Since thou haft far to go, bear not along
The clogging burthen of a guilty foul.

Mowb. No, Bolingbroke; if ever I were traitor,
My name be blotted from the book of life,
And I from heaven banish'd as from hence!
But what thou art, heaven, thou and I do know;
And, all too foon, I fear, the king shall rue.-
Farewell, my liege. Now no way can I ftray;
Save back to England, all the world's my way 4. [Exit.
K. Rich. Uncle, even in the glaffes of thine eyes
I fee thy grieved heart: thy fad afpect

Hath from the number of his banish'd years
Pluck'd four away.-Six frozen winters fpent, [To Bol.
Return with welcome home from banishment.
Boling. How long a time lies in one little word!
Four lagging winters, and four wanton fprings,
End in a word; fuch is the breath of kings.
Gaunt. I thank my liege, that, in regard of me,
He shortens four years of my fon's exile:
But little vantage fhall I reap thereby;
For ere the fix years, that he hath to spend,
Can change their moons, and bring their times about,
My oil-dry'd lamp, and time-bewalted light,
Shall be extinct with age, and endless night:
My inch of taper will be burnt and done;
And blindfold death not let me fee my fon.

K. Rich. Why, uncle? thou haft many years to live
Gaunt, But not a minute, king, that thou canst give:
Shorten my days thou canst with fullen forrow,
And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow 5.

all the world's my way.] Perhaps Milton had this in

his mind when he wrote thefe lines,

The world was all before them, where to chufe
Their place of reft, and Providence their guide.

JOHNSON.

And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow.] It is matter of very melancholy confideration, that all human advantages confer more power of doing evil than good. JOHNSON.

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.
K. Rich. Thy fon is banish'd upon good advice,
Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave;
Why at our juftite feem'ft thou then to lour?
Gaunt. Things, fweet to tafte, prove in digeftion

four.

You urg'd me as a judge; but I had rather,
You would have bid me argue like a father.-
O, had it been a ftranger, not my child,

To fmooth his fault I would have been more mild:
Alas, I look'd, when fome of you should fay,
I was too ftrict to make mine own away:
But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue,
Against my will, to do myfelf this wrong.
A partial flander 6 fought I to avoid,
And in the fentence my own life destroy'd.

K. Rich. Coufin, farewell; and, uncle, bid him fo:

From where you do remain, let paper show.
Mar. My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride
As far as land will let me by your fide.

Gaunt. Oh, to what purpose doft thou hoard thy words,

That thou return'ft no greeting to thy friends?
Boling. I have too few to take my leave of you,
When the tongue's office fhould be prodigal,
To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.
Gaunt. Thy grief is but thy abfence for a time.
Boling. Joy abfent, grief is prefent for that time.

A partial flander-] That is, the reproach of partiality, This is a juft picture of the ftruggle between principle and af fection. JOHNSON.

Gaunt.

Gaunt. What is fix winters? they are quickly gone. Boling. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour

ten.

Gaunt. Call it a travel, that thou tak'ft for pleasure. Boling. My heart will figh, when I mifcall it fo, Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.

Gaunt. The fullen paffage of thy weary steps
Efteem a foil, wherein thou art to fet
The precious jewel of thy home-return.

[7 Boling. Nay, rather, every tedious ftride I make
Will but remember me, what a deal of world
I wander from the jewels that I love.
Muft I not serve a long apprentice-hood,
To foreign paffages; and in the end
Having my freedom, boast of nothing elfe
But that I was a journeyman to grief?

Gaunt. All places that the eye of heaven vifits, Are to a wife man ports and happy havens.

Boling. Nay, rather, every tedious firide I make] This, and the fix verses which follow, I have ventured to fupply from the old quarto. The allufion, it is true, to an apprenticeship, and becoming a journeyman, is not in the fublime tafte; nor, as Horace has expreffed it, fpirat tragicum fatis: however, as there is no doubt of the paffage being genuine, the lines are not fo despicable as to deferve being quite loft. THEOBALD.

journeyman to grief?] I am afraid our author in this place defigned a very poor quibble, as journey fignifies both travel and a day's work. However, he is not to be cenfured for what he himself rejected. JOHNSON.

The quarto, in which thefe lines are found, is faid in its titlepage to have been corrected by the author; and the play is in, deed more accurately printed than most of the other fingle copies. There is now however no method of knowing by whom the alteration was made. STEEVENS.

All places that the eye of heaven vifits, &c.] The fourteen verfes that follow are found in the firft edition. PorE,

I am inclined to believe, that what Mr. Theobald and Mr. Pope have restored were expunged in the revifion by the author: if the lines inclosed in crotchets are omitted, the fenfe is more coherent. Nothing is more frequent among dramatic writers, than to shorten their dialogues for the stage. JOHNSON.

Teach thy neceffity to reason thus :—
There is no virtue like neceffity.

Think not, the king did banish thee;

But thou the king. Woe doth the heavier fit,
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
Go fay, I fent thee forth to purchase honour,
And not, the king exil'd thee :-or fuppofe,
Devouring peftilence hangs in our air,
And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
Look, what thy foul holds dear, imagine it
To lie that way thou go'ft, not whence thou com'ft.
Suppofe the finging birds, muficians;

The grafs whereon thou tread'ft, the presence strow'd;
The flowers, fair ladies; and thy fteps, no more
Than a delightful measure, or a dance :

For gnarling forrow hath lefs power to bite
The man that mocks at it, and fets it light.]
Boling. Oh, who can hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking on the frofty Caucafus ?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite,
By bare imagination of a feaft?
Or wallow naked in December snow,
By thinking on fantastic fummer's heat?
Oh, no! the apprehenfion of the good
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse :
Fell forrow's tooth doth never rankle more
Than when it bites, but lanceth not the fore.
Gaunt, Come, come, my fon, I'll bring thee on thy

way :

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

There is a paffage refembling this in Tully's Fifth Book of Tufculan Questions. Speaking of Epicurus, he fays" Sed unà fe dicit recordatione acquiefcere præteritarum voluptatum: ut fi quis æftuans, cum vim caloris non facile pa"tiatur recordari velit, fe aliquando in arpinati noftro gelidis "fluminibus circumfufum fuiffe. Non enim video, quomodo "fedare poffint mala præfentia præteritæ voluptates." The Tufculan Questions of Tully had been tranflated early enough for Shakespeare to have feen them. STEEVENS,

Boling. Then, England's ground, farewell; fweet

foil, adieu;

My mother and my nurse, that bears me yet!
Where-e'er I wander, boaft of this I can-
Though banish'd, yet a true-born Englishman 2.

SCENE IV.

The court.

[Exeunt.

Enter king Richard, and Bagot, &c. at one door, and the lord Aumerle at the other.

K. Rich. We did obferve.-Coufin 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, fay, what store of parting tears were fhed?

Aum. 'Faith, none by me: except the north-east wind,

(Which then blew bitterly against our faces) Awak'd the fleepy rheum; and fo by chance Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.

K. Rich. What faid our coufin when you parted with him?

Aum. Farewell.

And, for my heart difdained that my tongue
Should fo prophane the word, that taught me craft
To counterfeit oppreffion of fuch grief,

That words feem buried in my forrow's grave.

-yet a true-born Englishman.] Here the firft act ought to end, that between the first and fecond acts there may be time for John of Gaunt to accompany his fon, return, and fall fick. Then the firft fcene of the second act begins with a natural converfation, interrupted by a meffage from John of Gaunt, by which the king is called to vifit him, which vifit is paid in the following fcene. As the play is now divided, more time paffes between the two laft fcenes of the first act, than between the first aft and the fecond. JOHNSON.

Marry,