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land

With hard bright steel, aud hearts harder than steel. White beards' have arm'd their thin and hairlefs fcalps

Against thy majefty; boys, with women's voices,
Strive to fpeak big, and clap their female joints
In ftiff unwieldy arms againft thy crown:

Thy very beadfmen learn to bend their bows 9

7 White beards-Thus the quartos. The firft folio, with a ridiculous blunder, White bears. STEEVENS.

reads

editors.

and clap their female joints] Mr. Pope more elegantly and clafp; which has been adopted by the fubfequent But the emendation does not feem abfolutely neceffary.

MALONE.

Clip would be ftill nearer than clafp. RITSON. Lee, in his Mithridates, has imitated this paffage; A& IV: "The very boys, like Cupids drefs'd in arms, "Clap their young harness'd thighs, and trust to battle." STEEVENS. ] Such is the

9 Thy very beadfmen learn to bend their bows. reading of all the copies; yet I doubt whether beadfmen be right, for the bow feems to be mentioned here as the proper weapon of a beadfman. The king's beadsmen were his chaplains. Trevila calls himself the beadfman of his patron. Beadfman might likewife be any, man maintained by charity to pray for his benefactor. Hanmer reads the very beadfman, but thy is better. JOHNSON.

Of double-fatal yew' against thy ftate;
Yea, diftaff women manage rufty bills
Againft thy feat: both young and old rebel,
And all goes worse than I have power to tell.

K. RICH. Too well, too well, thou tell'ft a tale fo ill.

Where is the earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot? What is become of Bufhy? where is Green ?3

The reading of the text is right enough: "As boys strive to fpeak big, and clafp their effeminate joints in ftiff unwieldy arms," &c. fo his very beadfmen learn to bend their bows against him. Their does not abfolutely denote that the bow was their ufual or proper weapon; but only taken up and appropriated by them on this occafion. PERCY.

2

Of double-fatal yew] Called fo, becaufe the leaves of the yew are poifon, and the wood is employed for inftruments of death. WARBURTON.

From fome of the ancient ftatutes it appears that every Englishman, while archery was practifed, was obliged to keep in his house either a bow of yew or fome other wood. It fhould feem therefore that yews were not only planted in church-yards to defend the churches from the wind, but on account of their use in making bows; while by the benefit of being fecured in enclosed places, their poisonous quality was kept from doing mifchief to cattle. STEEVENS.

3 Where is the earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot?

But

What is become of Bufhy? where is Green?] Here are four of them named; and, within a very few lines, the king hearing they had made their peace with Bolingbroke, calls them three Judaffes. how was their peace made? Why, with the lofs of their heads. This being explained, Aumerie fays:

"Is Busby, Green, and the earl of Wiltshire dead?" So that Bagot ought to be left out of the queftion: and, indeed he had made the best of his way for Chester, and from thence had efcaped into Ireland.

The poet could not be guilty of fo much forgetfulness and abfur. dity. The tranfcribers must have blundered. It feems probable to me that he wrote, as I have conjecturally altered the texi: Where is the earl of Wiltshire? where is he got?

i. e. into what corner of my dominions is he flunk and abfconded.

THEOBALD.