thought is there introduced of a future kingdom. The queen, who gives proof of not having the sometimes Christian disposition of her husband, on hearing from her gardener the intelligence of Richard's fall, makes a strange application of Scripture to her circumstances :

Oh! I am press'd to death through want of speaking! Thou old Adam's likeness, sent to dress this garden,

How dares thy harsh-rude tongue sound this unpleasant news? What Eve, what serpent hath suggested thee,

To make a second fall of cursed man?

The bishop, who figures among the churchmen in this piece in no very creditable manner, gives the following account of the death of Norfolk, Bolingbroke's rival; and Bolingbroke's reply to the piety is hypocritical in the character, satirical in the author. It is one of the jests given to Richard III. and Falstaff. The bishop says (Act 4, scene 1) he has given

His pure soul unto his captain Christ,

Under whose colours he had fought so long.

Bolingbroke. Why, bishop, is Norfolk dead?
Carlisle. Sure as I live, my lord.

Boling. Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom
Of good old Abraham!

The king, when called upon to resign his crown, is made not only to compare himself to Jesus, but describe his condition as worse in his betrayal :

Did they not sometime cry, all hail! to me?

So Judas did to Christ; but he, in twelve,

Found truth in all, but one; I, in twelve thousand, none.

Bolingbroke, when he pronounced judgment of death upon those opposed to him, used the very words of Pilate, even saying, that he washed his hands of their blood — and Richard, as Jesus, apostrophises all his enemies as Pilates:

Nay, all of you, that stand and look upon me,
Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself,
Though some of you with Pilate wash your hands,
Showing an outward pity; yet you Pilates
Have here delivered me to my sour cross,
And water cannot wash away your sin.

--

The Bishop of Carlisle, the Abbot of Westminster, and Aumerle, remain behind after the scene of Richard's deposition.

Aumerle. You holy clergymen, is there no plot
To rid the realm of this pernicious blot?

Abbot. Before I freely speak my mind herein,
You shall not only take the sacrament
To bury mine intents, but to effect
Whatever I shall happen to devise:-

I see your brows are full of discontent,

Your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears;
Come home with me to supper; and I'll lay

A plot shall shew us all a merry day.

The abbot is made to be one of those 'cautelous priests,' as Shakspere calls those who would have men bound by the imposition of oaths and religious obligations to be true to their intentions; and the one of Westminster has the sacrament administered beforehand as a sanction to whatever he shall propose, which is nothing else than the assassination of Bolingbroke. Equally Shaksperian, and uncharacteristic of the holy clergyman, is the delivery from his mouth of the effects which the plot is to produce. On the discovery of the conspiracy to the king ordered to be executed, his sudden death supposes his suicide.

The king says to the queen :—

I am sworn brother, sweet,

To grim necessity; and he and I

Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France,
And cloister thee in some religious house :

Our holy lives must win a new world's crown,

Which our profane hours here have stricken down,

Queen. What, is my Richard both in shape and mind
Transform'd and weaken'd? Hath Bolingbroke
Depos'd thine intellect? hath he been in thy heart?
The lion, dying, thrusting forth his paw,

And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
To be o'erpower'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like,

Take thy correction mildly? kiss the rod;

And fawn on rage with base humility,
Which art a lion, and a king of beasts?

The king utters a sentiment of real piety, which has been admired as the last words and interchange of ideas between

Charles I. and Bishop Juxon, on the execution of the king. Not much importance is to be attached to what Shakspere says for the purposes of rhyme, as some ascribe it to the work of others; and Johnson gives an instance of the sacrifice of sense to it. We have only to observe, that the manner does not generally betoken much reverence for the matter. Here the sentiment affords occasion for irreligious comment, given in a more serious spirit. The queen concludes in the oft repeated language of Shakspere, contemptuous of Christian humility, and urging him to die revenging, not patient or pious. When the king charges Northumberland with his cruelty and impiety in separating them, Northumberland is made to answer as the Jews did:

My guilt be on my head.

As Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, in the commencement, gave Providence the credit of everything bad, and spoke in such double dealing language of religion, so York, his brother, plays the same part at the fall of Richard. His duchess also shares with the other two female characters the attributes of the man; whilst the meekness of the woman, and the semblance of religious humility, are given to the male character. York gives a pathetic description of Richard on his entry into London :

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.

But heaven hath a hand in these events,

To whose high will we bound our calm contents.
To Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now,
Whose state and honour I for aye allow.

York had gone over to Bolingbroke when he saw him the strongest. He excuses the want of pity and defence of the right in himself and others, charging it on God. The divine will is used as an argument by laity and clergy in support of Richard, and is now made a plea in favour of usurpation and revolt, and God represented as worse than man would be left to himself.

Infidels have made triumphant appeals to the contradicShakspere points them out in the words

tions in Scripture.

of Jesus. In the hour of need, he would show the words as well as the works of Providence wanting, particularly as to any certainty or comfort to be derived from them, when under the expectation of death. King Richard, in the dungeon of Pomfret Castle, immediately before his executioners consign him to death, says (Act 4, scene 1) :—

My brain I'll prove the female to my soul,
My soul the father; and these two beget
A generation of still-breeding thoughts;

And these same thoughts people this little world;
In humour like the people of this world,

For no thought is contented. The better sort,
As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd
With scruples, and do set the word itself

Against the word; as thus: Come, little ones; and then again,
It is as hard to come, as for a camel

To thread the postern of a needle's eye.

Here we have quotation set against quotation, as in works written professedly against Christianity, down to the times of Strauss. Shakspere and his plays preceded them in the work of demolition so satisfactory to sceptics. Shakspere here makes the contradiction an argument for his favourite opinion, that there is nothing after death. Richard ends his soliloquy thus:

But whate'er I am,

Nor I, nor any man, that but man is,

With nothing shall be pleas'd, till he be eas'd
With being nothing.

Knight says of the king's comparison between this little world of man and the external world, (the 'little world' of man, as in Lear) 'Shakspere here uses the philosophy which is described by Raleigh: "Because in the little frame of man's body there is a representation of the universe, and (by allusion) a kind of participation of all the parts there, therefore was man called microcosmos, or the little world." This looks very much like pantheism. Raleigh was said to be an atheist. The history of the world, whence the extract was taken, was a book in the possession of Shakspere. He may have heard the remark from Raleigh, as Richard II. preceded the History of the World.

Shakspere thus having made Richard philosophise against

Christianity, he makes him die contrary to the precepts of Christianity, and cast off all resignation to the will of Providence, both in words and deed:

K. Richard. The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee! Patience is stale, and I am weary of it!

Keeper. Help! help! help!

[Beats the keeper.

Upon the entry of Exton and servants, armed :—

K. Richard. How now, what means death in this rude assault? Villain, thine own hand yields thy death's instrument;

[Snatching a sword and killing one.

Go thou, and fill another room in hell.

[Kills another, then Exton strikes him down.

That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire,
That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand
Hath with the king's blood stain'd the king's own land.
Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;
Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.

In language and in action he refutes Johnson, discards patience, and, rather than die a martyr, kills two men, apparently before aware of their intentions. Though humanely we feel with him, we cannot but perceive a difference from his former conduct, eulogised by Johnson. We see developed to the conclusion the workings of Shakspere's mind in theory and practice. However, the advocates of Shakspere's piety have the reverential inference they wish to draw, from the last rhyme at the end of Richard II.