P. Hen.

The young Prince piteously asks:

How fares your majesty?

K. John. 'Poisoned,—'ill fare!-Dead, forsook, cast off!
And none of you will bid the Winter come,
To thrust his icy fingers in my maw;

Nor let my kingdom's 'rivers take their course
Through my burned bosom ; nor entreat the North
To make his bleak winds kiss my parchéd lips,
And comfort me with 'cold. . . . I do not ask you 'much,
I beg 'cold comfort; and you are so strait. . .
And so ingrateful, you 'deny me that!

P. Hen. O that there were some virtue in my 'tears
That might relieve you!

K. John.

The 'salt in them is hot. . . .
Within me is a 'hell; and there the 'poison
Is, as a fiend, confined to tyrannize
On unreprievable-condemned blood.

Faulconbridge enters hastily.

O cousin!-thou art come to 'set mine eye.
My heart hath 'one poor string to stay it by,
Which holds but till 'thy news be uttered;
And then . . . all this thou seest is but a clod,
And module' of confounded3 royalty.

Faul. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward,

Where Heaven He knows how we shall answer him;
For, in a night, the best part of 'my power,

(As I upon 'advantage did remove,)

Was, in the Washes, all unwarily

Devoured by the unexpected flood. . . .

The King dies. . . . Salisbury first breaks the silence: Sal. You breathe these dead 'news in as dead an 'ear.

My liege! my lord! . . . But now a King,-now thus!
Faulconbridge at last gives utterance to his contending emotions:
Faul. Art thou gone 'so? I do but stay 'behind,
To do the office for thee of 'revenge;

And then 'my soul shall wait on thee to 'heaven,
As it on 'earth hath been thy servant still.-
And happily may 'you, sweet Prince, put on
The lineal state and glory of the land!

Prince Henry sobs his reply:

P. Hen. I have a kind soul that 'would give you thanks,

And knows not 'how to do it.

2 Model, lifeless figure.

but with 'tears. ·

3 Defeated.

Faul. O, let us pay the time but 'needful woe,
Since it hath been 'beforehand with our griefs.-
This England never 'did, nor never 'shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,

But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her Princes2 are come home again,
Come the three corners of the 'world in arms,

And we shall shock3 them. Nought shall make us rue,
If England to 'itself do rest but true.

[Exeunt.

END OF KING JOHN.

2 The lately rebellious nobles.

3 Encounter with subduing power.

KING RICHARD II.

This Play must have been written in 1596: it was published, and acted at the Globe, in 1597, and is included in Meres' list of 1598.2 Several editions followed. During the reign of Elizabeth, the scenes in Parliament, concerning the deposition of the King, were by authority suppressed: but they were restored in the folio of 1623.There was an older play on the same subject; it is now lost, but the analysis of it (in Dr. Simon Forman's Diary) shows that its arrangement at least was different from that of Shakespeare's play. The incidents are taken chiefly from that mine of dramatic wealth-the Chronicles of Holinshed; but the play, though carefully revised by its author, has not proved attractive on the stage; for which, perhaps, it is less adapted than, by its poetical beauties and historical truth, for the School, Study, or Platform It is the only dramatic production of Shakespeare which is not graced by some pleasantry, or blurred by some buffoonery; and is believed to be the first of his "original "Historical Plays.

King John died in 1216. The subsequent reigns were those of Henry the Third-Edward the First-Edward the Second,-and Edward the Third. The next reign chronicled in the Shakespeare series is this of Richard the Second. This monarch's father is favourably known in history as Edward the Black Prince: he died in 1376; and in 1377, this son succeeded to the English throne in right of his grandfather, Edward the Third. Crowned at eleven years of age, he had not, by that course of education which is best acquired in the school of adversity, learned to regulate his weak and wayward disposition.

The love of the people of England for his father and his grandfather, as well as his own early display of energy and ability,- in quelling the outbreak of Wat Tyler and his infuriated followers,sustained for a time the young King's popularity; till his folly, his pride, his pomp, and his extravagance, - his magnificent pageantries and costly amusements,- for even when the country was desolated by plague and famine, he daily entertained about six thousand persons, and had a retinue of three hundred servants, with a like number in attendance on the Queen-completely alienated the affections of his subjects. His first wife died early; and his marriage to his second wife Isabel, daughter of the King of France, (a girl only nine years of age, although Shakespeare represents her as a noble 'woman,) did not "increase the love of the people." The "farming" of the revenues, and other acts of public and private injustice, aroused the indignant nobility, who either had, or made, new grievances.

The King's three uncles, the Dukes of Lancaster, York, and Gloster, had, during his long minority, engrossed all power; and, even after his majority, Gloster especially endeavoured to leave his royal nephew only the name of King. Gloster was at last got rid

2 See page 8.

of having been put to death in prison by his keepers; not without the connivance of his royal brothers; and, it is believed, by direction of the King, who thus gratified, and, as he thought, 'concealed his revenge.

After the murder of the Duke of Gloster, quarrels arose among the nobles who had joined in this conspiracy. The most conspicuous rupture was that between the Duke of Lancaster's son, Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Hereford, and the Duke of Norfolk; and, as this quarrel is intimately connected with the action of this play, and even led to a change in the order of succession, Shakespeare has copiously and judiciously introduced it here.

The Characters retained in this Condensation are:

KING RICHARD THE SECOND.
JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke

Uncles to

of Lancaster.
EDMUND OF LANGLEY, the King.
Duke of York.

HENRY BOLINGBROKE, 2 Duke of
Hereford, Son to John of
Gaunt; afterwards King
Henry IV.

EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND.
HENRY PERCY, his Son.
LORD ROSS. 4

LORD WILLOUGHBY.
BISHOP OF CARLISLE.
LORD MARSHALL.

SIR PIERCE OF EXTON.
SIR STEPHEN SCROOP.

ISABEL, Queen to King Richard.
DUCHESS OF GLOSTER.

DUCHESS OF York.

Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Keeper, Messenger, and Attendants.

The Action of the play is sometimes in England, sometimes in Wales.

The Time extends over two years: from the banishment of Hereford in 1398, till the murder of the King in 1400.

The Scene is a State apartment of the Palace in London. King Richard is before us, with his uncle the aged Duke of Lancaster and other noblemen. The King speaks :

K. Rich. Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,
Hast thou, according to thy oath and bond,5
Brought hither Henry Hereford, thy bold son-
Here to make 'good his boisterous late appeal
Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
Gau. I have, my liege.

K. Rich. Then call them to our presence: face to face,
And frowning brow to brow, 'ourselves will hear
The accuser, and the accuséd, freely speak.-

2 Or Bullingbrook (as now it is pronounced.) In the folio of 1623, the spelling is Bullingbrooke. 3 Now Albemarle. Now spelt Roos. 5 O. R. band.

High-stomached' are they 'both, and full of ire;
In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.

Bolingbroke and Norfolk enter.

K. Rich. Cousin of Hereford, 'what dost thou object
Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray ?
Bol. First,-Heaven be the 'record to my speech!—
In the devotion of a 'subject's 'love,

Come I, appellant, to this princely presence.-
Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to 'thee: ...
Thou art a 'traitor, and a miscreant;

Too good to be so, and too bad to live;
Since the more fair and crystal is the sky,
The uglier seem the 'clouds that in it fly.
Nor. Let not my cold words here accuse my 'zeal :
"T is not the trial of a 'woman's war,-

The bitter clamour of two eager tongues,—
Can 'arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain:
The blood is 'hot, that must be 'cooled for this.
Setting aside his high blood's 'royalty,

And let him be 'no kinsman to my liege,

I do defy him, and I 'spit at him;

Call him a slanderous 'coward, and a 'villain !
Meantime, let this 'defend 'my loyalty,-
By all my hopes, most falsely doth he 'lie!
Bol. Pale trembling coward! there I throw my gage,
'Disclaiming here the kindred of the King.
If guilty dread have left thee so much strength
As to take 'up mine honour's pawn, then 'stoop.
By that, and all the rights of knighthood else,
Will I make good against thee what I've spoke.
Nor. I 'take it up; and by that sword I swear,

3

Which gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder,
I'll answer thee-in any fair degree,

Or chivalrous design, of knightly 'trial.
And when I mount, alive may I not light,
'If I be traitor, or unjustly fight!

K. Rich. What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge? Bol. Look, 'what I speak, my 'life shall prove it 'true :

That Mowbray hath received eight thousand nobles,
In name of lendings for your highness' soldiers;
The which he hath 'detained, for 'base" employments,
Like a false traitor and injurious villain.

Besides, I say, and will in battle 'prove,
That 'all the treasons,-for these eighteen years

2 Hot-tempered.

3 An armed glove, a sign of defiance. 4 Pledge. 5 O. R. lewd.