And instantly return with me again,

To push destruction, and perpetual shame,
Out of the weak door of our fainting land :

Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought;
The Dauphin rages at our very heels.

Sal. It seems, you know not then so much as we;
The cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,
Who half an hour since came from the Dauphin
And brings from him such offers of our peace
As we with honour and respect may take,
With purpose presently to leave this war.

Bast. He will the rather do it, when he sees
Ourselves well sinewed to our defence.

Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already;
For many carriages he hath despatch'd
To the sea-side, and put his cause and quarrel
To the disposing of the cardinal :

With whom yourself, myself, and other lords,
If you think meet, this afternoon will post
To consummate this business happily.

Bast. Let it be so :-And you, my noble prince,
With other princes that may best be spar'd,
Shall wait upon your father's funeral.

P. Hen. At Worcester must his body be interr'd ;!
For so he will'd it.

Bast. Thither shall it then.

And happily may your sweet self put on
The lineal state and glory of the land!

To whom, with all submission, on my knee,

I do bequeath my faithful services

And true subjection everlastingly.

Sal. And the like tender of our love we make,

To rest without a spot forevermore.

P. Hen. I have a kind soul, that would give you thanks,

And knows not how to do it, but with tears.

Bast. O, let us pay the time but needful woe,* Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.This England never did, (nor never shall,)

[1] A stone coffin containing the body of King John, was discovered in the cathedral church at Worcester, July 17, 1797. STEEVENS.

[2] Let us now indulge in sorrow, since there is abundant cause for it. England has been long in a scene of confusion, and its calamities have anticipated our tears. By those which we now shed, we only pay her what is her due. MALONE.

Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,

But when it first did help to wound itself.

Now these her princes are come home again,

Come the three corners of the world in arms,

And we shall shock them: Nought shall make us rue, If England to itself do rest but true.

[Exeunt

RICHARD THE SECOND.

OBSERVATIONS.

THE LIFE AND Death of KingG RICHARD II.] But this history comprises little more than the two last years of this prince. The action of the drama begins with Bolingbroke's appealing the Duke of Norfolk, on an accusation of high treason, which fell out in the year 1398; and it closes with the murder of King Richard at Pomfret Castle towards the end of the year 1400, or the beginning of the ensuing year. THEOBALD.

It is evident from a passage in Camden's Annals, that there was an old play on the subject of Richard the Second; but I know not in what language. Sir Gillie Merick, who was concerned in the hare-brained business of the Earl of Essex, who was hanged for it, with the ingenious Cuffe, in 1601, is accused, amongst other things, "quod exoletam tragoediam de tragicâ abdicatione regis Ricardi Secundi in publico theatro coram conjuratis datâ pecuniâ agi curasset.”

I have since met with a passage in my Lord Bacon, which proves this play to have been in English. It is in the arraignments of Cuffe and Merick, Vol. IV. p. 412, of Mallet's edition: "The afternoon before the rebellion, Merick, with a great company of others, that afterwards were all in the action, had procured to be played before them the play of deposing King Richard the Second ;when it was told him by one of the players, that the play was old, and they should have loss in playing it, because few would come to it, there was forty shillings extraordinary given to play, and so thereupon played it was."

It may be worth inquiry, whether some of the rhyming parts of the present play, which Mr. Pope thought of a different hand, might not be borrowed from the old one. Certainly, however, the general tendency of it must have