April 30, 1611, he notes the performance of a play called Richard the Second at the Globe theatre; adding such particulars of the plot and action as make it evident that the' play could not have been Shakespeare's, though performed at the theatre for which he had so long been used to write. The details noted by Forman ascertain the piece to have embraced the insurrection of Wat Tiler and Jack Straw, with various other matters occurring before the outbreak of the quarrel between Bolingbroke and Norfolk. Forman says nothing about the deposing of Richard; an event which he would hardly have failed to mention, had it formed any part of the play.

This brings me to a curious affair of State which took place in 1601. It appears that in February of that year the partisans and accomplices of Essex, in pursuance of the conspiracy they had formed, and to further the insurrection they had planned, procured a play to be acted, wherein the deposing of Richard the Second was represented. The affair is briefly related in Camden's Annals, and the main points of it are further known from Lord Bacon's official papers concerning the treason of Robert, Earl of Essex." Bacon's statement tallies exactly with another document lately discovered in the State-Paper Office. This ascertains that on the 18th of February, 1601, Augustine Phillips, a member of the same theatrical company with Shakespeare, was examined under oath by Chief-Justice Popham, Justice Anderson, and Sergeant Fenner, in support of the prosecution. Phillips testified that a few days before some of Essex's partisans had applied, in his presence, to the leaders of the Globe company, to have the play of the deposing and killing of King Richard the Second played the Saturday next, promising to give them forty shillings more than their ordinary" for playing it. Phillips also testified that he and his fellows had determined to act some other play, "holding the play of King Richard to be so old, and so long out of use, that they should have small or no company at it,” but that the extra forty shillings induced them to change their purpose, and do as they were requested.

Until this deposition came to light, it was not known what theatrical company had undertaken the performance for which the friends of Essex were prosecuted. We now know that it was

the company to which Shakespeare belonged, and by which his play had for some time been owned and often acted. As we have seen, the piece bespoken by the conspirators could not have been the same which Forman witnessed ten years later. It is indeed possible that the play so bespoke may have been a third one on the same subject, that has not elsewhere been heard of; but this, to say the least, appears highly improbable. To be sure, the play engaged for that occasion is spoken of as being 'so old, and so long out of use," that it was not likely to draw an audience; which circumstance has been rather strongly urged against supposing it to have been Shakespeare's. But these words need not infer any more than that the play had lost the charm of novelty; a thing which, considering the marvellous fertility of the time in dramatic production, might well enough have come about in the course of five or six years.

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My own judgment, therefore, is, that Shakespeare's King Richard the Second was written as early as 1594; that it is the play referred to in the trial of Essex and his accomplices; and that for reasons of State the deposition-scene was withheld from the press till some time after the accession of James the First, when such reasons were no longer held to be of any force.

The leading events of King Richard the Second, and all the persons except the Queen, the whole substance, action, and interest, are purely historical, with only such heightening of effect, such vividness of colouring, and such vital invigoration, as poetry can add without marring or displacing the truth of history; the Poet having entirely forborne that freedom of art in representative character which elsewhere issued in such delectations as Falconbridge and Falstaff. For the materials of the drama, Shakespeare was indebted, as in his other historical plays, to the pages of Holinshed; though there are several passages which show traces of his reading in the older work of Hall. In the current of Holinshed's narrative, the quarrel of Bolingbroke and Norfolk strikes in so abruptly, is so inexplicable in its origin, and so teeming with great results, as to form, naturally and of itself, the beginning of the manifold national tragedy which ends only with the catastrophe of King Richard the Third. The cause

indeed of that quarrel is hardly less obscure in the history than in the play: it stands out almost as something uncaused, so that there was no need of going behind it; while at the same time it proves the germ of such a vast and varied procession of historical events as to acquire the highest importance.

Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Gardeners, Keeper, Messenger, Groom, and other Attendants.

SCENE.-Dispersedly in England and Wales.

ACT I.

SCENE I.- London. A Room in the Palace.

Enter King RICHARD, attended; GAUNT, and other Nobles. K. Rich. Old John of Gaunt,1 time-honour'd Lancaster,

1 The Duke of Lancaster was born in 1340, in the city of Ghent, Flanders, and thence called John of Gaunt. At the time referred to in the text, 1398, he was only fifty-eight years old. The language here applied to him is such

Hast thou, according to thy oath and band,2
Brought hither Henry Hereford thy bold son,
Here to make good the boisterous late appeal,3
Which then our leisure would not let us hear,
Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
Gaunt. I have, my liege.

K. Rich. Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him,
If he appeal the duke on ancient malice;

Or worthily, as a good subject should,

On some known ground of treachery in him?

Gaunt. As near as I could sift him on that argument, On some apparent 5 danger seen in him

Aim'd at your Highness; no inveterate malice.

K. Rich. Then call them to our presence: face to face, And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear

Th' accuser and th' accusèd freely speak :

[Exeunt some Attendants. High-stomach'd are they both, and full of irc,

In

rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.

Re-enter Attendants, with BOLINGBROKE and Norfolk. Boling. May many years of happy days befall

as we should hardly use of a man under eighty. At that time men were often married at fifteen, and were commonly reckoned old at fifty; and to reach the age of sixty was as uncommon as it is now to reach fourscore.

2 Band and bond were used indifferently for obligation, both of them being from the verb to bind. Some six weeks before the time of this scene, in Parliament held at Shrewsbury, Lancaster had pledged himself, given his oath and bond, that his son should appear for combat at the time and place appointed. This was in accordance with ancient custom.

3 To appeal was constantly used for to accuse or impeach.

4 Leisure is here put for want of leisure. A frequent usage both in Shakespeare and other old writers. See vol. v. page 55, note 7.

5 Here, as often, apparent is manifest.— Argument is theme or matter.

6 Stomach was used for pride, and also for resentment.

7 Henry Plantagenet, the eldest son of Lancaster, was surnamed Bolingbroke from his having been born at the castle of that name in Lincolnshire.