Or bitterly to speak in your reproof,
Best fitteth my degree or your condition :
If, not to answer, 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,
So seasoned with your faithful love to me,
Then, on the other side, I checked 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,
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 vapor of my glory smothered.
But, God be thanked, 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, mellowed 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.
For first he was contract to lady Lucy;
Your mother lives a witness to his vow;
And afterwards by substitute betrothed

To Bona, sister to the king of France.
These both put by, a poor petitioner,
A care-crazed mother to a many sons,
A beauty-waning and distressed widow,
Even in the afternoon of her best days,
Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,
Seduced the pitch and height of all his thoughts
To base declension and loathed bigamy.1
By her, in his unlawful bed, he got

This Edward, whom our manners call-the prince.
More bitterly could I expostulate,

Save that, for reverence to some alive,2

I give a sparing limit to my tongue.

Then, good my lord, take to your royal self
This proffered 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.

May. Do, good my lord; your citizens entreat you. Buck. Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffered love. Cate. O, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit. Glo. Alas, why would you heap those cares on me? I am unfit for state 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,
Loath to depose the child, your brother's son;
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,—

1 Bigamy, by a canon of the council of Lyons, A. D. 1274 (adopted 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. This is from sir T. More, as copied by Hall and Holinshed.

2 The duke here hints at the pretended bastardy of Edward and Clarence. By "some alive" is meant the duchess of York, the mother of Edward and Richard. This is very closely copied from sir Thomas More.

3 Pity.

Yet know, whe'r you accept our suit or no,
Your brother's son shall never reign our king;
But we will plant some other in your throne
To the disgrace and downfall of your house.
And, in this resolution, here we leave you;
Come, citizens, we will entreat no more.

[Exeunt BUCKINGHAM and Citizens. Cate. Call them again, sweet prince, accept their suit;

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,

But penetrable to your kind entreaties,

[Exit CATESBY.

Albeit against my conscience and my soul.

Re-enter BUCKINGHAM and the rest.

Cousin of Buckingham,—and you sage, grave men,—
Since you will buckle fortune on my back,
To bear her burden, whe'r I will or no,
I must have patience to endure the load.
But if black scandal, or foul-faced reproach,
Attend the sequel of your imposition,
Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me
From all the impure blots and stains thereof;
For God he knows, and you may partly see,
How far I am from the desire of this.

May. God bless your grace! We see it, and will say it.

Glo. In saying so, you shall but say the truth. Buck. Then I salute you with this royal title,Long live king Richard, England's worthy king!

All. Amen.

Buck. To-morrow may it please you to be crowned? Glo. Even when you please, since you will have

it so.

Buck. To-morrow then we will attend your grace; And so, most joyfully, we take our leave.

Glo. Come, let us to our holy work again.

[To the Bishops.

Farewell, good cousin ;-farewell, gentle friends.'

[Exeunt.

ACT IV.

SCENE I. Before the Tower.

Enter, on one side, QUEEN ELIZABETH, DUCHESS of YORK, and MARQUIS of DORSET; on the other, ANne, DUCHESS of GLOSTER, leading LADY MARGARET PLANTAGENET, Clarence's young daughter.

2

Duch. Who meets us here ?-My niece Plantagenet Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloster? Now, for my life, she's wandering to the Tower, On pure heart's love, to greet the tender prince.Daughter, well met.

Anne.

God give your graces both

A happy and a joyful time of day!

Q. Eliz. As much to you, good sister! Whither

away?

Anne. No further than the Tower; and, as I

Upon the like devotion as yourselves,

To gratulate the gentle princes there.

guess,

Q. Eliz. Kind sister, thanks; we'll enter all to

gether.

Enter BRAKENBURY.

And, in good time, here the lieutenant comes.—
Master lieutenant, pray you, by your leave,
How doth the prince, and my young son of York?

To this act should probably 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 conclusion will be more forcible.

2 i. e. grand-daughter. The words grandson or grand daughter never occur in Shakspeare.

Brak. Right well, dear madam. By your patience,

I may not suffer you to visit them;

The king hath strictly charged the contrary.

Q. Eliz. The king! who's that?
Brak.

I mean the lord protector. Q. Eliz. The Lord protect him from that kingly title!

Hath he set bounds between their love and me?
I am their mother; who shall bar me from them?
Duch. I am their father's mother; I will see them.
Anne. Their aunt I am in law, in love their mother.
Then bring me to their sights; I'll bear thy blame,
And take thy office from thee, on my peril.

Brak. No, madam, no, I may not leave it so;
I am bound by oath, and therefore pardon me.

Enter STANLEY.

[Exit BRAKENbury.

Stan. Let me but meet you, ladies, one hour hence, And I'll salute your grace of York as mother,

And reverend looker-on of two fair queens.

Come, madam, you must straight to Westminster,

[To the DUCHESS of GLOSTER.

There to be crowned Richard's royal queen.

Q. Eliz. Ah, cut my lace asunder!

That my pent heart may have some scope to beat,
Or else I swoon with this dead-killing news.

Anne. Despiteful tidings! O, unpleasing news!
Dor. Be of good cheer.-Mother, how fares your

grace?

Q. Eliz. O, Dorset, speak not to me; get thee gone; Death and destruction dog thee at the heels; Thy mother's name is ominous to children. If thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas, And live with Richmond from the reach of hell. Go, hie thee, hie thee, from this slaughter-house, Lest thou increase the number of the dead; And make me die the thrall of Margaret's curse,— Nor mother, wife, nor England's counted queen.

Stan. Full of wise care is this your counsel, madam.