Are idly bent on him that enters next,

Thinking his prattle to be tedious:

Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes
Did scowl on Richard; no man cried, God save him;
No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home :
But dust was thrown upon his sacred head;
Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,-
His face still combating with tears and smiles,
The badges of his grief and patience,

That, had not God for some strong purpose steel'd
The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,
And barbarism itself have pitied him."

In a later scene,* the poet has a further improvement of his idea of the horse.

"Groom. O, how it yearn'd my heart when I beheld, In London streets, that coronation day, When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary! That horse, that thou so often hast bestrid; That horse, that I so carefully have dressed!

K. Rich. Rode he a Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend, How went he under him?

Groom. So proudly, as if he disdain'd the ground. K. Rich. So proud that Bolinbroke was on his back! That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand; This hand hath made him proud with clapping him. Would he not stumble? Would he not fall down, (Since pride must have a fall), and break the neck Of that proud man that did usurp his back?

* Act v., Sc. 5.

Forgiveness, horse! Why do I rail on thee,
Since thou, created to be aw'd by man,

Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse,
And yet I bear a burden like an ass,

Spur-gall'd and tir'd by jauncing Bolingbroke."*

In the speech of Merkes, Bishop of Carlisle, Shakspeare has followed Holinshed. Historians have doubted whether this speech was delivered at all, what was its purport, and whether it was uttered before or after the recognition and coronation of Henry the Fourth; those who suppose it made after that event, conceiving that, under such circumstances, the arrest of the Bishop was perfectly justifiable.+ Malone has correctly observed‡ that the speech, as given in the play, does not set forth indefeasible right so strongly as has been supposed; but that here, as in Holinshed, the chief stress is laid upon the condemnation of Richard in his absence.

"Thieves are not judged, but they are by to hear, Although apparent guilt be seen in them.

And shall the figure of God's majesty,

His captain, steward, deputy elect,
Anointed, crowned, planted many years,
Be judged by subject and inferior breath,
And he himself not present ?"

* Act v., Sc. 5.

+ See the Controversy, Arch., 198.

Bosw. 129.

The parliamentary history gives a speech a much greater length than Holinshed, in which the Bishop is made to argue against the several claims which Henry had put forward. One of which* was as the lineal descendant of Henry the Third. This referred to the story of an elder brother of Edward the First, put by for deformity, from whom Henry the Fourth was descended by his mother. The speech contains in itself ample evidence of invention in a later age.

As this Duchess of York was not the mother of Aumerle, her part of the scene which arises out of the conspiracy against the new king is imaginary. The rest of the story, including the father's discovery of the treasonable paper, and the journeys of father and son to Windsor, is taken from Holinshed. The contemporaneous writers differ; he, to whom I have frequently referred, states this as another instance of the treachery of Aumerle, who, pretending to listen to the overtures made to him, carried them straight way to his father, and then to King Henry.

The other story is more like that which Shakspeare adopts:

"One day, being at dinner with his father, the Duke of York, he received a private paper, which he appeared to hide with care. He was noticed, and seemed dis† iii. 10.

* Malone's note in Bosw. 128.

turbed the Duke of York wished to see the paper, and snatched it from his son by force. It was an account of the conspiracy, and a list of the conspirators. The Duke of York flew into a violent passion with his son. 'Traitor!' said he to him, thou knowest I am pledge for thee to the parliament, both in my person and my fortune; I see plainly thou would'st have my life, but, by St. John, I had rather that thou shouldst be hanged than me."*

We now come to the death of Richard,† whom Shakspeare, following Holinshed, supposes to have been murdered by Sir Pierce of Exton, in consequence of a dark hint from Henry.

This story is now generally disbelieved, and the prevalent opinion is that Richard died a natural death in prison, in the year 1399, or early in 1400. Sir Harris Nicolas is of this opinion. Some think that he starved himself to death, others that he was starved by his keepers. On the other hand, it has been maintained by Mr. Tytlers that he escaped, and lived for several years in Scotland. The controversy is much too voluminous for us, and I would refer those who wish to have a notion

* Gaillard's Narrative in Extracts from French MSS., ii. 228. † Act v., Sc. 5.

See Gent. Mag. xciii., 196, 314, 589; xciv. 220. See also Privy Council Records, i. iii.; and the Controversy in Arch. xx. 424; xxiii. 277; xxv. 394.

§ Hist. of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 325.

of it to a paper read by the late Lord Dover to the Royal Society of Literature, on the 4th of May, 1832. Lord Dover sums up carefully and fairly, and finally pronounces judgment in favour of Mr. Amyot, who disbelieves the Scottish story. According to that story, Richard survived his deposition nineteen years, and was living in Scotland during the whole of the troublesome reign of Henry the Fourth, while his death was of so much importance to the King, and his life to the powerful lords that were against him. The improbability appears to me to be herein too great to be overcome by any but the most perfect evidence.

The lamentations of Henry over the body of his predecessor are entirely Shakspeare's.

The execution of "Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent," and of "Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely," who were concerned in the conspiracy betrayed by Aumerle, is conformable to history.*

"This play," says Johnson, "is one of those that Shakspeare has apparently revised;† but, as success in works of invention is not always proportioned to labour, it is not finished at last with the happy force of some other of his tragedies, nor can be said much to affect the passions or enlarge the understanding."

* Hol., iii. 13. According to one account Salisbury was slain in battle. Huntingdon (late Exeter) was put to death by the tenants of the late Duke of Gloucester.

† Malone doubts this.