ACT III.

SCENE I. A Room in the Palace.

Enter the KING in his Night-gown, with a Page King. Go, call the earls of Surrey and of War wick;

But, ere they come, bid them o'er-read these letters,
And well consider of them: Make good speed.
[Exit Page.
How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! - O sleep! O gentle sleep!
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,

That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber
Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?
O, thou dull god! why liest thou with the vile,
In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch
A watch-case, or a common 'larum bell? 1

1

1 The most probable meaning of this obscure passage is, that the kingly couch, when sleep has left it, is as the case or box which shelters the watchman; or as the common bell that is to sound the alarm and rouse the sleeping people at the coming of danger. Strutt, however, in his Manners and Customs, cites from an old inventory a passage that may fit the text with a different explanation: "Item, a laume or watch of iron, in an iron case, with two leaden plumets." Knight remarks, that "by this laume or watch of iron, we are to understand the instrument now called an alarm, -a machine attached to a clock so as to ring at a certain hour." And he adds, “It is difficult to say whether Shakespeare means

Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,

And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

2

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deafening clamours in the slippery clouds,
That with the hurly death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then, happy lowly clown ''
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Enter WARWICK and SURREY.

War. Many good morrows to your majesty!
King. Is it good-morrow, lords?

War. "Tis one o'clock, and past.

King. Why, then, good morrow to you all, my lords.

Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you?

by the watch-case the box of a sentinel, and by the common 'larum bell, the alarm bell which is rung out in cases of danger; or whether the watch-case is the covering of an instrument which gives motion to the bell of an alarum."

H.

2 Hurly is a noise or tumult, as hurly-burly in the first scene of Macbeth.

3 The exact reading of the first folio here is, -"Then happy Lowe, lye downe." Warburton thought the Poet might have written "happy lowlie clowne;" and Gilbert Wakefield, in a note on Lucretius, tells us the same had occurred to him. Dr. Johnson adopted the correction, and Mr. Dyce gives some arguments in favour of it, but does not recommend its adoption into the text. The reader will scarce need be told how easy it were for a printer or transcriber to mistake cl for d, and several instances have been pointed out where this mistake had been made. All which considered, our own judgment is much in favour of the cnange; but we do not feel warranted in admitting it, the sense being clear enough as the text stands, though the grammar is not.

H.

War. We have, my liege.

King. Then you perceive, the body of our king

dom

How foul it is; what rank diseases grow,
And with what danger, near the heart of it.

War. It is but as a body, yet, distemper'd,
Which to his former strength may be restor❜d,
With good advice, and little medicine.

My lord Northumberland will soon be cool'd.
King. O God! that one might read the book of
fate,

And see the revolution of the times
Make mountains level, and the continent,
Weary of solid firmness, melt itself

Into the sea and, other times, to see

The beachy girdle of the ocean

Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock,
And changes fill the cup of alteration

With divers liquors! O! if this were seen,*
The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,-
What perils past, what crosses to ensue,"

Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.

"Tis not ten years gone,

Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,
Did feast together, and in two years after
Were they at wars: It is but eight years since
This Percy was the man nearest my soul;
Who like a brother toil'd in my affairs,
And laid his love and life under my foot;
Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard,

4 The latter half of this line and the three following lines are wanting in the folio.

The sense of this whole line is evidently future. "What perils being past, what crosses are to ensue ;" that is, what crosses will still await us, when we shall have passed through how great perils. This note were needless, but that Dr. Johnson took upon him to misunderstand the line.

H.

Gave him defiance. But which of you was by,"
[To WARWICK.] (You, cousin Neville, as I may
remember,)

When Richard, with his eye brimfull of tears,
Then check'd and rated by Northumberland,
Did speak these words, now prov'd a prophecy?
"Northumberland, thou ladder, by the which
My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne;
Though then, God knows, I had no such intent,
But that necessity so bow'd the state,

That I and greatness were compell'd to kiss. "The time shall come," thus did he follow it, "The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head, Shall break into corruption : -so went ou, Foretelling this same time's condition,

And the division of our amity.

War. There is a history in all men's lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceas'd;
The which observ'd, a man may prophesy,

With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life; which in their seeds,
And weak beginnings, lie intreasured.

Such things become the hatch and brood of time;
And, by the necessary form of this,

King Richard might create a perfect guess,
That great Northumberland, then false to him,

The reference here is to Act v. sc. 1 of King Richard II., where Northumberland visits Richard in the Tower, to order his removal to Pomfret. The Poet had probably forgotten that Bolingbroke had already mounted the throne, and that neither be nor Warwick was present at the interview referred to, unless the latter were among the attendants of Northumberland, as he is not named among the Dramatis Personœ. In the next line, also, there is some confusion. Ralph Neville was at that time earl of Westmoreland, and the name of the earl of Warwick was Beauchamp. The latter earldom did not come into the Neville family till many years after, when Anne, the heiress of that earldom, was married to Richard Neville, son to the earl of Salisbury.

H.

Would, of that seed, grow to a greater falseness; Which should not find a ground to root upon,

Unless on you.

King.

Are these things, then, necessities?

Then let us meet them like necessities;

And that same word even now cries out on us.
They say the bishop and Northumberland

Are fifty thousand strong.

IVar.

It cannot be, my lord:

Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,
The numbers of the fear'd. - Please it your grace

To go to bed; upon my soul, my lord,

The powers that you already have sent forth
Shall bring this prize in very. easily.

To comfort you the more, I have receiv'd
A certain instance, that Glendower is dead."
Your majesty hath been this fortnight ill,
And these unseason'd hours, perforce, must add
Unto your sickness.

King.

I will take your counsel: And, were these inward wars once out of hand, We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Court before Justice SHALLOW'S House in Glostershire.

Enter SHALLOW and SILENCE, meeting; MOULDY SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, BULL-CALF, and Servants, behind.

Shal. Come on, come on, come on, sir; give me your hand, sir, give me your hand, sir: an early

7 Glendower did not die till after King Henry IV. Shakespeare was led into this error by Holinshed. See the Introduction to the preceding play.