Even like a man new haled from the rack, And death approach not ere my tale be donc. These eyes,-like lamps whose wasting oil is During whose reign, the Percies of the north, spent, Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent :2 Weak shoulders, overborne with burd'ning grief, 1 Keep. Richard Plantagenet, my lord, will come: We sent unto the Temple, to his chamber; And answer was return'd that he will come. Mor. Enough; my soul shall then be satisfied. Poor gentleman! his wrong doth equal mine. Since Henry Monmouth first began to reign (Before whose glory I was great in arms,) 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 umpire 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 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, Mor. I will; if that my fading breath permit, Edmund Mortimer, who was trusted and employed by Henry V. throughout his reign, died of the plague in his own castle at Trim, in Ireland, in 1424-5; being then only thirty-two years old. I The heralds that, fore-running death, proclaim its approach. 2 Erigent is here used for end. 3 Pith is used figuratively for strength. 4 That is, he who terminates or concludes misery. 5 Lately despised. 6 Disease for uneasiness, trouble, or grief. It is used in this sense by other ancient writers. 7 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 in stead of cousin. Finding his usurpation most unjust, From Lionel duke of Clarence, the third son 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 gather :10 But yet be wary in thy studious care. Plan. Thy grave admonishments prevail with me: Mor. With silence, nephew, be thou politic; As princes do their courts, when they are cloy'd Plan. O, uncle, 'would, some part of my young [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.-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 :" at Southampton, the night before Henry sailed from that town for France, on the information of this very earl of March. 10 i. e. I acknowledge thee to be my heir; the conse. quences which may be collected from thence I recom mend it thee to draw. 11 Thus Milton, Paradise Lost, book iv. ;'Like Teneriffe or Atlas unremov'd.' 12 The same thought occurs in the celebrated dialogue between Horace and Lydia. There is some resem. blance 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 peri; sed tu diuturnior annos Vive meos, conjux optime, vive tuos.' 13 i. e. oppressed by those whose right to the crown was not so good as his own. |