The unstooping firmness of my upright soul: He is our subject, Mowbray, so art thou: Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.]

Nor. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,

Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.

Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais
Disburs'd I duly to his highness' soldiers;
The other part reserv'd I by consent,
For that my sovereign liege was in my debt
Upon remainder of a dear3 account,
Since last I went to France to fetch his queen:
Now swallow down that lie. For Gloster's
death,-

I slew him not; but to my own disgrace
Neglected my sworn duty in that case.—
[For you, my noble Lord of Lancaster,
The honourable father to my foe,
Once did I lay an ambush for your life,
A trespass that doth vex my grieved soul;
But, ere I last receiv'd the sacrament,
I did confess it; and exactly begg'd
Your grace's pardon, and I hope I had it.]
This is my fault: as for the rest appeal'd,
It issues from the rancour of a villain,

130

140

Exactly, i.e. precisely; without omitting any detail.

[Throws down his glove, which Bolingbroke picks up.

150

To prove myself a loyal gentleman
Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom.
In haste whereof, most heartily I pray
Your highness to assign our trial day.
K. Rich. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be rul'd
by me;

Let's purge this choler without letting blood:
[This we prescribe, though no physician;
Deep malice makes too deep incision;]
Forget, forgive; conclude, and be agreed;
Our doctors say this is no month to bleed.-
Good uncle, let this end where it begun;
We'll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your

180

The purest treasure mortal times afford
Is-spotless reputation: that away,
Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.
[A jewel in a ten-times barr'd-up chest
Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.]
Mine honour is my life; both grow in one;
Take honour from me, and my life is done:
Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;
In that I live, and for that will I die.

K. Rich. Cousin, throw down your gage; do you begin.

Boling. O, God defend my soul from such foul sin!

Shall I seem crest-fall'n in my father's sight? Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height Before this out-dar'd dastard? Ere my tongue Shall wound my honour with such feeble wrong,

191

29

Yet art thou slain in him: thou dost consent
In some large measure to thy father's death,
In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,
Who was the model' of thy father's life.
Call it not patience, Gaunt; it is despair:
In suff'ring thus thy brother to be slaughter'd,
Thou show'st the naked pathway to thy life,
Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee:
That which in mean men we intitle patience,
Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
What shall I say? to safeguard thine own
life,

The best way is-to venge my Gloster's death. Gaunt, God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,

His deputy anointed in His sight,

Hath caus'd his death: the which if wrong

fully,

Model, image.

Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift 40 An angry arm against His minister.

Duch. Where then, alas, may I complain myself?1

Gaunt. To God, the widow's champion and defence.

Duch. Why, then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.

Thou go'st to Coventry, there to behold

Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight: O, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,

That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast! Or, if misfortune miss the first career,

Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom, 50 That they may break his foaming courser's back,

And throw the rider headlong in the lists,
A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!
Farewell, old Gaunt: thy sometimes brother's
wife

With her companion grief must end her life.

Gaunt. Sister, farewell; I must to Coventry: As much good stay with thee as go with

SCENE III. Gosford Green, near Coventry. Lists set out, and a throne. Heralds, Attendants, &c.

Enter the LORD MARSHAL and the DUKE OF AUMERLE.

Mar. My Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford arm'd?

Aum. Yea, at all points; and longs to enter in.

Mar. The Duke of Norfolk, sprightfully and bold,"

Stays but the summons of the appellant's trumpet.

Aum. Why, then, the champions are prepar'd, and stay

For nothing but his majesty's approach. Flourish of trumpets. Enter KING RICHARD, who takes his seat on the throne; GAUNT, BUSHY, BAGOT, GREEN, and others, who take their places. Then enter NORFOLK, defendant, in armour, preceded by a Herald.

K. Rich. Marshal, demand of yonder champion

a dreadful mutilation of Shakespeare; but he does not seem to have achieved any great success in the character although the play was acted thirteen times. In the same year Macready appeared as Richard II. at Bath (on January 26th), in what appears to have been Shakespeare's own play slightly abbreviated. Genest says: "the play was gotten up at some expense and was well acted-it was however performed but twice, and that to bad houses."

The last important revival of this play was that produced by the late Charles Kean, at the Princess's Theatre, on March 12th, 1857. The play was magnificently put upon the stage and, on the whole, very well acted; but the great attraction was the so-called "historical episode" interpolated between act iii. and act iv. in which the entry of Bolingbroke and Richard II. into London, as described by the Duke of York in act v. was represented in action. A "dance of itinerant fools," introduced into this scene, was a great I am afraid many more people went to see the "historical episode" and the "dance of itinerant fools"-most of them very pretty -than would have been attracted by Shakespeare's play without such gorgeous additions.

success.

CRITICAL REMARKS.

This play has been very much praised by some critics. Coleridge, indeed, would assign to it the first place among Shakespeare's historical plays. It seems to me that, from whatever point of view we regard it, it is one of his weakest plays. Certainly it contains some fine speeches, but it contains also many tedious and weak passages written in rhyme-the work, as I believe, of a very inferior hand to Shakespeare's. As a play for the stage, Richard II. is deficient in plot and in character. There is scarcely any female interest, for the Queen is little more than a shadow. If Bolingbroke was intended to be the hero, his gross hypocrisy alienates from us all the sympathy which his gallantry might otherwise

excite.

Richard himself is a weak, inconsistent character, as he is presented to us in the first two

acts. Both from what he says and from what he does, no less than what other characters tell us about him, we cannot but hold him to be at once mean and profligate. In act i. sc. 1 he affects a tenderness for his uncle John of Gaunt's feelings, and professes to remit four years of the son's banishment in deference to the father's sorrow; but in act ii. sc. 1 his conduct towards the same John of Gaunt when he is dying is simply brutal. He displays a petty vindictiveness which is thoroughly feminine, and a gross selfishness which seems the only masculine thing about him. One might forgive him some lack of affection for his uncle; but one can scarcely forgive the indecent haste with which, before the breath is almost out of the noble old man's body, this epicene king seizes his "plate, coin, revenues and moveables." It is true that when King Richard finds himself deserted by most of his professed adherents, and betrayed by others, he gives vent to some very fine sentiments, which might fittingly come from the mouth of a king who, although guilty of misgovernment, was making a brave stand against his enemies; but Richard is doing nothing of the sort. Certainly luck is against him; the Welsh army, on whose support he relied with, perhaps, too much confidence, is hastily broken up under a misunderstanding. That arch-hypocrite York, after talking a great deal about his loyalty, betrays, in the most dastardly manner, the solemn charge which had been placed in his hands as regent. The laborious professions of tenderness for Richard's feelings and respect for his person which Bolingbroke utters, could scarcely have deceived him even in his weakest moments; but, in spite of the beautiful speeches that he makes, Richard does nothing either brave, or noble, or dignified, in the presence of his misfortunes. He vacillates between picturesque despair and spasmodic self-assertion: his sorrow is more that of a discarded mistress than of a dejected king. At the very end, when he is weakly resigning his undoubted rights as sovereign, he is full of fine sentiments, which he utters in eloquent language; but of the true dignity, which Charles I., for instance, showed in the face of his enemies, he has none. The spirit of his father flares up in him, for a mo