at the moment when Richard is beating his brains for exp ents to raise money. Like a flash the possibility of se upon Gaunt's estates and revenues in case of his decease co to him: "Pray God we may make haste and come too la At Gaunt's bedside he cannot bear to be told of his fa but what is it that really stings? Not Gaunt's bitter ac tions, which he does not attempt to refute, but the fact tha the King, is being sternly admonished by a subject, and the King does not look dignified during the process. looks on at himself and sees the "frozen admonition” n pale his cheek, "chasing the royal blood With fury from native residence." Gaunt's impeachment of his conduct be justified or not. That is not the point for Richard; G is "unreverent," a much more serious thing; and when he passed away Richard has no scruple in seizing upon his la and goods. On his return from Ireland Richard enters with zest his new part. This time it is that of a king returning to own land on hearing of rebellion. He weeps for joy to s upon his kingdom; the very earth he salutes with his h In return let the earth annoy his enemies with spiders, to nettles, and adders! His nobles naturally dislike these ex vagances; they prefer bows and bills to toads and net Now a mind such as Richard's, concerning itself so much pose and dramatic effect, has a set of continually exter antennæ keeping it in sensitive contact with its audience, a hint-maybe a strong one-flows along them that Car and Aumerle are irritated by this particular series of po So the king prays of them not to mock his conjuration of se less things, giving Carlisle an opportunity of gently urging immediate preparation of the more usual means of offence defence. Aumerle more impatiently and outspokenly dr home the suggestion. Richard's answer is to paint for him and them a picture of a king, who, by the mere brightness terror and God-given qualities of his holy office, will fr Bolingbroke and rebellion into surrender; where Bolingb has men to fight for him Richard will have heaven-sent ang Then follows a pitiful and-as Shakespeare has chosen to sent it—a somewhat too mechanical see-saw of alternate de tion and exaltation as the various items of news come in. -pedi eizing comes ate!" aults; cusa at he, He make m his may Gaunt e has ands - into o his stand and. pads, Extra tles. with nded and rlisle oses. ense g the - and rives Enself s and right proke gels. preHejec Finally, Richard refuses to be comforted and hastens to Flint Castle, contrasting, with his last words, Richard's night with Bolingbroke's fair day. Already he sees himself in a new rôle -that of the rightful king overpowered by the superior force of treason and rebellion-and is prepared to play it even before its necessity becomes fully apparent. Northumberland approaches to parley. The king concerns himself at once with a matter of pose—a matter, admittedly however, indicative at this juncture of deeper things-Northumberland's lack of ceremony in addressing him. But leaving this for a moment he goes back to a previous idea; God is mustering armies of pestilence to make up for Richard's lack of soldiers—a lack which he weakly admits; but the speech ends with a flash of spirit in which Richard implies resistance to Bolingbroke by substantial men-at-arms. Northumberland protests that Bolingbroke is but coming for his own; Richard immediately promises to accede to Bolingbroke's fair demands, and at the same instant swings round to ask Aumerle-again in a phrase having more direct reference to his pose than anything else: "We do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not, To look so poorly and v to speak so fair "-whether he would not have done better to defy the traitor? Aumerle counsels the king to "ca' canny" for a while. Again Richard revels in the situation.1 When Northumberland is seen returning, he draws up an elaborate list of exchanges that he will make of his kingly possessions for an almsman's furniture, of his kingdom for a grave. Aumerle weeps, probably in hopeless exasperation against Richard's impotent maunderings. The King for the moment mistakes it all for pity, and reaches the lowest depths of puerility in his suggestions for a weeping-match. These are broken off for an obvious reason,- "Well, well, I see I talk but idly and you laugh at me." As soon as Northumberland announces that Bolingbroke is in the base court, Richard has his eye on his own pose once more: "Down, down, I come, like glistering Phaeton." Even Northumberland cannot properly realise that Richard can be such a fool, so he finds. an excuse for him. "Sorrow and grief of heart," he reports to Bolingbroke, "Makes him speak fondly like a frantic man.' 1The Collier MS. stage-direction of "Vnbutton" at the line "Swell'st thou proud heart I'll give thee scope to beat," is worth noting. t In the short interview with Bolingbroke there is no new Richard weakly submits; he is playing the part for whic has already cast himself. His next appearance is in the famous "Deposition Scea His first words refer to the way in which he plays this part: He has not yet shaken off the regal thoughts where he reigned; he has not yet learned how to bow and bend knee. Seeing the familiar faces around him now loo towards Bolingbroke as their King, his imagination leaps comparison of himself with Christ; of the two he is the w off! "God save the King," he cries, and as none of the standers seem to catch his drift, he adds "Amen" for t playing both priest and clerk. He is asked to resign the cr and he sees a magnificent chance for the most dramatic he has yet achieved. He forces the unwilling Bolingb to hold one side of the crown and proceeds to work out simile of a well and two buckets. Bolingbroke soon tire Richard's phrase-mongering, and asks point-blank, “Are contented to resign the crown?" This only gives Rich another cue. His obtrusive self-consciousness is nowhere clearly indicated than in the phrase, "Now mark me, how I undo myself," and he proceeds with just such a catalogue o nunciations as might have been prepared by a council "for at the Public Deposition of Kings." This done, he is evide at the end of his carefully-prepared impromptus, and the o demand of Northumberland that he should read a list of past misdeeds finds him unprepared with any part to p and he resents this last degradation in a manner more dign and natural than he has hitherto used. But as his resentn exhausts itself and his self-commiseration gains once more upper hand, dignity is thrown to the winds, and he calls f looking-glass to see what his face looks like now that bankrupt of majesty. He sees a face showing insufficient traces of his troub he smashes the glass. Bolingbroke's icy and magnifice acute comment, "The shadow of your sorrow hath destro the shadow of your face," merely gives him a chance to exp 1 I say "forces" because of the repetition in "Here, cousin, seize the cr Here cousin ;" as if Bolingbroke held off until asked a second time. pose. h he ne." new with the king to a orse bynem, Own, pose roke the es of you hard more will -f re use ntly cruel his play, ified nent the For a it is oles; ently oyed plore cown; the metaphor without seizing its true application. With a pun on his lips, a fitting peroration under the circumstances, he leaves the presence chamber. The tragedy in the artistic sense, the soul-tragedy, is now over. Richard has been tried in the crucible, and where gold should have emerged we find but flashy dross. From this point to the end of the play we seem to be concerned with the good qualities of Richard's defects. The delight in pose and situation, in artistry of word and elegance of fancy, although sadly, ludicrously, or even criminally, out of place in the council-chamber and on the battle-field, may be a pleasing quality and a source of potent charm in the lighter moments of life. Richard's incompetence, while attempting to face the ! sterner issues of life in the world of men, need not reflect itself in any way in the world of women and dependents. To his Queen, therefore, Richard is her "fair rose; the map of honour." But even she would wish some more manly resistance to Bolingbroke; she upbraids Richard for taking his correction so mildly. His answer is to imagine the Queen telling the "winter's tale" of his deposition-a tale to make the very fire mourn. Northumberland, to whom seems to fall the task of goading Richard almost beyond endurance, interrupts the farewell between the deposed King and his Queen, bringing new orders that Richard is to go to Pomfret and the Queen to France. As we saw once before, so again does Richard's indignation rouse him to a flash of naturalness, and in the sanest, most straightforward and farsighted speech that he makes in the whole course of the play, he warns Northumberland of the fate of a king-maker. The farewell to the Queen is said, Richard's self-consciousness appearing again in his appreciation of the fact that "we make woe wanton with this fond delay." Richard had been undoubtedly beloved of his Queen, and Shakespeare would not have introduced later the little episode of the groom's visit to the prison had he not wished to show that Richard was also capable of inspiring love in dependents. When in the last scene we find the deposed King alone in prison with no consolation beyond that afforded by playing with his own thoughts, his wayward imaginativeness no longer irritates us; it rather lends an added pathos to the situation. It is fitting therefore, that here, in the forced quiet of the pr he should take the longest and most fantastic of his imag tive flights. He deliberately states that he is going to pare his prison with the world-first finding a metapho statement of the way in which he is setting to work. comparison made, strains of music break upon his ear. S error evidently occurs in the time; he notices this, an usual, notices himself noticing it, introducing at the same a wonderful touch of confession : Here have I the daintiness of ear To check time broke in a disordered string; Time suggests the idea of a clock; he works out an elab Bolingbroke's character as revealed in Richard II. alone, differs from that which may be evolved from a stu our play along with the Two Parts of Henry IV. and Henry V. It is customary to consider that the three "He plays complement, explain, and amplify the indications in Richard II. Accordingly, Bolingbroke is a deep, fars |