it had exhibited the natural language of submissive misery, conforming its intention to the present fortune, and calmly ending its purposes in death." Now, it is most certain that Shakspere had no intention to exhibit "the natural language of submissive misery." Such a purpose would have been utterly foreign to the great ideal truth of his conception of Richard's character. Again, in the interview with the queen, when Richard says,

"Tell thou the lamentable fall of me,

And send the hearers weeping to their beds. For why, the senseless brands will sympathize," &c.,

Johnson observes, "The poet should have ended this speech with the foregoing line, and have spared his childish prattle about the fire." Mr. Monck Mason very innocently remarks upon this comment of Johnson, "This is certainly childish prattle, but it is of the same stamp with the other speeches of Richard after the landing of Bolingbroke, which are a strange medley of sense and puerility." Of course they are so. There are, probably, no passages of criticism upon Shakspere that more forcibly point out to us, than these of Johnson and his followers do, the absurdity of trying a poet by laws which he had of purpose cast off and spurned. Had Johnson been applying his test of excellence to the conventional kings and heroes of the French stage, and of the English stage of his own day, he might have been nearer the truth. But Shakspere undertook to show us, not only a fallen king, but a fallen man. Richard stands before us in the nakedness of humanity, stripped of the artificial power which made his strength. The props are cut away upon which he leaned. He is,

"in shape and mind, Transform'd and weaken'd,"

humbled to the lot of the commonest slave,

to

"feel want, taste grief,

Need friends."

This is the Richard of our poet. Is it not

the Richard of history? We must trespass upon the patience of the reader while we run through the play, that we may properly note the dependence of its events upon its characters.

Froissart has given us the key to two of the most remarkable and seemingly opposite traits of Richard's mind,-cunning and credulity. Speaking of his devising the death of his uncle of Gloster, Froissart says, "King Richard of England noted well these said words, the which was showed him in secretness; and, like an imaginative prince as he was, within a season after that his uncles of Lancaster and of York were departed out of the court, then the king took more hardiness on him." Lord Berners, the translator of Froissart, always uses "imaginative" in the sense of deviceful, crafty,-following his original. As to the king's credulity, the same accurate observer, who knew the characters of his own days well, thus speaks :— "King Richard of England had a condition that, if he loved a man, he would make him so great, and so near him, that it was marvel to consider, and no man durst speak to the contrary; and also he would lightly believe sooner than any other king of remembrance before him." Upon these historical truths is Skakspere's Richard, in the first scenes of this drama, the absolute Richard,—founded. But with what skill has Shakspere indicated the evil parts of Richard's character—just as much as, and no more than, is sufficient to qualify our pity for his fall. We learn from Gaunt that Richard was the real cause of Gloster's death;-the matter is once mentioned, and there an end. We ourselves see his arbitrary bearing in the banishment of Bolingbroke and Norfolk; his moral cowardice in requiring an oath for his own safety from the two enemies that he was at that moment oppressing; his meanness in taunting Gaunt with his "party-verdict" as to his son's banishment; his levity in mitigating the sentence after it had been solemnly delivered. After this scene we have an exhibition of his cold-hearted rapacity in wishing for the death of Gaunt :— "Now put it, Heaven, in his physician's mind To help him to his grave immediately!

The lining of his coffers shall make coats
To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars."

This prepares us for the just reproaches of his dying uncle in the next act ;-when the dissembling king is moved from his craft to an exhibition of childish passion toward the stern but now powerless Gaunt, before whom he had trembled till he saw him on a deathbed. The

"make pale our cheek"

was not a random expression. The king again speaks in this way when he hears of the defection of the Welsh under Salisbury

"Have I not reason to look pale and dead?"

Richard, who was of a ruddy complexion, exhibited in his cheeks the internal workings of fear or rage. This was a part of his

weakness of character. The writer of the 'Metrical History'* twice notices the peculiarity. When the king received a defying message from the Irish chieftain, the French knight, who was present, says, "This speech was not agreeable to the king; it appeared to me that his face grew pale with anger." When he heard of the landing of Bolingbroke, the writer again says, "It seemed to me that the king's face at this turned pale with anger." Richard's indignation at the reproaches of Gaunt is, at once, brutal and childish:

"And let them die, that age and sullens have."

Then comes the final act of despotism, which was to be his ruin :

"We do seize to us The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables, Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd." He is amazed that York is indignant at this outrage. He is deaf to the prophetic denunciation,

"You pluck a thousand dangers on your head."

Still, Shakspere keeps us from the point to which he might have led us, of unmitigated

*Histoire du Roy d'Angleterre Richard,' &c. Of this most curious Poem, written by a French gentleman who was with Richard in Ireland, and bearing the date of 1399, there is an admirable translation in the 20th Volume of the 'Archæologia.'

contempt towards Richard ;-to make us hate him was no part of his purpose. We know that the charges of the discontented nobles against him are just; we almost wish success to their enterprise; but we are most skilfully held back from discovering so much of Richard's character as would have disqualified us from sympathising in his fall. It is highly probable, too, that Shakspere abstained from painting the actual king as an object to be despised, while he stood as "the symbolic, or representative, on which all genial law no less than patriotism, depends."* The poet does not hesitate, when the time is past for reverencing the king or compassionating the man, to speak of Richard, by the mouth of Henry IV., with that contempt which his weakness and his frivolities would naturally excite :—

"The skipping king, he ambled up and down With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits, Soon kindled and soon burn'd: carded his state;

Mingled his royalty with carping fools;
Had his great name profaned with their

scorns;

And gave his countenance, against his name, To laugh at gibing boys," &c.

(Henry IV.,' Part I.)

There is nothing of this bitter satire put in the mouths of any of the speakers 'in Richard II. ;' and the poetical reason for this appears obvious. Yet it is perfectly true, historically, that Richard "carded his state" by indiscriminately mixing with all sorts of favourites, who used the most degrading freedoms towards him.

Bolingbroke (then Henry IV.) thus describes himself to his son :

"And then I stole all courtesy from heaven,
And dress'd myself in such humility,
That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts,
Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths,
Even in the presence of the crowned king."

The Bolingbroke who, in 'Henry IV.,' is thus
retrospectively painted, is the Bolingbroke
in action in Richard II.' The king
"Observed his courtship to the common people."

* Coleridge.

When he returns from banishment, in arms against his unjust lord, he wins Northumberland by his powers of pleasing :—

And yet our fair discourse hath been as sugar." Mark, too, his professions to the "gentle Percy:"

"I count myself in nothing else so happy, As in a soul remembering my good friends." When York accuses him of

"Gross rebellion and detested treason," how temperate, and yet how convincing, is his defence. York remains with him-he "cannot mend it." But Bolingbroke, with all his humility to his uncle, and all his courtesy to his friends, abates not a jot of his determination to be supreme. He announces this in no under-tones-he has no confidences about his ultimate intentions; -but we feel that he has determined to sit on the throne, even while he says, "I am a subject,

And challenge law."

He is, in fact, the king, when he consigns Bushy and Green to the scaffold. He speaks not as one of a council-he neither vindicates nor alludes to his authority. He addresses the victims as the one interpreter of the law; and he especially dwells upon his own personal wrongs :

"See them deliver'd over To execution and the hand of death."

Most skilfully does this violent and uncompromising exertion of authority prepare us for what is to come.

We are arrived at those wonderful scenes which, to our minds, may be classed amongst the very highest creations of art-even of the art of Shakspere. "Barkloughly Castle" is "at hand."-Richard stands upon his "kingdom once again." Around him are armed bands ready to strip him of his crown and life. Does he step upon his "earth” with the self-confiding port of one who will hold it against all foes? The conventional dignity of the king cannot conceal the intellectual weakness of the man: and we see that he must lose his "gentle earth" for

ever. His sensibility-his plastic imagination-his effeminacy, even when strongly moved to love or to hatred-his reliance upon his office more than his own head and heart-doom him to an overthrow. How surpassingly characteristic are the lines in which he addresses his "earth" as if it were a thing of life-a favourite that he could honour and cherish-a friend that would adopt and cling to his cause-a partisan that could throw a shield over him, and defend him from his enemies :

"So, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth, And do thee favour with my royal hands.— Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth," &c.

He feels that this is a "senseless conjuration;" but when Aumerle ventures to say, 66 we are too remiss," he reproaches his "discomfortable cousin," by pointing out to him the heavenly aid that a king might expect. His is not the holy confidence of a highminded chieftain, nor the pious submission of a humble believer. He, indeed, says,"For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown, God, for his Richard, hath in heavenly pay A glorious angel."

But when Salisbury announces that the "Welshmen" are dispersed, Richard, in a moment, forgets the "angels" who will guard the right. His cheek pales at the evil tidings. After a pause, and upon the exhortation of his friends, his "sluggard majesty" awakes; the man still sleeps. How artificial and externally sustained is his confidence :

"Arm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes At thy great glory. Look not to the ground, Ye favourites of a king."

Scroop arrives; and Richard avows that he is prepared for the worst. His fortitude is but a passing support. He dissimulates with himself; for, in an instant, he flies off into a burst of terrific passion at the supposed treachery of his minions. Aumerle, when their unhappy end is explained, like a man of sense casts about for other resources :"Where is the duke my father with his power?"

But Richard abandons himself to his despair, in that most solemn speech, which is at once so touching with reference to the speaker, and so profoundly true in its general application :

"No matter where; of comfort no man speak.”

His grief has now evaporated in words :"This ague-fit of fear is over-blown;

An easy task it is to win our own.

power?"

Richard is positively relieved by knowing

the climax of his misfortunes. The alternations of hope and fear were too much for his indecision. He is forced upon a course, and he is almost happy in his weakness :—

"Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth

Of that sweet way I was in to despair!
What say you now? What comfort have we
now?

By heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly That bids me be of comfort any more." Shakspere has painted indecision of character in Hamlet-but what a difference is there between the indecision of Hamlet and of Richard! The depth of Hamlet's philosophy engulfs his powers of action; the reflective strength of his intellect destroys the energy of his will:-Richard is irresolute and inert, abandoning himself to every new impression, because his faculties, though beautiful in parts, have no principle of cohesion ;-judgment, the key-stone of the arch, is wanting.

Bolingbroke is arrived before Flint Castle. Mr. Courtenay says, "By placing the negociation with Northumberland at Flint, Shakspere loses the opportunity of describing the disappointment of the king, when he found himself, on his progress to join Henry at Flint, a prisoner to Northumberland, who had concealed the force by which he was accompanied." A Mr. Goodhall, of Man

*Shakspeare's Historical Plays considered Historically.

It was his business to show what was essentially true (though one episode of the truth coming upon him with steps as certain as might be wanting), that Bolingbroke was tenant of a naked sea-rock. What was still that of a rising tide towards the shivering more important, it was his aim to exhibit the overthrow of Richard, and the upraising of Bolingbroke, as the natural result of the collision of two such minds meeting in mortal conflict. The mighty physical force which Bolingbroke subdued to his purpose was called forth by his astute and foreseeing intellect every movement of this wary chief -perhaps even from the hour when he resolved to appeal Norfolk-was a consequence from a calculated cause. On the other hand, Richard threw away every instrument of defence; the "one day too late," with which Salisbury reproaches him-which delay was the fruit of his personal weakness and vacillation-shows that it was impossible to save him. Had he escaped from Conway, after being reduced to the extremities of poverty and suffering, in company with a wretched followers, he must have rushed, from his utter want of the ability to carry through a consistent plan, into the toils of Bolingbroke. Shakspere, as we must repeat, painted events whilst he painted characters. Look at Bolingbroke's bearing when York reproaches Northumberland for not saying

“

few

King Richard ;"-look at his decision when he learns the king is at Flint ;-look at his subtlety in the message to the king :—

"Harry Bolingbroke

On both his knees doth kiss King Richard's hand."

Compare the affected humility of his profes