His face ftill combating with tears and smiles,
The badges of his grief and patience
That had not God for fome ftrong purpose, steel'd
The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted ;:
And barbarifm itself have pitied him.

VIOLET S.

SCENE IV.

*Who are the violets now,

That strew the green lap of the new-come spring?"

SCENE X. K. Richard's Soliloquy in Prison..

I have been studying how to compare,
This prifon, where I live, unto the world;
And, for becaufe the world is populous,
And here is not a creature but my self,
I cannot do it; yet I'll hammer on't.
My brain I'll prove the female to my foul,.
My foul, the father; and thefe two beget
A generation of ftill breeding thoughts

And these fame thoughts people this little world,,
In humour, like the people of this world,
For no thought is contented.---

* * * *

* * *

Thoughts tending to content, flatter themselves;
That they are not the first of fortune's flaves,
And fhall not be the laft: (like filly beggars,
Who, fitting in the ftocks, refuge their fhame,
That many have, and others must fit there )
And in this thought they find a kind of ease,

Who, &c.] Milton doubtless had this paffage in his eye, when in his pretty fong, On May-morning, he wrote,

Now the bright morning-ftar, day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the eaft, and leads with her
The flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowflip, and the vale primrofe.

Bearing

Bearing their own misfortune on the back
Of fuch as have before endur'd the like..
Thus play I, in one prifon, many people,
And none contented. Sometimes am I king,
Then treafon makes me wish myself a beggar,
And fo I am. Then crushing penury
Persuades me, I was better when a king;
Then am I king'd again; and by and by,
Think, that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,
And strait am nothing-But what-e'er I am,
Nor I, nor any man, that but man is,
With nothing shall be pleas'd, till he be eas'd
With being nothing.

*

The Life and Death of King

RICHARD III.

ACTI. SCENE I.

Richard, on his own Deformity.

NOW

OW are our brows bound with victorious wreaths, Our bruifed arms hung up for monuments; Our stern alarums chang'd to me.ry meetings; Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. Grim-vifag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front; And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds To fight the fouls of fearful adverfaries, He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber, To the lafcivious pleafing of a lute.

(1) But I, that am not thap'd for fportive tricks,
Nor made to court an am'rous looking glass,
I, that am rudely ftampt, and want love's majefty,
To ftrut before a wanton, ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by diffembling nature,
Deform'd, unfinish'd, fent before my time
Into this breathing world, fcarce half made up,
And that fo lamely, and unfashionably,

That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them:

Why I, (in this weak piping time of peace)

(1) But, &c.] See Longinus on the Sublime. fect. 38. the lat

ter end.

Have

Have no delight to pafs away the time;
Unless to spy my fhadow in the fun,
And defcant on my own deformity.
And therefore, fince I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain thefe fair well. fpoken days
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleafures of thefe days..

SCENE II. Richard's Love for Lady Anne.

Thofe eyes of thine from mine have drawn falt tears Sham'd their aspects with ftore of childish drops: These eyes, which never fhed remorseful tear, Not when my father York, and Edward wept, To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made; When black-fac'd Clifford fhook his fword at him; Nor when thy war like father, like a child, Told the fad ftory of my father's death, And twenty times made pause to sob and weep, That all the ftanders-by had wet their cheeks, Like trees be-dash'd with rain in that fad time, My manly eyes did fcorn an humble tear: And what thefe forrows could not thence exhase, Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping. I never fued to friend, nor enemy;

My tongue could never learn fweet (moothing words

But now my beauty is propos'd my fee,

My proud heart fues, and prompts my tongue to fpeak.

On his awn Perfon, after his fuccessful Addresses.

My dukedom to a beggarly denier,

I do mistake my perfon all this while :
Upon my life, fhe finds, although I cannot,
Myfelf to be a marv'lous, proper man.
I'll be at charges for a looking-glafs,

See Othello, p. 161, n. 3,

Ane

And entertain a score or two of taylors,
To study fashions to adorn my body :
Since I am crept in favour with myself,
I will maintain it with fome little coft.

SCENE IV. Queen Margaret's Execrations.. The worm of confcience ftill be-gnaw thy foul; Thy friends fufpect for traitors while thou liv'ft, And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends: No fleep close up that deadly eye of thine, Unless it be when fome tormenting dream Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils! Thou elvish markt abortive, rooting hog! Thou that was feal'd in thy nativity (2) The flave of nature, and the fon of hell! Thou flander of thy heavy mother's womb! Thou loathed iffue of thy father's loins! (3) Thou rag of honour, thou detefted.

High Birth.

I was born fo high,

Our airy buildeth in the Cedar's top,

And dallies with the wind, and fcorns the fun.

(2) The flave of nature] She afterwards fays, Sin death and hell have fet their marks upon him. Mr. Warburton observes, "that the expreffion in the text is strong and noble, and alludes to an antient cuftom of masters branding of their flaves: by which it is infinuated, that his mis-fh pen perfon was a mark that nature had fet upon him to ftigmatize his ill conditions." It has been long fince obferved, that

Diftortum vultum fequitur diftortio morum.

A face diftorted generally proclaims

Diftorted manners.

(3) Rag, &c.] Richard fpeaking of Richmond and his followers in the last act of this play fays,

Lash hence thefe over-weening rags of France,
These famish'd beggars weary of their lives.

Richard's