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. 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." a 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 understand ing," 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 66 ■ Johnson. 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 perishes in a dungeon:-the crafty usurper sits upon 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 ad miration. 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 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 producedthe 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 The purple testament of bleeding war," Richard, especially, is entirely subordinated to unfold the roll of the causes and conse- to the poetical conception of it-to somequences of that usurpation of the house of thing higher than the historical propriety, Lancaster which plunged three or four gene- yet including all that historical propriety, rations of Englishmen in bloodshed and and calling it forth under the most striking misery-he approaches the subject with an aspects. All the vacillations and weaknesses inflexibility of purpose as totally removed as of the king, in the hands of an artist like it was possible to be from the levity of a Shakspere, are reproduced with the most partisan. There were to be weighed in one natural and vivid colours; so as to display scale the follies, the weaknesses, the crimes their own characteristic effects, in combinaof Richard-the injuries of Bolingbroke- tion with the principle of poetical beauty, the insults which the capricious despotism which carries them into a higher region than of the king had heaped upon his nobles--the the perfect command over the elements of exactions under which the people groaned― | strong individualization could alone produce. PERSONS REPRESENTED. Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 2; sc. 3; sc. 6. JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of Lancaster; uncle to the King. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 3. Act II. sc. 1. HENRY, surnamed BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford, son to John of Gaunt, afterwards King Henry IV. Appears, Act 1. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 1. DUKE OF AUMERLE, son to York. Appears, Act I. sc. 3; sc. 4. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 3. Act V. sc. 3; sc. 6. the Duke of Act II. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 2; sc. 3. MOWBRAY, Duke of Norfolk. Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 3. DUKE OF SURREY. Appears, Act IV. sc. 1. EARL OF SALISBURY. Appears, Act II. sc. 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 I. sc. 4. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act IV. sc. 1. GREEN, a creature to King Richard. Appears, Act I. sc. 4. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1. EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND. Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 6. HENRY PERCY, son to the Earl of Northumberland. Appears, Act II. sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 3. Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1. Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act III. sc. 1. Appears, Act IV. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 6. Appears, Act III. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 1. ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER. Appears, Act IV. sc. 1. LORD MARSHAL; and another Lord. Appear, Act I. sc. 3. SIR PIERCE OF EXTON. Appears, Act V. sc. 4; sc. 5; sc. 6. SIR STEPHEN SCROOP. QUEEN to King Richard. Appears, Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2. Act III. sc. 4. DUCHESS OF GLOSTER. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Appears, Act V. sc. 2; sc. 3. Lady attending on the Queen. Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Two Gardeners, Keeper, Messenger, Groom, and other Attendants. SCENE, DISPERSEDLY IN ENGLAND AND WALES. The original editions have no Names of Characters. Enter KING RICHARD, attended; JOHN OF GAUNT, and other Nobles, with him. K. RICH. Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster, Hast thou, according to thy oath1 and banda, Band. Bund and bond are each the past participle passive of the verb to bind; and hence the band, that by which a thing is confined, and the bond, that by which one is constrained, are one and the same thing. Hereford. In the old copies this title is invariably spelt and pronounced Herford. In Hardynge's 'Chronicle' the word is always written Herford or Harford. It is constantly Herford, as a dissyllable, in Daniel's 'Civile Warres.' |