Right in thine eye.-Away, my friends! New flight; And happy newness, that intends old right. [Exeunt, leading off MELUN. SCENE V.-The same. The French Camp. Enter LEWIS and his Train. Lew. The sun of heaven, methought, was loth to set In faint retire: O, bravely came we off Enter a Messenger. Mess. Where is my prince, the dauphin? Here:-What news? Mess. The count Melun is slain; the English lords, By his persuasion, are again fallen off: And your supply, which you have wish'd so long, Lew. Ah, foul shrewd news!-Beshrew thy very heart! I did not think to be so sad to-night As this hath made me.-Who was he that said, The stumbling night did part our weary powers? Lew. Well; keep good quarter and good care to night; The day shall not be up so soon as I, To try the fair adventure of to-morrow. [Exeunt. Hub. The king, I fear, is poison'd by a monk : left him almost speechless, and broke out To acquaint you with this evil; that you might The better arm you to the sudden time, Than if you had at leisure known of this. Bast. How did he take it? who did taste to him? And brought prince Henry in their company; Bast. Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven, [Exeun!. SCENE VII.-The Orchard of Swinstead Abbey Enter PRINCE HENRY, SALISBURY, and BIGOT. P. Hen. It is too late; the life of all his blood Is touch'd corruptibly; and his pure brain (Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house) Doth, by the idle comments that it makes, Foretell the ending of mortality. Enter PEMBROKE. Than when you left him; even now he sung. P. Hen. O vanity of sickness! fierce extremes, Hub. Who's there? speak, ho! speak quickly, or I In their continuance, will not feel themselves. shoot. Bast. A friend.-What art thou? Bast. Whither dost thou go? Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts, Leaves them invisible; and his siege is now น Of the part of England. Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds What 's that to thee? Way may I not demand of thine affairs, As well as thou of mine? Hub. Thou hast a perfect thought: I will, upon all hazards, well believe Thou art my friend, that know'st my tongue so well: Bast. Who thou wilt: an if thou please, Hub. Unkind remembrance! thou, and eyeless night, Have done me shame :-Brave soldier, pardon me, Bast. O, I am scalded with my violent motion, And spleen of speed to see your majesty. K. John. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye: The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burnt; And all the shrouds, wherewith my life should sail, Are turned to one thread, one little hair: 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 confounded royalty. Bast. 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, Were in the washes, all unwarily, Devoured by the unexpected flood. [The KING dies. Sal. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear. My liege my lord!—But now a king,-now thus. P. Hen. Even so must I run on, and even so stop. What surety of the world, what hope, what stay, When this was now a king, and now is clay! Bast. Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven, And instantly return with me again, To push destruction, and perpetual shame, Sal. It seems you know not then so much as we: Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already; Bast. Let it be so:-And you, my noble prince, P. Hen. At Worcester must his body be interr'd; For so he will'd it. Bast. Thither shall it then. Sal. And the like tender of our love we make, P. Hen. I have a kind soul, that would give y thanks, And knows not how to do it, but with tears. Bast. O, let us pay the time but needful woe, But when it first did help to wound itself. 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 opinion 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 only 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 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 Did keep ten thousand men," KING RICHARD II. PERSONS REPRESENTED. KING RICHARD II. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 3; sc. 4. Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 5. EDMUND OF LANGLEY, Duke of York; uncle to the King. Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 3. King. Act II. sc. 1. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. z; sc. 3. son to the Duke of York. MOWBRAY, Duke of Norfolk. EARL OF SALISBURY. Appears, Act II, se. 4. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 3. EARL BERKLEY. Appears, Act II. sc. 3. BUSHY, a creature to King Richard. Appears, Act I. sc. 4. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1. BAGOT, a creature to King Richard. 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. Lady attending on the Queen. Appears, Act III. sc. 4. Appears, Act I. sc. 4. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1. sc. 1. Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Two Gardeners, ACT I. SCENE I-London. A Room in the Palace. Enter KING RICHARD, attended; JOHN OF GAUNT, and other Nobles, with him. On some apparent danger seen in 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 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 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, |