This loathsome sequestration have I had;
And even since then hath Richard been obscur'd,
Deprived of honour and inheritance:

But now, the arbitrator of despairs,

Just death, kind umpire5 of men's miseries,
With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence;
I would, his troubles likewise were expir'd,
That so he might recover what was lost.

Enter RICHARD PLANTAGENET.

1 Keep. My lord, your loving nephew now is come.
Mor. Richard Plantagenet, my friend? Is he come?
Plan. Ay, noble uncle, thus ignobly us'd,
Your nephew, late-despised Richard, comes.
Mor. Direct mine arms, I may embrace his neck,
And in his bosom spend my latter gasp:

O, tell me, when my lips do touch his cheeks,
That I may kindly give one fainting kiss.—
And now declare, sweet stem from York's great
stock,

Why didst thou say-of late thou wert despis'd?
Plan. First, lean thine aged back against mine arm;
And, in that ease, I'll tell thee my disease.
This day, in argument upon a case,

5 That is, he who terminates or concludes misery. The expression is harsh and forced here; but occurs with greater propriety in Romeo and Juliet:

'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife

Shall play the umpire, arbitrating that,' &c.

6 Lately despised.

7 Disease for uneasiness, trouble, or grief. It is used in this sense by other ancient writers. Thus Spenser's Faerie Queene, vi. v. 40:

'That night they pass'd in great disease,

Till that the morning bringing early light,

To guide men's labours, brought them also ease.'

So in Coriolanus, Act i. Sc. 3:

'As she is now, she will disease our better mirth.'

Some words there grew 'twixt Somerset and me:
Among which terms he used his lavish tongue,
And did upbraid me with my father's death;
Which obloquy set bars before my tongue,
Else with the like I had requited him:
Therefore, good uncle,- for my father's sake,
In honour of a true Plantagenet,

And for alliance' sake,-declare the cause
My father, earl of Cambridge, lost his head.

Mor. That cause, fair nephew, that imprison'd me, And hath detain'd me, all my flow'ring youth, Within a loathsome dungeon, there to pine, Was cursed instrument of his decease.

Plan. Discover more at large what cause that was; For I am ignorant, and cannot guess.

Mor. I will; if that my fading breath permit, And death approach not ere my tale be done. Henry the Fourth, grandfather to this king, Depos'd his nephew Richard; Edward's son, The first-begotten, and the lawful heir

8

Of Edward king, the third of that descent:
During whose reign, the Percies of the north,
Finding his usurpation most unjust,

Endeavour'd my advancement to the throne:
The reason mov'd these warlike lords to this,
Was-for that (young King Richard thus remov'd,
Leaving no heir begotten of his body)

8 Nephew has sometimes the power of the Latin nepos, signifying grandchild, and is used with great laxity among our ancient English writers. It is here used instead of cousin. Ritson has remarked that both uncle and nephew might formerly signify cousin; for in The Troublesome Raigne of King John, Part II. Prince Henry calls his cousin, the bastard, uncle. In French, as in Latin, neveu signified grandchild, and by a prefix several other degrees of consanguinity. See The Menagiana, vol. ii. p. 191, &c. ed. Amst. 1713. Malone thinks that the mistake here arose from the author's ignorance in conceiving Richard to he Henry's nephew.

I was the next by birth and parentage;
For by my mother I derived am

From Lionel duke of Clarence, the third son
To King Edward the Third, whereas he,
From John of Gaunt doth bring his pedigree,
Being but fourth of that heroick line.

9

But mark; as, in this haughty great attempt,
They laboured to plant the rightful heir,

I lost my liberty, and they their lives.
Long after this, when Henry the Fifth,-
Succeeding his father Bolingbroke,-did reign,
Thy father, earl of Cambridge,-then deriv'd
From famous Edmund Langley, duke of York,-
Marrying my sister, that thy mother was,
Again, in pity of my hard distress,
Levied an army; weening 10 to redeem,
And have install'd me in the diadem:
But, as the rest, so fell that noble earl,
And was beheaded. Thus the Mortimers,
In whom the title rested, were suppress'd.

Plan. Of which, my lord, your honour is the last. Mor. True; and thou seest, that I no issue have; And that my fainting words do warrant death: Thou art my heir; the rest, I wish thee gather111: But yet be wary in thy studious care.

Plan. Thy grave admonishments prevail with me : But yet, methinks, my father's execution Was nothing less than bloody tyranny.

Mor. With silence, nephew, be thou politick;

9 Haughty is high, lofty. So in the fourth act:Valiant and virtuous, full of haughty courage.'

10 i. e. thinking. This is another falsification of history. Cambridge levied no army; but was apprehended at Southampton, the night before Henry sailed from that town for France, on the information of this very earl of March.

11 i. e. I acknowledge thee to be my heir; the consequences which may be collected from thence I recommend it thee to draw.

Strong-fixed is the house of Lancaster,
And, like a mountain, not to be remov'd 12.
But now thy uncle is removing hence;

As princes do their courts, when they are cloy'd
With long continuance in a settled place.

Plan. O, uncle, 'would, some part of my young

years

Might but redeem the passage of your age 13!

Mor. Thou dost then wrong me; as the slaught'rer doth,

Which giveth many wounds, when one will kill.
Mourn not, except thou sorrow for my good;
Only, give order for my funeral;

And so farewell: and fair be all thy hopes!
And prosperous be thy life, in peace, and war!

[Dies.
Plan. And peace, no war, befall thy parting soul!
In prison hast thou spent a pilgrimage,
And like a hermit overpass'd thy days.-
Well, I will lock his counsel in my breast;
And what I do imagine, let that rest.-

12 Thus Milton, Paradise Lost, book iv.:-
'Like Teneriffe or Atlas unremov'd.'

13 The same thought occurs in the celebrated dialogue between Horace and Lydia. There is some resemblance to it in the following lines, supposed to be addressed by a married lady, who died very young, to her husband. Malone thinks that the inscription is in the church of Trent:

'Immatura perî; sed tu diuturnior annos
Vive meos, conjux optime, vive tuos.

Some traces of a superstitious belief that this was possible may
be found in the traditions of the Rabbins; it is enlarged upon
in the Alcestes of Euripides. Such offers are ridiculed by Juve-
nal, Sat. xii. Dion Cassius insinuates that Hadrian sacrificed
his favourite Antinous with this design. Reimarius Annot. in
Dion Cass. vol. ii. p. 1160; ed. Hamburg.
'De nostris annis,
tibi Jupiter augeat annos,' said the Romans to Augustus.-See
Lister's Journey to Paris, p. 221. Mr. Pye justly remarks that
the offer would never be made unless known to be impossible;
it is a mere hyperbolical compliment.

Keepers, convey him hence; and I myself
Will see his burial better than his life.

[Exeunt Keepers, bearing out MORTIMER. Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer, Chok'd with ambition of the meaner sort 14:And, for those wrongs, those bitter injuries, Which Somerset hath offer'd to my house,I doubt not, but with honour to redress: And therefore haste I to the parliament; Either to be restored to my blood,

Or make my ill 15 the advantage of my good.

[Exit.

- ACT III.

SCENE I. The same.

The Parliament House1.

Flourish. Enter KING HENRY, EXETER, GLOSTER, WARWICK, SOMERSET, and SUFFOLK ; the Bishop of Winchester, RICHARD PLANTAGENET, and Others. GLOSTER offers to put up a Bill: Winchester snatches it, and tears it. Win. Com'st thou with deep premeditated lines, With written pamphlets studiously devis'd, Humphrey of Gloster? if thou canst accuse,

14 i. e. oppressed by those whose right to the crown was not so good as his own.

15 My ill is my ill usage. This sentiment resembles another of Falstaff, in the Second Part of King Henry IV.:-'I will turn diseases to commodity.'

1 This parliament was held in 1426 at Leicester, though here represented to have been held in London. King Henry was now in the fifth year of his age. In the first parliament, which was held at London shortly after his father's death, his mother Queen Katharine brought the young king from Windsor to the metropolis, and sat on the throne with the infant in her lap.

2 i. e. articles of accusation.