Your gracious self to take on you the charge
And kingly government of this your land;-
Not as protector, steward, substitute,
Or lowly factor for another's gain;
But as successively, from blood to blood,
Your right of birth, your empery, your own.
For this, consorted with the citizens,
Your very worshipful and loving friends,
And by their vehement instigation,
In this just suit come I to move your grace.
Glo. I cannot tell if to depart in silence
Or bitterly to speak in your reproof
Best fitteth my degree or your condition:
If not to answer, you might haply think
Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded
To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,
Which fondly you would here impose on me;
If to reprove you for this suit of yours,
So seasoned with your faithful love to me,
Then, on the other side, I checked my friends.
Therefore, to speak, and to avoid the first,
And then, in speaking, not to incur the last,
Definitively thus I answer you.

Your love deserves my thanks; but my desert
Unmeritable shuns your high request.

First, if all obstacles were cut away,
And that my path were even to the crown,
As the ripe revenue and due by birth;
Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,
So mighty and so many my defects,

As I had rather hide me from my greatness,--
Being a bark to brook no mighty sea,-
Than in my greatness covet to be hid,
And in the vapour of my glory smell

But, God be thanked, there is no need of me,
And much I need to help you, if need were;—
The royal tree hath left us royal fruit,

Which, mellowed by the stealing hours of time,
Will well become the seat of majesty,

And make, no doubt. us happy by his reign
On him I lay what you would lay on me,—
The right and fortune of his happy stars ;

Which God defend that I should wring from him!
Buck. My lord, this argues conscience in your

grace;

But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,
All circumstances well considered.

You say that Edward is your brother's son:
So say we too, but not by Edward's wife;
For first he was contract to Lady Lucy—
Your mother lives a witness to his vow,-
And afterwards by substitute betrothed
To Bona, sister to the King of France.
These both put by, a poor petitioner,
A care-crazed mother of a many children,
A beauty-waning and distresséd widow,
Even in the afternoon of her best days,
Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,
Seduced the pitch and height of his degree
To base declension and loathed bigamy:
By her, in his unlawful bed, he got

This Edward, whom our manners call the prince.
More bitterly could I expostulate,

Save that, for reverence to some alive,

I give a sparing limit to my tongue.

Then, good my lord, take to your royal seif

This proffered benefit of dignity,

If not to bless us and the land withal,

Yet to draw forth your

noble ancestry

From the corruption of abusing time,

Unto a lineal true-derivéd course.

May. Do, good, my lord; your citizens entreat

you,

Buck. Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffered

love.

Cate. O, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit!

Glo. Alas, why would you heap these cares on me?

I am unfit for state and majesty :-
I do beseech you, take it not amiss;
I cannot nor I will not yield to you.

Buck. If you refuse it,—as, in love and zeal,
Loth to depose the child, your brother's son ;
As well we know your tenderness of heart,
And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,
Which we have noted in you to your kin,
And egally indeed to all estates,-

Yet whether you accept our suit or no,
Your brother's son shall never reign our king;
But we will plant some other in the throne,
To the disgrace and downfall of your house:
And in this resolution here we leave you.—
Come, citizens: zounds, I'll entreat no more.
Glo. O, do not swear, my lord of Buckingham.

[Exit BUCKINGHAM with some of the Citizens. Cate. Call them again, sweet prince, accept their suit.

If you deny them all the land will rue it.

Glo. Would you enforce me to a world of care? Call them again. [CATESBY goes to the Mayor, &c., and then exit.] I am not made of stones,

But penetrable to your kind entreats,

Albeit against my conscience and my soul.

Re-enter BUCKINGHAM and CATESBY, the Mayor, &c., coming forward.

Cousin of Buckingham, and you sage, grave men,
Since you will buckle fortune on my back,
To bear her burden, whether I will or no,
I must have patience to endure the load :
But if black scandal or foul-faced reproach
Attend the sequel of your imposition,

Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me
From all the impure blots and stains thereof;
For God He knows, and you may partly see,
How far I am from the desire of this.

May. God bless your grace! we see it, and will say it.

Glo. In saying so, you shall but say the truth. Buck. Then I salute you with this kingly title: Long live King Richard, England's worthy king! May. and Cit. Amen.

Buck. To-morrow may it please you to be crowned ?

Glo. Even when you please, since you will have it so.

Buck. To-morrow, then, we will attend your

grace:

And so most joyfully we take our leave.

Glo. Come, let us to our holy task again.

Farewell, good cousin ;-farewell, gentle friends.

[Exeunt

ACT IV.

SCENE I.-London.

Before the Tower.

Enter, on one side, Queen ELIZABETH, Duchess of YORK, and Marquess of DORSET; on the other, ANNE, Duchess of GLOSTER, leading Lady MARGARET PLANTAGENET, CLARENCE'S young Daughter.

Duch. Who meets us here? my niece Plantagenet.

Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloster? Now, for my life, she's wandering to the Tower, On pure heart's love, to greet the tender princes. Daughter, well met.

Anne.

God give your graces both

A happy and a joyful time of day!

Q. Eliz. As much to you, good sister! Whither away?

Anne. No farther than the Tower; and, as I

guess,

Upon the like devotion as yourselves,
To gratulate the gentle princes there.

Q. Eliz. Kind sister, thanks: we'll enter all together.

And, in good time, here the lieutenant comes.

Enter BRAKENBURY.

Master lieutenant, pray you, by your leave,

How doth the prince, and my young son of York? Brak. Right well, dear madam.

tience,

I may not suffer you to visit them;

By your pa