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FHAT a play on the subject of "RICHARD II." was extant when Shakspere wrote his tragedy, there can no longer be a question; but that he was indebted to it to any extent we do not believe, and for a reason which we shall presently deliver. Many commentators, however, seem hardly to have made up their minds as to the existence of a previous play; and while they hint at it in connexion with a very interesting historial event, are act, after all, quite sure that Shakspere's tragedy was not the performance in question.

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On the night preceding the ill-advised incursion of the Earl of Essex into the City, his steward, Sir Gilly Meyrick, and his secretary, Henry Cafe, procured to be played the play of the DEPOSING OF RICHARD II." It seems they were informed by Augustine Phillips, to whom they had applied, and who was one of the players at the Globe Theatre, that the play was old, and they should have loss in playing it, because few would come to it ;" and, accordingly, there were forty shillings extraordinary given to play, and therefore played it was." This term, oil, sufiiently indicates that it was not the work of Shakspere, which had not been written more than three or four years. Camden, likewise, calls it the "out-dated play of RICHARD II.;" a word which, in this instance, appears to us to convey, not only the sense of antiquated, or out of date, but also of superseded. Why mention it as out-dated, since that could make no difference in the matter, if not to distinguish it from the new, or Shakspere's play?

It may be worth while to pursue this a little further. One Hayward, in the previous year (1599), had published his History of the first year of the reign of Henry IV., which, as Malone truly says, was in fact nothing more than a history of the deposing King Richard II. The critic adds, what is likewise true, that the publication of this book gare great offence at court, and that the author was heavily censured in the Star Chamber, and committed to prison. Hence, he infers that the subject itself was disgustful to the Queen, and that Shakspere felt himself constrained to emit one hundred and fifty-four lines, describing "a kind of trial of the King, and his actual deposition in parliament," not only in the representation, but in his printed play.

Now, the truth is, neither Hayward's book, as to its substance, nor Shakspere's play, as to its spirit, was obnoxious to Queen Elizabeth. Hayward was censured and imprisoned, not for writing a History of the first year of Henry IV., but for dedicating it to the Earl of Essex, with the addition of all his titles and offices of honour, and for presuming in such dedication to foretel that that nobleman was yet born to great achievements, at a time when the Earl was suffering under the displeasure of the Queen, suspended from all his offices, and actually in the custody of the Lord Keeper. And although the scene of Richard's formal deposition does not occur in the first edition of Shakspere's play, which was published in 1597, yet it is to be found in the second, which was published in the year following:-a twelvemonth, be it remembered, before the Earl of Essex had fallen into disgrace; before he had conceived any designs against her Majesty; and, consequently, before the Queen could have taken any disgust to the subject of the play, or felt any dread of its representation. Queen Elizabeth seldom strained at a guat or swallowed a camel; and to have objected to the scene of Richard's deposition, while she permitted the scene of his murder, his deposition being recognised in the play, and, accordingly, perfectly well known to the audience, is to suppose a degree of squeamishness in that great princess not only foreign to ner character, but absolutely absurd and irrational. We have no doubt that the play caused to be played by Meyrick and Cuffe was written in a totally different spirit from Shakspere's tragedy and from Hayward's history, which last is little more than an abstract from Holinshed; as, indeed, the occurrences, and some of the passages, in our author's play are likewise drawn thence.

From a play like the older one, therefore, thus fallen into discredit, and fraught probably with pernicious sentiments, Shakspere can have borrowed little more than the subject. His production is adapted to no such purpose as the other. True to his design of representing history, and of revivifying its personages, he has been neither unjust to Richard, nor partial to Bolingbroke. What they were to the apprehension of every reader of history, even so has he painted them, and with colours such as none but he could employ, and with a pencil such as none other could wield. Few of his dramas contain finer things, both of poetry and passion, than are to be found in "RICHARD II." No man could have imagined that this play would help the cause of treason: that the semblable presentment, on a public stage, of this weak and wilful, this dejected and yet majestic creature, Richard, could steel men's hearts :

They must perforce have melted,

And barbarism itself have pitied him."

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SCENE L-London. A Room in the Palace.

Enter KING RICHARD, attended; JOHN OF GAUNT es and other Nobles with him.

K. Rich. Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster, id ei oh lade mo a Hast thou, according to thy oath and band, Brought hither Henry Hereford thy bold son; Here to make good the boisterous late appeal,

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Re-enter Attendants, with BOLINGBROKE and NORFOLK.

Boling. Many years of happy days befal My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!

Nor. Each day still better other's happiness; Until the heavens, envying earth's good hap, Add an immortal title to your crown!

K. Rich. We thank you both: yet one but flatters us,

As well appeareth by the cause you come;
Namely, to appeal each other of high treason.—
Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object
Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
Boling. First, (Heaven be the record to my
speech!).

In the devotion of a subject's love,
Tendering the precious safety of my prince,
And free from other misbegotten hate,
Come I appellant to this princely presence.—
Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee;
And mark my greeting well: for what I speak
My body shall make good upon this earth,
Or my divine soul answer it in heaven :-
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.
Once more, the more to aggravate the note,
With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat;
And wish (so please my sovereign), ere I move,
What my tongue speaks my right-drawn sword

may prove.

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.
Yet can I not of such tame patience boast,
As to be hushed, and nought at all to say.
First, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me
From giving reins and spurs to my free speech,
Which else would post until it had returned
These terms of treason doubled down his throat.
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:
Which to maintain, I would allow him odds,
And meet him, were I tied to run a-foot
Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,
Or any other ground inhabitable,
Where ever Englishman dare set his foot.
Meantime, let this defend my loyalty,—
By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.
Boling. Pale trembling coward, there I throw

my gage,

Disclaiming here the kindred of a king;
And lay aside my high blood's royalty,
Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.
If guilty dread hath left thee so much strength
As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop:
By that, and all the rites of knighthood else,
Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,
What I have spoke, or thou canst worse devise.
Nor. I take it up: and by that sword I swear
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?

It must be great that can inherit us
So much as of a thought of ill in him.

Boling. 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 lewd employments,
Like a false traitor and injurious villain.
Besides I say, and will in battle prove
(Or here or elsewhere, to the furthest verge
That ever was surveyed by English eye),
That all the treasons for these eighteen years
Complotted and contrivéd in this land,
Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and
spring.

Further I say (and further will maintain
Upon his bad life to make all this good),
That he did plot the Duke of Gloster's death;
Suggest his soon-believing adversaries;
And consequently, like a traitor coward,
Sluiced out his innocent soul through streams of
blood:

Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,
Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,
To me for justice and rough chastisement:
And, by the glorious worth of my descent,
This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.
K. Rich. How high a pitch his resolution

soars!

Thomas of Norfolk, what sayst thou to this?

Nor. O, let my sovereign turn away his face, And bid his ears a little while be deaf, Till I have told this slander of his blood How God and good men hate so foul a liar. K. Rich. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and

ears:

Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir
(As he is but my father's brother's son),
Now by my sceptre's awe I make a vow
Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood
Should nothing privilege him, nor partialise
The unstooping firmness of my upright soul.
He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou:
Free speech, and fearless, I to thee allow.

Nor. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,
Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest!
Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais,
Disbursed I duly to his highness' soldiers:
The other part reserved I by consent;
For that my sovereign liege was in my debt,
Upon remainder of a dear account

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,
Neglected my sworn duty in that case.-
For you, my noble lord of Lancaster,
The honourable father to my foe,
Once did I lay in ambush for your life;
A trespass that doth vex my grievéd soul;
But ere I last received the sacrament
I did confess it, and exactly begged
Your grace's pardon; and I hope I had it.
This is my fault. As for the rest appealed,
It issues from the rancour of a villain,
- A recreant and most degenerate traitor:
Which in myself I boldly will defend;
And interchangeably hurl down my gage
Upon this overweening traitor's foot,
To prove myself a loyal gentleman

Even in the best blood chambered in his bosom.
In haste whereof, most heartily I pray
Your highness to assign our trial day.

K. Rich. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be ruled
by me:

Let's purge this choler without letting blood:
This we prescribe, though no physician:
Deep malice makes too deep incision.
Forget, forgive; conclude, and be agreed:
Our doctors say this is no time to bleed.-
Good uncle, let this end where it begun:
We'll calm the Duke of Norfolk; you your son.
Gaunt. To be a make-peace shall become my
age:-

Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's gage.
K. Rich. And, Norfolk, throw down his.
Gaunt. When, Harry; when?

Obedience bids I should not bid again.

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 disgraced, impeached, and baffled here; Pierced to the soul with slander's venomed spear: The which no balm can cure but his heart-blood Which breathed this poison.

K. Rich. Rage must be withstood: Give me his gage:-lions make leopards tame. Nor. Yea, but not change their spots: take

but my shame,

And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,
The purest treasure mortal times afford,
Is spotless reputation: that away,
Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.
A jewel in a ten-times-barred-up chest
Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.
Mine honour is my life; both grow in one:
Take honour from me, and my life is done.
Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try:
In that I live, and for that will I die.

K. Rich. Cousin, throw down your gage: do

you begin.

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To stir against the butchers of us ite.
But since correction leth in those hands
Which made the fault that we cannot correct.
Put we our quarrel to the will of Heaven:
Who, when He sees the hours ripe on earth.
Wl rain hoc vengeance on offenders" heads.
Duch. Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?
Hath love in thy oid blood no iving ire!
Edward's
's seven sons, whereof thyself art ine.
Were as seven phials of his sacred biced.
Or seven fair branches springing from one root:
Some of those seven are dred by nature's rourse.

Some of those branches by the destinies cut:
But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloster,-
One piniai fuil of Edward's sacred blood,
Che fourishing branch of his most royal root,-
Is tracked, and all the precious liquor spilt:
Is hacked town, and his summer leaves all faded,
By envy's hand, and murder's bloody axe.
A. Gannt. his bicod was thine: that bed, that womb,
That nettle, that seif-mouid, that fashioned thee,
Made him a man: and though thou liv'st and
breath st.

Yet art in sain in him: thou dost consent

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In some large measure to thy father's death,
In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,
Who was the model of thy father's life.
Cail it not patience, Gaunt; it is despair.
In suffering thus thy brother to be slaughtered,
Thou shev'st the naked pathway to thy life;
Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee.
That which in mean men we entitle patience,
Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
What shall I say?-to safeguard thine own life,
The best way is to 'venge my Gloster's death.
Gaunt. Heaven's is the quarrel for Heaven's
substitute,

His deputy anointed in His sight,
Hath caused his death: the which, if wrongfully,
Let Heaven revenge; for I may never lift
An angry arm against His minister

Duck. Where then, alas! may I complain myself?

Gaunt. To Heaven, the widow's champion and defence.

Duch. Why then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt: Thou go'st to Coventry, there to behold Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight:O, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear, That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast! Or, if misfortune miss the first career, Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom That they may break his forming courser's back, And throw the rider headlong in the lists, A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!Farewell, old Gaunt: thy sometime brother's wife With her companion grief must end her life.

Gaunt. Sister, farewell: I must to Coventry: As much good stay with thee as go with me!

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