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Betwixt thy begging and my meditation.
I am not in the giving vein to-day.

clock-houfe. See Cowley's Difcourfe on the Government of Oliver Cromwell. [Vol. II. p. 650, edit. 1710.] Richard resembles Buckingham to one of those automatons, and bids him not sufpend the ftroke on the clock-bell, but ftrike, that the hour may be past, and himself be at liberty to pursue his meditations. SIR J. HAWKINS. So, in The Fleire, a comedy, 1610:-" their tongues are, like a Jack o' the clock, ftill in labour."

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Again, in The Coxcomb, by Beaumont and Fletcher:
Is this your Jack o' the clock-house?
"Will you ftrike, fir?"

Again, in a pamphlet by Deckar, called the Guls Hornbook, 1609: "—but howfoever, if Powles Jacks be once up with their elbowes, and quarrelling to strike eleven, as soon as ever the clock has parted them, and ended the fray with his hammer, let not the duke's gallery conteyne you any longer."

Perhaps thefe figures were called Jacks, becaufe the engines of that name which turn the spit were anciently ornamented with fuch a puppet. In The Gentleman Ufher, a comedy, by Chapman, 1606, they are alluding to a roafting Jack, and a man says: as in that quaint engine you have seen "A little man in fhreds ftand at the winder, "And feem to put all things in act about him, "Lifting and pulling with a mighty stir,

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"Yet adds no force to it, nor nothing does."

In Lantern and Candle-light, or The Bellman's Second Nightwalk, &c. by Deckar, is a paffage " of a new and cunning drawing of money from gentlemen," which may tend to a somewhat different explanation of the word-ftrike: "There is another fraternitie of wandring pilgrims, who merrily call themselves Jackes of the clock-houfe. The jacke of a clock-house goes upon fcrews, and his office is to do nothing but firike: fo does this noife (for they walke up and down like fidlers) travaile with motions, and whatever their motions get them, is called ftriking." STEEVENS.

A Jack with fuch a figure as Chapman hath described, was for many years exhibited, as a fign, at the door of a White-Smith's shop in the narroweft part of the Strand. HENLEY.

These automatons were called Jacks of the clock-house, because Jack in our author's time was a common appellation for a mean, contemptible fellow, employed by others in fervile offices. See Vol. VI. p. 18, n. 8. MALONE.

BUCK. Why, then refolve me whe'r you will, or

no.

K. RICH. Thou troubleft me; I am not in the vein.

[Exeunt King RICHARD and Train.

BUCK. And is it thus? repays he my deep fervice With fuch contempt ? made I him king for this? O, let me think on Haftings; and be gone To Brecknock, while my fearful head is on.

[Exit.

SCENE III.

The fame.

Enter TYRREL.

TYR. The tyrannous and bloody act is done;
The most arch deed of piteous maffacre,
That ever yet this land was guilty of.
Dighton, and Forreft, whom I did fuborn
To do this piece of ruthless butchery,

Albeit they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs,
Melting with tenderness and mild compaffion,
Wept like two children, in their death's fad story.
O thus, quoth Dighton, lay the gentle babes,—
Thus, thus, quoth Forreft, girdling one another
Within their alabafter innocent arms:
Their lips were four red rofes on a fialk,
Which, in their fummer beauty, kifs'd each other.

4 To Brecknock,] To the Caftle of Brecknock in Wales, where the Duke of Buckingham's eftate lay. MALONE.

A book of prayers on their pillow lay;5
Which once, quoth Forreft, almoft chang'd my mind;
But, 0, the devil-there the villain stopp'd;
When Dighton thus told on,-we fmothered
The most replenished sweet work of nature,
That, from the prime creation, e'er fhe fram'd.-
Hence both are gone with confcience and remorse,
They could not speak; and fo I left them both,
To bear this tidings to the bloody king.

Enter King RICHARD.

And here he comes :-All health, my fovereign lord!

K. RICH. Kind Tyrrel! am I happy in thy news? TYR. If to have done the thing you gave in charge Beget your happiness, be happy then,

For it is done.

K. RICH.

But didft thou fee them dead?

TYR. I did, my lord.

K. RICH.

And buried, gentle Tyrrel?

5 O thus, quoth Dighton, lay the gentle babes,Thus, thus, quoth Forreft, girdling one another Within their alabafter innocent arms :

A book of prayers on their pillow lay ;] Thefe circumstances were probably adopted from the old fong of The most cruel Murther of Edward V. &c. in The Golden Garland of Princely Delight. The thirteenth edition of this collection was published in 1690: "When these sweet children thus were laid in bed, "And to the Lord their hearty prayers had faid, "Sweet flumbring fleep then clofing up their eyes, "Each folded in the other's arms then lies."

It must be owned, however, that there is nothing to affift us in ascertaining the exact date of this and many other of our ancient ballads. STEEVENS.

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TYR. The chaplain of the Tower hath buried

them;

But where, to say the truth, I do not know.

K. RICH. Come to me, Tyrrel, foon, at after fup

per,

When thou shalt tell the process of their death.
Mean time, but think how I may do thee good,
And be inheritor of thy defire.

Farewell, till then.

TYR.

I humbly take my leave. [Exit. K. RICH. The fon of Clarence have I pen'd up

clofe;"

His daughter meanly have I match'd in marriage ;7 The fons of Edward fleep in Abraham's bosom, And Anne my wife hath bid the world good night. Now, for I know the Bretagne Richmond aims

The fon of Clarence have I pen'd up clofe ;] In Sheriff Hutton Caftle, Yorkshire; where he remained till the coming of Henry VII. who immediately after the battle of Bosworth fent him to the Tower, and fome few years after, moft treacherously and barbarously put him to death; being, from a total want of education and commerce with mankind, fo ignorant, that he could not, according to Hall, difcern a goofe from a capon. With this unfortunate young nobleman ended the male line of the illuftrious house of Plantagenet. RITSON.

7 His daughter meanly have I match'd in marriage ;] To Sir Richard Pole, Knt. This lady, at feventy years of age, without any legal procefs, and for no crime but her relation to the crown, was beheaded in the Tower by that fanguinary tyrant Henry VIII. Her fon, Lord Montague, had been put to death a few years before, in the same manner, and for the fame crime; and the famous Cardinal Pole, another of her children, only escaped the fate of his mother and brother, by keeping out of the butcher's reach. RITSON.

8

the Bretagne Richmond-] He thus denominates Richmond, because after the battle of Tewksbury he had taken refuge in the court of Francis II. Duke of Bretagne, where by the procurement of King Edward IV. he was kept a long time in a kind of honourable cuftody. See note on fc. iv. MALONE.

At young Elizabeth, my brother's daughter,
And, by that knot, looks proudly on the crown,
To her go I, a jolly thriving wooer.

Enter CATESBY.

CATE. My lord,.

K. RICH. Good news or bad, that thou com'ft in
fo bluntly?

CATE. Bad news, my lord: Morton is fled to
Richmond;

And Buckingham, back'd with the hardy Welsh

men,

Is in the field, and ftill his power encreaseth.

K. RICH. Ely with Richmond troubles me more

near,

Than Buckingham and his rash-levied strength. Come, I have learn'd, that fearful commenting Is leaden fervitor 9 to dull delay;

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Delay leads impotent and fnail-pac'd beggary:
Then fiery expedition' be my wing,
Jove's Mercury, and herald for a king!
Go, mufter men: My counsel is my fhield:
We must be brief, when traitors brave the field.

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-fearful commenting

[Exeunt.

Is leaden fervitor-] Timorous thought and cautious disquifition are the dull attendants on delay. JOHNSON.

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