"_K. Henry._ O foolish youth! Thou seek'st a greatness that will overwhelm thee. Stay but a little; for my cloud of dignity Is held from falling by so weak a wind, That it will quickly drop; my day is dim. Thou hast stolen THAT, which after some few hours Were thine without offence; and at my death Thou hast sealed up my expectation; Thy life did manifest thou lovedst me not; And thou wilt have me die assured of it. "_P. Henry._ O pardon me, my Liege! but for my tears, (The moist impediments unto my speech,) I had forestalled this clear and deep rebuke, Ere you with grief had spoke, and I had heard The course of it so far. There is your CROWN-- And He that wears the crown immortally Long guard it yours!---- Coming to look on you, thinking you dead, (And dead almost, my Liege, to think you were,) I spake unto the crown, as having sense, And thus upbraided it. 'The care on thee depending Hath fed upon the body of my father; Therefore thou best of gold art worst of gold; Other, less fine in carat, is more precious, Preserving life, in medicine potable: But thou, most fine, most honoured, most renowned, Hast eat thy bearer up!'" It is the same prince who afterwards so well apostrophizes his own greatness:-- "O, be sick, great Greatness! And bid thy ceremony give thee cure. Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out With titles blown from adulation? Will it give place to flexure and low bending? Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee, Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream, That play'st so subtly with a king's repose, I am a king that find thee; and I know, 'Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball, The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, The intertissued robe of gold and pearl, The farsed title running 'fore the king, The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp That beats upon the high shoar of this world; No, not all these thrice gorgeous ceremonies, Not all these, laid in bed majestical, Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave." FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 10: In the Archaeologia, vol. xv. art. 24, is "A true and perfect Inventory of all the Plate and Jewells now being in the Upper Jewell House of the Tower, in the charge of Sir Henry Mildmay, together with an appraisement of them, made and taken the 13th, 14th, and 15th daies of August, 1649;" containing the following account of "crowns," &c. demolished:-- L. _s._ _d._ "The imperiall crowne of massy gold, weighing 7 lb. 6 oz. valued at 1110 0 0 The queene's crowne of massy gold, weighing 3 lb. 10 oz. 338 3 4 A small crowne found in an iron chest formerly in the Lord Cottingham's charge, &c.: