Your state of fortune, and your due of birth,
The lineal glory of your royal house,
To the corruption of a blemish'd stock :
Whilft, in the mildness of your fleepy thoughts,
(Which here we waken to our country's good)
The noble ifle doth want her proper limbs;
Her face defac'd with fcars of infamy,
Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,
"And almost shoulder'd in the swallowing gulph
Of dark forgetfulness and deep-oblivion...
Which to recure, we heartily folicit
Your gracious felf 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 fucceffively, from blood to blood,
Your right of birth, your empery, your own,
For this, conforted with the citizens,
Your very worshipful and loving friends,
And by their vehement instigation,
In this just fuit come I to move your grace.
• Glo. I cannot tell, if to depart in filence,
1 And almost shoulder'd in the fwallowing gulf I
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 left it pass without observation. He reads:
Almost shoulder'd into th' swallowing gulph.
I believe we should read:
And almost smoulder'd in the swallowing gulph, That is, almost smother'd, covered and loft. JOHNSON. I suppose the old reading to be the true one. So, So, in the Ba rons' Wars, by Drayton, canto I:
"Stoutly t' affront and shoulder in debate." STEEVENS. Shoulder'd is, I believe, the true reading.-Not, thrust in by the shoulders, but, immersed up to the shoulders. So, in Othello:
"Steep me in poverty to the very lips." MALONE. Which to reçure,] To recure is to recover. This word is frequently used by Spenser; and both as a verb and a substantive in Lylly's Endymion, 1591. STEEVENS.
Or bitterly to speak in your reproof,
Best fitteth my degree, or your condition:
For, not to answer, you might haply think,
Tongue-ty'd ambition, not replying, yielded
To bear the golden yoke of fovereignty,
Which fondly you would here impose on me;
If to reprove you for this fuit of yours,
So season'd with your faithful love to me,
Then, on the other fide, I check'd my friends.
Therefore, to speak, and to avoid the first;
And then, in speaking, not to incur the laft,
Definitively thus I answer you.
Your love deserves my thanks; but my defert
Unmeritable, shuns your high request
First, if all obstacles were cut away,
And that my path were even to the crown, toret A
'As the ripe revenue and due of birth
Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,
So mighty, and fo many, my defects,
That I would rather hide me from my greatness,-
Being a bark to brook no mighty fea,
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 feat of majesty,
• As the ripe revenue and due of birth ;) The quarto of 1613
As my right, revenue, and due by birth; which, I believe, is the true reading. So, in the preceding speech: "Your right of birth, your empery, your own."
* And much I need to help you,] And I want much of the ability requifite to give you help, if help were needed. JOHNSON.
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 fhould wring from him!
Buck. My lord, this argues confcience in yourgrace;
But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,..
All circumstances well confidered.
You say, that Edward is your brother's fon;
So say we too, but not by Edward's wife:
For first was he contract to lady Lucy,
Your mother lives a witness to his vow;
And afterwards by substitute betroth'd
To Bona, fifter to the king of France.
These both put by, a poor petitioner,
A care-craz'd mother to a many fons,
A beauty-waning and distressed widow,
Even in the afternoon of her best days,
Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,
Seduc'd the pitch and height of all his thoughts
To bafe declension and loath'd bigamy:
By her, in his unlawful bed, he got :
This Edward, whom our manners call-the prince.
More bitterly could I expoftulate,
Save that, for reverence to some alive,
I give a sparing limit to my tongue.
Then, good my lord, take to your royal felf
This proffer'd benefit of dignity:
If not to bless us and the land withal,
Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry
From the corruption of abusing time,
Unto a lineal true-derived course.
-loath'd bigamy:] Bigamy, by a canon of the council of Lyons, A. D. 1274, (adopted in England by a statute in 4 Edw. I.) was made unlawful and infamous. It differed from polygamy, or having two wives at once; as it consisted in either marrying two virgins successively, or once marrying a widow. BLACKSTONE.
Mayor. Do, good my lord; your citizens entreat
you.
Buck. Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffer'd love.
Catef. O, make them joyful, grant their lawful
Glo. Alas, why would you heap these cares on me?
I am unfit for ftate and majesty :-
I do beseech you, take it not amiss;
I cannot, nor I will not yield to you.
Buck. If you refuse it, -as in love and zeal,
Loth to depose the child, your brother's fon;
As well we know your tenderness of heart,
And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse 3,
Which we have noted in you to your kindred,
And equally, indeed, to all estates, -
Yet know, whe'r you accept our fuit or no,
Your brother's son shall never reign our king;
But we will plant fome other in the throne,
To the disgrace and downfal of your house.
And, in this refolution, here we leave you;-
Come, citizens, we will entreat no more. [Exeunt.
Cates. Call them again, sweet prince, accept their
If you deny them, all the land will rue it.
Glo. Will you enforce me to a world of cares?
Well, call them again; I am not made of stone,
[Exit Catesby,
But penetrable to your kind entreaties,
Albeit against my confcience and my foul.-
Re-enter Buckingham, and the rest.
Coufin of Buckingham, and sage, grave men,
Since you will buckle fortune on my back,
--effeminate remorse.] i. e, pity. See Vol. II. p. 48.
To bear her burden, whe'r I will, or no,
I must have patience to endure the load:
But if black scandal, or foul-fac'd reproach,
Attend the sequel of your imposition,
Your meer enforcement shall acquittance me
From all the impure blots and stains thereof;
For God doth know, and you may partly fee,
How far I am from the desire of this.
Mayor. God bless your grace! we fee it, and will
Glo. In saying so, you shall but say the truth. Buck. Then I falute you with this royal title,Long live king Richard, England's worthy king! All. Amen.
Buck. To-morrow may it please you to be crown'd? Glo. Even when you please, for you will have it fo. Buck. To-morrow then we will attend your grace; And fo, most joyfully, we take our leave.
Glo. [To the Clergymen.] Come, let us to our holy
Farewel, good coufin;-farewel, gentle friends 4. [Exeunt.
* Farewel, good cousin; farewel, gentle friends.] To this act should, perhaps, be added the next scene, so will the coronation pass between the acts; and there will not only be a proper interval of action, but the conclufion will be more forcible.
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