SCENE V.

A Room in Lord Stanley's House.

Enter STANLEY and Sir CHRISTOPHER URSWICK.

Stan. Sir Christopher, tell Richmond this from me :1That, in the sty of this most bloody boar,

My son George Stanley is frank'd up in hold;

1 Sir Christopher, tell Richmond this from me:] The person, who is called Sir Christopher here, and who has been styled so in the Dramatis Persone of all the impressions, I find by the Chronicles to have been Christopher Urswick, a bachelor in divinity; and chaplain to the Countess of Richmond, who had intermarried with the Lord Stanley. This priest, the history tells us, frequently went backwards and forwards, unsuspected, on messages betwixt the Countess of Kichmond, and her husband, and the young Earl of Richmond, whilst he was preparing to make his descent on England. Theobald.

This Christopher Urswick was afterwards Almoner to King Henry VII, and retired to Hackney, where he died in 1521. On his tomb, still to be seen in that church, it is said "Ad exteros reges undecies pro patria Legatus; Deconatum Eboracensem, Archidia conatum Richmundie, Decanatum Windesoriæ, habitos vivens reliquit. Episcopatum Norwicensem oblatum recusavit."Weaver, who has printed this inscription, concludes his eulogium thus: "here let him rest as an example for all our great prelates to admire, and for few or none to imitate." Reed

This circumstance is also recorded by Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy, 4th edit. p. 187: "But most part they are very shamefast; and that makes them with Pet. Blesensis, Christopher Urswick, and many such, to refuse honours, offices, and preferment."

Dr. Johnson has observed, that Sir was anciently a title assumed by graduates. This the late Mr. Guthrie disputes; and says, it was a title sold by the pope's legates, &c that his holiness might be on the same footing with the king. Steevens.

In The Scornful Lady of Beaumont and Fletcher, Welford says to Sir Roger, the curate, "I acknowledge you to be your art's master.""I am but a bachelor of art, sir," replies Sir Roger. Mr. Guthrie would have done well to have informed us, how Sir Roger could possibly have bought his title of the pope's nuncio; when, as Abigail tells us, he had only "twenty nobles de claro, besides his pigges in posse." Farmer.

See Vol. III, p 9, n. 1. Steevens.

The title of Sir is still appropriated to Bachelors of Arts in the University of Dublin; and the word Bachelor evidently derived from the French bas Chevalier, that is, a lower kind of Knight. -This accounts for the title of Sir being given to Bachelors.

M. Mason.

If I revolt, off goes young George's head;
The fear of that withholds my present aid.
But, tell me, where is princely Richmond now?

Chris. At Pembroke, or at Ha'rford-west, in Wales. Stan. What men of name resort to him? Chris. Sir Walter Herbert, a renowned soldier; Sir Gilbert Talbot, sir William Stanley; Oxford, redoubted Pembroke, sir James Blunt, And Rice ap Thomas, with a valiant crew;3 And many other of great fame and worth: And towards London do they bend their course, If by the way they be not fought withal.

Stan. Well, hie thee to thy lord; commend me to him Tell him, the queen hath heartily consented

He shall espouse Elizabeth her daughter.
These letters will resolve him of my mind.

Farewel. [Gives Papers to Sir CHRIS. [Exeunt.

ACT V..... SCENE I.

Salisbury. An open Place.

Enter the Sheriff, and Guard, with BUCKINGHAM, led to Execution.

Buck. Will not king Richard let me speak with him?4 Sher. No, my lord; therefore be patient.

2 - my present aid.] Thus the quarto. After these words three lines are added in the folio, in substance the same as the first three lines of Stanley's concluding speech. Instead of the concluding speech of the quarto, which is here followed, the folio reads thus:

3

"Well, hie to thy lord; I kiss his hand;
"My letter will resolve him of my mind,

"Farewell."

Malone.

valiant crew;] This expression (which sounds but meanly in modern ears) has been transplanted by Dryden into his Alexander's Feast:

"Give the vengeance due

"To the valiant crew." Steevens.

4 Will not king Richard let me speak with him?] The reason why the Duke of Buckingham solicited an interview with the King is explained in King Henry VIII, Act I:

Buck. Hastings, and Edward's children, Rivers, Grey,
Holy king Henry, and thy fair son Edward,
Vaughan, and all that have miscarried
By underhand corrupted foul injustice;
If that your moody discontented souls

Do through the clouds behold this present hour,
Even for revenge mock my destruction!-

This is All-Souls' day, fellows, is it not?

Sher. It is, my lord.

Buck. Why, then All-Souls' day is my body's doomsday.

This is the day, which, in king Edward's time,
I wish'd might fall on me, when I was found
False to his children or his wife's allies:
This is the day, wherein I wish'd to fall
By the false faith of him whom most I trusted
This, this All-Souls' day to my fearful soul,
Is the determin'd respite of my wrongs.5
That high All-seer which I dallied with,
Hath turned my feigned prayer on my head,
And given in earnest what I begg'd in jest.
Thus doth he force the swords of wicked men
To turn their own points on their masters' bosoms:
Thus Margaret's curse falls heavy on my neck,-
When he, quoth she, shall split thy heart with sorrow,
Remember Margaret was a prophetess.-

Come, sirs, convey me to the block of shame;
Wrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame.
[Exeunt Buck. &c.

16- I would have play'd

"The part my father meant to act upon

"The usurper Richard; who, being at Salisbury,
"Made suit to come in his presence; which, if granted,
"As he made semblance of his duty, would

"Have put his knife into him." Steevens.

See also Hall's Chronicle, Richard III, fo. 16. Reed.

Is the determin'd respite of my wrongs.] Hanmer has rightly explained it, the time to which the punishment of his wrongs was respited

Wrongs in this line means wrongs done, or injurious practices.

6

Johnson.

blame the due of blame.] This scene should, in my opinion, be added to the foregoing Act, so the fourth Act will have a more full and striking conclusion, and the fifth Act will comprise the

SCENE II.

Plain near Tamworth.

8

Enter, with Drum and Colours, RICHMOND, OXFORD,7 Sir JAMES BLUNT, Sir WALTER HERBERT, and Others, with Forces, marching.

Richm. Fellows in arms, and my most loving friends, Bruis'd underneath the yoke of tyranny,

Thus far into the bowels of the land

Have we march'd on without impediment;
And here receive we from our father Stanley
Lines of fair comfort and encouragement.
The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar,

That spoil'd your summer fields, and fruitful vines,
Swills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough
In your embowell'd bosoms,1-this foul swine

business of the important day, which put an end to the competition of York and Lancaster. Some of the quarto editions are not divided into Acts, and it is probable, that this and many other plays were left by the author in one unbroken continuity, and af terwards distributed by chance, or what seems to have been a guide very little better, by the judgment or caprice of the first editors. Johnson.

7 Oxford,] John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, a zealous Lancastrian, who after a long confinement in Hames Castle in Picardy, escaped from thence in 1484, and joined the earl of Richmond at Paris. He commanded the Archers at the battle of Bosworth. Malone.

8 Sir James Blunt,] He had been captain of the Castle of Hames, and assisted the Earl of Oxford in his escape. Malone. 9 That spoil'd your summer fields, and fruitful vines,

Swills your warm blood &c.] This sudden change from the past time to the present, and vice versa, is common in Shakspeare. So, in the argument prefixed to his Rape of Lucrece:" The same night he treacherously stealeth into her chamber, violently ravished her," &c.

Malone.

1 -embowel'd bosoms,] Exenterated; ripped up: alluding, perhaps, to the Promethean vulture; or, more probably, to the sentence pronounced in the English courts against traitors, by which they are condemned to be hanged, drawn, that is, embowelled, and quartered. Johnson.

Drawn, in the sentence pronounced upon traitors only, signifies to be drawn by the heels or on a hurdle from the prison to the place of execution. So, Dr. Johnson has properly expounded it

Lies now? even in the centre of this isle,

Near to the town of Leicester, as we learn:
From Tamworth thither, is but one day's march.
In God's name, cheerly on, courageous friends,
To reap the harvest of perpetual peace

By this one bloody trial of sharp war.

Oxf. Every man's conscience is a thousand swords,3 To fight against that bloody homicide.

Herb. I doubt not, but his friends will turn to us. Blunt. He hath no friends, but who are friends for fear; Which, in his dearest need, will fly from him.

Richm. All for our vantage. Then, in God's name,

march:

True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings, Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.

Bosworth Field.

Enter King RICHARD, and Forces; the Duke of NORFOLK, Earl of SURREY, and Others.

K. Rich. Here pitch our tents, even here in Bosworth field.

My lord of Surrey, why look you so sad?

in Measure for Measure, Act II. So, Holinshed, in the year 1569, and Stowe's Chronicle, edit. 1614, p. 162, 171, 418, 763, 766. Sometimes our historians use a colloquial inaccuracy of expres sion in writing, hanged, drawn, and quartered; but they often express it-drawn, hanged, and quartered; and sometimes they add-bowelled, or his bowels taken out, which would be tauto logy, if the same thing was implied in the word drawn.

Tollet.

Drawn in the sense of embowelled, is never used but in speak. ing of a fowl. It is true, embowelling is also part of the sentence in high treason, but in order of time it comes after drawing and hanging. Blackstone.

2 Lies now-]i. e. sojourns. See Vol. IX, p. 105, n. 2.-For lies, the reading of the quarto, the editors of the folio, probably not understanding the term, substituted-Is. See p. 167, n. 8.

3

Malone.

- conscience is a thousand swords,] Alluding to the old adage, "Conscientia mille testes." Blackstone.

Thus the quarto. The folio reads-a thousand men. Malone. 4 and flies with swallow's wings,] Drayton calls joy:

the swallow-winged joy." Steevens.