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Glo. I go; And if you plead as well for them, As I can say nay to thee for myself,

No doubt we'll bring it to a happy issue.

Buck. Go, go, up to the leads; the lord mayor knocks.

[Exit GLO.
Enter the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens.
Welcome, my lord: I dance attendance here;
I think, the duke will not be spoke withal.-
Enter, from the Castle, CATESBY.

Now, Catesby! what says your lord to my request?
Cates. He doth entreat your grace, my noble lord,
To visit him to-morrow, or next day:

He is within, with two right reverend fathers,

Divinely bent to meditation;

And in no worldly suit would he be mov❜d,

To draw him from his holy exercise.

Buck. Return, good Catesby, to the gracious duke; Tell him, myself, the mayor and aldermen,

In deep designs, in matter of great moment,
No less importing than our general good,

Are come to have some conference with his grace.
Cates. I'll signify so much unto him straight. [Exit.
Buck. Ah, ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward!
He is not lolling on a lewd day-bed,5

But on his knees at meditation;

Not dallying with a brace of courtezans,
But meditating with two deep divines;
Not sleeping, to engross his idle body,
But praying, to enrich his watchful soul:
Happy were England, would this virtuous prince
Take on himself the sovereignty thereof;

But, sure, I fear, we shall ne'er win him to it.

May. Marry, God defend his grace should say us nay !7

4 As I can say nay to thee-] I think it must be read: if you plead as well for them

As I must say, nay to them for myself Johnson.

Perhaps the change is not necessary. Buckingham is to plead for the citizens; and if (says Richard) you speak for them as plausibly as I in my own person, or for my own purposes, shall seem to deny your suit, there is no doubt but we shall bring all to a happy issue. Steevens.

5

6

-day-bed,] i. e. a couch, or sofa

Steevens.

to engross —] To fatten; to pamper. Johnson.

Buck. I fear, he will: Here Catesby comes again;Re-enter CATESBY.

Now Catesby, what says his grace?

Cates. He wonders to what end you have assembled Such troops of citizens to come to him,

His grace not being warn'd thereof before:
He fears, my lord, you mean no good to him.
Buck. Sorry I am, my noble cousin should
Suspect me, that I mean no good to him:
By heaven, we come to him in perfect love;
And so once more return and tell his grace.

When holy and devout religious men

[Exit CATES,

Are at their beads, 'tis hard to draw them thence;
So sweet is zealous contemplation.

Enter GLOSTER, in a Gallery, above, between Two
8
Bishops. CATESBY returns.

May. See, where his grace stands 'tween two clergymen!

Buck. Two props of virtue for a christian prince,
To stay him from the fall of vanity:

And, see, a book of prayer in his hand;
True ornaments to know a holy man.9—
Famous Plantagenet, most gracious prince,
Lend favourable ear to our requests;

7 God defend, his grace should say us nay!] This pious and courtly Mayor was Edmund Shaw, brother to Doctor Shaw, whom Richard had employed to prove his title to the crown, from the pulpit at Saint Paul's Cross. Malone.

8 between Two Bishops.] "At the last he came out of his chamber, and yet not downe to theim, but in a galary over theim, with a bishop on every hande of hym, where thei beneth might see hym and speake to hym, as though he woulde not yet come nere theim til he wist what they meant," &c. Hall's Chronicle.

Farmer.

So also, Holinshed after him. The words "with a bishop on every hande of hym," are an interpolation by Hall, or rather by Grafton, (See his Continuation of Harding's Chronicle, 1543, fol. 75,) not being found in Sir Thomas More's History of King Richard III, folio, 1557, from whom the rest of the sentence is tran scribed. Malone.

9- to know a holy man. n.] i. e. to know a holy man by. See note on Coriolanus, Act III, sc. ii, where several instances of a similar phraseology are given. Malone.

And pardon us the interruption

Of thy devotion, and right-christian zeal.
Glo. My lord, there needs no such apology;
I rather do beseech you pardon me,

Who, earnest in the service of my God,
Neglect the visitation of my

friends.

But, leaving this, what is your grace's pleasure?
Buck. Even that, I hope, which pleaseth God above,
And all good men of this ungovern'd isle.

Glo. I do suspect, I have done some offence,
That seems disgracious in the city's eye;

And that you come to reprehend my ignorance.
Buck. You have, my lord; Would it might please your

grace,

On our entreaties, to amend your fault!

Glo. Else wherefore breathe I in a Christian land? Buck. Know, then, it is your fault, that you resign

The supreme seat, the throne majestical,

The scepter'd office of your ancestors,

Your state of fortune, and your due of birth,
The lineal glory of your royal house,
To the corruption of a blemish'd stock:

Whilst, in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,
(Which here we waken to our country's good)
The noble isle doth want her proper limbs ;1
Her face defac'd with scars of infamy,
Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,2
And almost shoulder'd in the swallowing gulf
Of dark forgetfulness3 and deep oblivion.

1

her proper limbs;] Thus the quarto 1598. The folio has his limbs; an error which I should not mention, but that it jus tifies corrections that I have made in other places, where, for want of more ancient copies than one, conjectural emendation became necessary. Malone.

2 Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,] Shakspeare seems to have recollected the text on which Dr. Shaw preached his remarkable Sermon at Saint Paul's Cross: "Bastard slips shall never take deep root." Malone.

3 And almost shoulder'd in the swallowing gulf

Of dark forgetfulness -] What it is to be shoulder'd in a gulph, Hanmer is the only editor who seems not to have known; for the rest let it pass without observation. He reads:

Almost shoulder'd into th' swallowing gulph.

I believe we should read:

Which to recure, we heartily solicit

Your gracious self to take on you the charge
And kingly government of this your land:
Not as protector, steward, substitute,
Or lowly factor for another's gain;
But as successively, from blood to blood,
Your right of birth, your empery, your own.
For this, consorted with the citizens,
Your very worshipful and loving friends,
And by their vehement instigation,

In this just suit come I to move your grace.
Glo. I cannot tell, if to depart in silence,
Or bitterly to speak in your reproof,
Best fitteth my degree, or your condition:
If, not to answer,5-you might haply think,
Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded
To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,
Which fondly you would here impose on me;
If to reprove you for this suit of yours,

And almost smoulder'd in the swallowing gulph. That is, almost smother'd, covered and lost. Johnson.

I suppose the old reading to be the true one. So, in The Barons' Wars, by Drayton, canto i:

"Stoutly t'affront and shoulder in debate."

In is used for into. So before in this play:

"But first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave." Again, ibid:

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Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects." Shoulder'd has the same meaning as rudely thrust into.

So, in a curious ancient paper quoted by Mr. Lysons in his Environs of London, Vol. III, p. 80, n. 1: "-lyke tyraunts and lyke madde men helpynge to shulderynge other of the sayd bannermen ynto the dyche," &c. Again, in Arthur Hall's translation of the second Iliad, 1581:

"He preaseth him, him he again, shouldring ech one his feere." Steevens.

4 Which to recure,] To recure is to recover. This word is frequently used by Spenser; and both as a verb and a substantive in Lyly's Endymion, 1591. Steevens.

5 If, not to answer,] If I should take the former course, and depart in silence, &c. So below: "If, to reprove," &c. The editor of the second folio reads-For not to answer; and his capricious alteration of the text has been adopted by all the subsequent editors. This and the nine following lines are not in the quarto.

Malone.

So season'd with your faithful love to me,
Then, on the other side, I check'd my friends.
Therefore, to speak, and to avoid the first;
And then, in speaking, not to incur the last,—
Definitively thus I answer you.

Your love deserves my thanks; but my desert
Unmeritable, shuns your high request.
First, if all obstacles were cut away,
And that my path were even to the crown,
As the ripe revenue and due of birth;6
Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,
So mighty, and so many, my defects,

That I would rather hide me from my greatness,-
Being a bark to brook no mighty sea,-
Than in my greatness covet to be hid,
And in the vapour of my glory smother'd.
But, God be thank'd, there is no need of me;
(And much I need to help you,' if need were ;)
The royal tree hath left us royal fruit,

Which, mellow'd by the stealing hours of time,
Will well become the seat of majesty,
And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.
On him I lay what you would lay on me,
The right and fortune of his happy stars,-

Which, God defend, that I should wring from him!
Buck. My lord, this argues conscience in your grace;
But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,

All circumstances well considered.

You say, that Edward is your brother's son;
So say we too, but not by Edward's wife:

8

6 As the ripe revenue and due of birth;] So the folio. The quarto 1598 thus:

"As my right, revenue, and due by birth."

A preceding line seems rather to favour the original reading: "Your right of birth, your empery, your own."

The first quarto, [1597] I find, reads:

"As my ripe revenew, and due by birth." Malone.

7 And much I need to help you,] And I want much of the ability requisite to give you help, if help were needed. Johnson.

8 — are nice and trivial,] Nice is generally used by Shak. speare in the sense of minute, trifling, of petty import. So, in Romeo and Juliet:

"The letter was not nice, but full of charge." Malone.

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