THE first edition was published in 1597, under the title of The Tragedy of King Richard the Second.' Four editions in quarto appeared before the folio of 1623. But all that part of the fourth act in which Richard is introduced to make the surrender of his crown, comprising one hundred and fifty-four lines, was never printed in the age of Elizabeth. The quarto of 1608 first gives this scene. That quarto is, with very few exceptions, the text of the play as it now stands. We scarcely know how to approach this drama, even for the purpose of a few remarks upon its characteristics. We are almost afraid to trust our own admiration when we turn to the cold criticism by which opiniou in this country has been wont to be governed. We have been told that it cannot "be said much to affect the passions or enlarge the understanding." * It may be so. And yet, we think, it might somewhat "affect the passions," for "gorgeous tragedy" hath here put on her "scepter'd pall," and if she bring not Terror in her train, Pity, at least, claims the sad story for her own. And yet it may somewhat "enlarge the understanding,”—for, though it abound not in those sententious moralities which may fitly adorn "a theme at school," it lays bare more than one human bosom with a most searching anatomy; and, in the moral and intellectual strength and weakness of humanity, which it discloses with as much precision as the scalpel reveals to the student of our physical nature the symptoms of health or disease, may we read the proximate and final causes of this world's success or loss, safety or danger, honour or disgrace, elevation or ruin. And then, moreover, the profound truths which, half-hidden to the careless reader, are to be drawn out from this drama, are contained in such a splendid frame-work of the picturesque and the poetical, that the setting of the jewel almost distracts our attention from the jewel itself. We are here plunged into the midst of the fierce passions and the gorgeous pageantries of the antique time. We not uly enter the halls and galleries, where is hung "Armoury of the invincible knights of old," but we see the beaver closed, and the spear in rest: under those cuirasses are hearts knocking against the steel with almost more than mortal rage ;-the banners wave, the trumpet sounds-heralds and marshals are ready to salute the victor-but the absolute king casts down his warder, and the anticipated triumph of one proud champion must end in the unmerited disgrace of both. The transition is easy from the tourney to the battle-field. A nation must bleed that a subject may be avenged. A crown is to be played for, though "Tumultuous wars Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound." The luxurious lord "That every day under his household roof Did keep ten thousand men," • Johnson. his throne, but it is undermined by the hatreds even of those who placed him on it. Here is, indeed, "a kingdom for a stage." And has the greatest of poets dealt with such a subject without affecting the passions or enlarging the understanding? Away with this. We will trust our own admiration. It is the wonderful subjection of the poetical power to the higher law of truth-to the poetical truth, which is the highest truth, comprehending and expounding the historical truth-which must furnish the clue to the proper understanding of the drama of 'Richard II.' It appears to us that, when the poet first undertook " to ope The purple testament of bleeding war,"— to unfold the roll of the causes and consequences of that usurpation of the house of Lancaster which plunged three or four generations of Englishmen in bloodshed and misery-he approaches the subject with an inflexibility of purpose as totally removed as it was possible to be from the levity of a partisan. There were to be weighed in one scale the follies, the weaknesses, the crimes of Richard—the injuries of Bolingbroke— the insults which the capricious despotism of the king had heaped upon his nobles-the exactions under which the people groaned the real merits and the popular attributes of him who came to redress and to repair. In the other scale were to be placed the afflictions of fallen greatness-the revenge and treachery by which the fall was produced-the heartburnings and suspicions which accompany every great revolution-the struggles for power which ensue when the established and legitimate authority is thrust from its seat.-All these phases, personal and political, of a deposition and an usurpation, Shakspere has exhibited with marvellous impartiality. It is in the same lofty spirit of impartiality which governs the general sentiments of this drama that Shakspere has conceived the mixed character of Richard. If we compare every account, we must say that the Richard II. of Shakspere is rigidly the true Richard. The poet is the truest historian in all that belongs to the higher attributes of history. But with this surpassing dramatic truth in the Richard II.,' perhaps, after all, the most wonderful thing in the whole play-that which makes it so exclusively and entirely Shaksperian is the evolvement of the truth under the poetical form. The character of Richard, especially, is entirely subordinated to the poetical conception of it-to some thing higher than the historical propriety, yet including all that historical propriety, and calling it forth under the most striking aspects. All the vacillations and weaknesses of the king, in the hands of an artist like Shakspere, are reproduced with the most natural and vivid colours; so as to display their own characteristic effects, in combination with the principle of poetical beauty, which carries them into a higher region than the perishes in a dungeon:—the crafty usurper sits upon perfect command over the elements of strong indivi dualization could alone produce. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 3. Act II. sc. 1. son to the Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 2; se. 3. HENRY PERCY, son to the Earl of Northumberland LORD ROSS. Act III. sc. 1. Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. LORD WILLOUGHBY. Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1. Appears, Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 6. BISHOP OF CARLISLE. Appears, Act III. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 5. LORD MARSHAL; and another Lord. SIR PIERCE OF EXTON. SIR STEPHEN SCROOP. QUEEN to King Richard. Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act III. sc. 4. Act V. sc. 1. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. DUCHESS OF YORK. Lady attending on the Queen. Appears, Act III. sc. 4. BAGOT, a creature to King Richard. sc. 1. Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Two Gardeners, ACT I. SCENE I-London. A Room in the Palace. On some apparent danger seen in him, Enter KING RICHARD, attended; JOHN OF Gaunt, and other Nobles, with him. Aim'd at your highness,-no inveterate malice. K. Rich. Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lan- And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear caster, Hast thou, according to thy oath and band," K. Rich. Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him, If he appeal the duke on ancient malice; Or worthily, as a good subject should, On some known ground of treachery in him? The accuser, and the accused, freely speak : [Exeunt some Attendants Re-enter Attendants, with BOLINGBROKE and Boling. Many years of happy days befal Gaunt. As near as I could sift him on that argu- Add an immortal title to your crown! ment, Boling. First, (Heaven be the record to my speech!) | That ever was survey'd by English eye,— In the devotion of a subject's love, Tendering the precious safety of my prince, 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, Call him a slanderous coward, and a villain: That all the treasons, for these eighteen years Complotted and contrived in this land, Fetch'd from false Mowbray their first head and spring Sluic'd out his innocent soul through streams of blood: Nor. O, let my sovereign turn away his face, K. Rich. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears: Nor. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart, For that my sovereign liege was in my debt, 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, Boling. Pale trembling coward, there I throw my Neglected my sworn duty in that case. gage, Disclaiming here the kindred of the king; Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except: Nor. I take it up; and by that sword I swear, Or chivalrous design of knightly trial: If I be traitor, or unjustly fight! K. Rich. What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge? b It must be great, that can inherit us Boling. Look, what I said my life shall prove it true;- a Inhabitable-uninhabitable, unhabitable. Jonson also uses the word in this sense, strictly according to its Latin deriva For you, my noble lord of Lancaster, To prove myself a loyal gentleman Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom : K. Rich. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be rul'd by me; Let's purge this choler without letting blood: ་ K. Rich. Norfolk, throw down, we bid; there is no boot." Nor. Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot: My life thou shalt command, but not my shame : The one my duty owes; but my fair name, (Despite of death,) that lives upon my grave, To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have. I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffled here; Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear; The which no balm can cure, but his beart-blood Which breath'd this poison. K. Rich. And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord, Is spotless reputation; that away, Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay, Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast. Mine honour is my life; both grow in one; K. Rich. Cousin, throw down your gage; do you begin. Boling. O, heaven defend my soul from such foul sin! Shall I seem crest-fallen in my father's sight? K Rich. We were not born to sue, but to command: Which since we cannot do to make you friends, [Exeunt. SCENE II.-London. A Room in the Duke of Enter GAUNT and DUCHESS of Gloster. Duch. Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur? Hath love in thy old blood no living fire? Boot is here used in its original sense of compensation. There is no boot, no remedy for what is past,-nothing to be added, or substituted. Lions make le pards tame. The crest of Norfolk was a golden leopard. His sps. So the old copies. According to the custom in Shakspere's time of changing from the singular to the plural $15, or from the plural to the singular, the alteration to their in modern copies was scarcely called for. But in this case Mowbray quotes the very text of Scripture-Jer. xiii. 23. • Aume you make you in concord-cause you to be at one. Design designate-point out-exhibit-show by a token. *The part I had, &c. My consanguinity to Gloster. Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one, His deputy anointed in his sight, Hath caus'd his death: the which if wrongfully, An angry arm against his minister. Duch. Where then, alas! may I complain myself? Gaunt. To heaven, the widow's champion and de fence. Duch. Why then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt. A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford! Not with the empty hollowness, but weight: ? And what cheer there for weicome but my groans Vaded. Vade seems to have a stronger sense than to fade, although fade was often written vade. b Complain myself. The verb is here the same as the French verb se plaindre. Caitiff. The original meaning of this word was, a prisoner, As the captive anciently became a siave, the word gradually came to indicate a man in a servile condition-a mean creature -a dishonest person. |