When the tongue's office should be prodigal
To breathe the abundant dolor of the heart.

Gaunt. Thy grief is but thy absence for a time. Boling. Joy absent, grief is present for that time. Gaunt. What is six winters? they are quickly gone Boling. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour

ten.

Gaunt. Call it a travel that thou tak'st for pleasure. Boling. My heart will sigh, when I miscall it so, Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.

Gaunt. The sullen passage of thy weary steps Esteem a foil, wherein thou art to set

The precious jewel of thy home-return.

Boling. Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make1

Will but remember me, what a deal of world
I wander from the jewels that I love.
Must I not serve a long apprenticehood
To foreign passages; and in the end,
Having my freedom, boast of nothing else,
But that I was a journeyman to grief?

Gaunt. All places that the eye of heaven 2 visits,
Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.
Teach thy necessity to reason thus;

There is no virtue like necessity.

Think not the king did banish thee;

But thou the king. Woe doth the heavier sit,
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
Go, say--I sent thee forth to purchase honor,
And not-the king exiled thee; or suppose,
Devouring pestilence hangs in our air,
And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it

To lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou com'st.
Suppose the singing birds, musicians;

1

The grass whereon whereon thou tread'st, the presence

strewed; 3

1 This speech and that which follows are not in the folio.

2 i. e. the sun.

3 We have other allusions to the practice of strewing rushes over the floor of the presence-chamber, in Shakspeare.

VOL. III.

48

The flowers, fair ladies; and thy steps, no more
Than a delightful measure, or a dance;
For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
The man that mocks at it, and sets it light.
Boling. O, who can hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus ?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite,
By bare imagination of a feast?

Or wallow naked in December snow,
By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?
O, no! the apprehension of the good,
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse:
Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more,
Than when it bites, but lanceth not the sore.
Gaunt. Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy

way:

Had I thy youth, and cause, I would not stay.

Boling. Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu;

My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!
Where'er I wander, boast of this I can,—
Though banished, yet a trueborn Englishman.'

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. The same. A Room in the King's Castle.

Enter KING RICHARD, BAGOT, and GREEN; AUMERLE following.

K. Rich. We did observe.-Cousin Aumerle, How far brought you high Hereford on his way? Aum. I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,

But to the next highway, and there I left him.

K. Rich. And, say, what store of parting tears were shed?

1 Dr. Johnson thought that the first act should end here.

2 The king here addressed Green and Bagot, who, we may suppose, had been talking to him of Bolingbroke's "courtship to the common people," at the time of his departure. "Yes," says Richard, "we did observe it."

Aum. 'Faith, none by1 me; except the north-east

wind,

Which then blew bitterly against our faces,
Awaked the sleeping rheum; and so, by chance,
Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.

K. Rich. What said our cousin, when you parted with him?

Aum. Farewell:

And, for my heart disdained that my tongue
Should so profane the word, that taught me craft
To counterfeit oppression of such grief,

That words seemed buried in my sorrow's grave.
Marry, would the word farewell have lengthened hours,
And added years to his short banishment,
He should have had a volume of farewells;
But, since it would not, he had none of me.

K. Rich. He is our cousin, cousin; but 'tis doubt,
When time shall call him home from banishment,
Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.
Ourself, and Bushy,2 Bagot here, and Green,
Observed his courtship to the common people ;-
How he did seem to dive into their hearts,
With humble and familiar courtesy ;

What reverence he did throw away on slaves;
Wooing poor craftsmen, with the craft of smiles,
And patient underbearing of his fortune,
As 'twere, to banish their affects with him.
Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;
A brace of draymen bid-God speed him well,
And had the tribute of his supple knee,3
With-Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends;

1 The first folio and the quarto of 1597 read "'Faith, none for me." The emendation was made in the folio, 1623.

2 The earlier quarto copies read, “Ourself and Bushy," and no more. The folio:

"Ourself, and Bushy here, Bagot, and Greene.

In the quarto, the stage-direction says, "Enter the King, with Bushie," &c.; but in the folio, "Enter the King, Aumerle," &c., because it was observed that Bushy comes in afterward. On this account we have

adopted a transposition made in the quarto of 1634.

3 To illustrate this, it should be remembered that courtesying (the act of reverence now confined to women) was anciently practised by men.

As were our England in reversion his,
And he our subjects' next degree in hope.

Green. Well, he is gone; and with him go these thoughts.

Now for the rebels, which stand out in Ireland :-
Expedient manage must be made, my liege;
Ere further leisure yield them further means
For their advantage, and your highness' loss.
K. Rich. We will ourself in person to this war.
And, for our coffers-with too great a court,
And liberal largess-are grown somewhat light,
We are enforced to farm our royal realm;
The revenue whereof shall furnish us

For our affairs in hand. If that come short,
Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters;
Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich,
They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold,
And send them after to supply our wants;
For we will make for Ireland presently.

Bushy, what news?

Enter BUSHY.

Bushy. Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my Suddenly taken; and hath sent post-haste,

To entreat your majesty to visit him.

K. Rich. Where lies he?

Bushy. At Ely-house.

lord;

K. Rich. Now put it, Heaven, in his physician's mind,

To help him to his grave immediately!

The lining of his coffers shall make coats
To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.-
Come, gentlemen, let's all go visit him;

'Pray God, we may make haste, and come too late.

[Exeunt.

1 Shakspeare often uses expedient for expeditious; but here its ordinary signification of fit, proper, will suit the context equally well.

2 i. e. cause.

ACT II.

SCENE I. London. A Room in Ely-house. GAUNT on a couch; the DUKE OF YORK,' and others standing by him.

Gaunt. Will the king come? that I may breathe my last

In wholesome counsel to his unstayed youth.

York. Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath;

For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.

Gaunt. O, but they say, the tongues of dying men Enforce attention, like deep harmony:

Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain, For they breathe truth, that breathe their words in pain. He, that no more must say, is listened more

Than they whom youth and ease have taught to gloze; More are men's ends marked, than their lives before: The setting sun and music at the close,2

As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest, last;
Writ in remembrance, more than things long past.
Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear,
My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.

York. No; it is stopped with other flattering sounds,
As, praises of his state: then, there are found
Lascivious metres; to whose venom sound
The open ear of youth doth always listen;
Report of fashions in proud Italy,

Whose manners still our tardy, apish nation

1 Edmond, duke of York, was the fifth son of Edward III., and was born, in 1441, at Langley, near St. Albans, Herts; whence he had his surname. "He was of an indolent disposition, a lover of pleasure, and averse to business; easily prevailed upon to lie still and consult his own quiet, and never acting with spirit upon any occasion."-Lowth's William of Wykeham, p. 205.

2 Mason suggests the following punctuation of this passage. He considers the word last as a verb.

The setting sun, and music at the close,

(As the last taste of sweet is sweetest,) last

Writ in remembrance more, than things long past.