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. 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, sl, sufficiently 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play of RICHARD II.;" a word which, in this instance, appears to us to convey, not only the sense of antiquated, or out of date, but also of superseded.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 gave 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 omit 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 per nicious 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." SCENE I.-London. A Room in the Palace. Enter KING RICHARD, attended; JOHN OF GAUNT and other Nobles with him. K. Rich. Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster, side i oh lade d Hast thou, according to thy oath and band, Brought hither Henry Hereford thy bold son; Here to make good the boisterous late appeal, On some apparent danger seen in him, And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear Re-enter Attendants, with BOLINGBROKE and 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, Nor. Let not my cold words here accuse my "T is not the trial of a woman's war, Call him a slanderous coward and a villain: Disclaiming here the kindred of a king; 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: K. Rich. What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge? It must be great that can inherit us That Mowbray hath received eight thousand nobles, In name of lendings for your highness' soldiers: Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring. Further I say (and further will maintain Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries, 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 Nor. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart, Since last I went to France to fetch his queen. Even in the best blood chambered in his bosom. K. Rich. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be ruled Let's purge this choler without letting blood: Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's gage. 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, K. Rich. Cousin, throw down your gage: do you begin. To stir against the butchers of his life. Some of those branches by the destinies cut: Yet art then sain in him: thou dost consent In some large measure to thy father's death, His deputy anointed in His sight, Hath caused his death: the which, if wrongfully, Dach. Where then, alas! may I complain myself? Gauet. 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 foaming 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! |