And mark my greeting well; for what I fpeak, may prove. 3 NOR. Let not my cold words here accufe my zeal: "Tis not the trial of a woman's war, The bitter clamour of two eager tongues, I do defy him, and I fpit at him; Call him a flanderous coward, and a villain: Where ever Englishman durft fet his foot. Disclaiming here the kindred of the king; Or chivalrous defign of knightly trial: And, when I mount, alive may I not light, K. RICH. What doth our coufin lay to Mowbray's charge? It must be great, that can inherit us 5 So much as of a thought of ill in him. BOLING. Look, what I speak my life fhall prove it true; .. Ben Jonfon ufes the word in the fame fenfe in his Catiline: And pour'd on fome inhabitable place. STEEVENS So alfo Braithwaite, in his Survey of Hiftories, 1614: Others, in imitation of fome valiant knights, have frequented defarts and inhabited provinces. MALONE. 5 that can inherit us, &c.] To inherit is no more than to poffefs, though fuch a ufe of the word may be peculiar to Shakspeare. Again, in Romeo and Juliet, A&. I. fc. ii; 64 fuch delight "Among fresh female buds fhall you this night See Vol. IV. p. 127. n. 6. MALONE. That Mowbray hath receiv'd eight thousand no bles, In name of lendings for your highness' foldiers; Or here, or elsewhere, to the furtheft verge That all the treasons, for these eighteen years Complotted and contrived in this land, Fetch from falfe Mowbray their first head and Upon his bad life, to make all this good,-- And, confequently, like a traitor coward, Sluic'd out his innocent foul through ftreams of blood: Which blood, like facrificing Abel's, cries, K. RICH. How high a pitch his refolution foars!Thomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this? 6 --for lewd employments,] Lewd here fignifies wicked. It is fo used in many of our old ftatutes. MALONE. Thus, in King Richard III: "But you must trouble him with lewd complaints." STEEVENS. 7 the duke of Glofter's death;] Thomas of Woodflock, the youngest fon of Edward III.; who was murdered at Calais, in 1397. MALONE. 8 Suggeft his foon-believing 'adverfaries;] i. e. prompt, fet them on by injurious hints. Thus, in The Tempest: They'll take fuggeftion, as a cat laps milk." STEEVENS, NOR. O, let my fovereign turn away his face, And bid his ears a little while be deaf, Till I have told this flander of his blood," How God, and good men, hate fo foul a liar. cars: Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir, NOR. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart, Since laft I went to France to fetch his queen: death, For Glofter's I flew him not; but, to my own disgrace, I did confefs it; and exactly begg'd 7--this flander of his blood,] i. e. this reproach to his anceftry. STEEVENS. 8 3 —my Scepter's awe-] The reverence due to my scepter. JOHNSON. X Your grace's pardon, and, I hope, I had it. Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bofom: Your highness to affign our trial day. K. RICH. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be rul'd by me; 9 Let's purge this choler without letting blood: ? This we preferibe, though no phyfician'; &c.] I muft make one remark in general on the rhymes throughout this whole play; they are fo much inferior to the reft of the writing, that they appear to me of a different hand. What confirms this, is, that the context does every where exadly (and frequently much better) connect, without the inferted rhymes, except in a very few places; and juft there too, the rhyming verfes are of a much better tafle than all the others, which rather ftrengthens my conjecture. POPE. This obfervation of Mr. Pope's, (fays Mr. Edwards,) happens to be very unluckily placed here, because the context, without the inferted rhymes, will not connect at all. Read this paffage as it would ftaud corre&ed by this rule, and we fhall find, when the rhyming part of the dialogue is left out, King Richard begins with diffuading them from the duel, and, in the very next feetence, appoints the time aud place of their combat.” Mr. Edwards's cenfure is rather hafty; for in the note, to which it refers, it is allowed that fome rhymes must be retained to make out the connection. STEE VENS, |