monarch; for he is as wanting in energy as in principle: but we pity him, for he pities himself. His heart is by no means hardened against himself, but bleeds afresh at every new stroke of mischance; and his sensibility, absorbed in his own person, and unused to misfortune, is not only tenderly alive to its own sufferings, but without the fortitude to bear them. He is, how. weakever, human in his distresses; for to feel pain and sorrow, ness, disappointment, remorse and anguish, is the lot of humanity, and we sympathize with him accordingly. The sufferings of the man make us forget that he ever was a king.

The right assumed by sovereign power to trifle at its will with the happiness of others as a matter of course, or to remit its exercise as a matter of favor, is strikingly shown in the sentence of banishment so unjustly pronounced on Bolingbroke and Mowbray, and in what Bolingbroke says when four years of his banishment are taken off, with as little reason.

"How long a time lies in one little word! Four lagging winters and four wanton springs End in a word: such is the breath of kings.”

A more affecting image of the loneliness of a state of exile can hardly be given, than by what Bolingbroke afterwards observes of his having "sighed his English breath in foreign clouds ;" or than that conveyed in Mowbray's complaint at being banished for life.

"The language I have learned these forty years,

My native English, now I must forego;

And now my tongue's use is to me no more

Than an unstringed viol or a harp,

Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up,

Or being open, put into his hands

That knows no touch to tune the harmony.

I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,

Too far in years to be a pupil now."

How very beautiful is all this, and, at the same time, how very English too!

RICHARD II. may be considered as the first of that series of English historical plays, in which "is hung armor of the in

vincible knights of old," in which their hearts seem to strike against their coats of mail, where their blood tingles for the fight, and words are but the harbingers of blows. Of this state of accomplished barbarism, the appeal of Bolingbroke and Mow. bray is an admirable specimen. Another of these "keen encounters of their wits," which serve to whet the talkers' swords, is where Aumerle answers in the presence of Bolingbroke to the charge which Bagot brings against him, of being an accessory in Gloster's death.

"FITZWATER. If that thy valor stand on sympathies, There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine;

By that fair sun that shows me where thou stand'st,

I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it,
That thou wert cause of noble Gloster's death.

If thou deny'st it twenty times thou liest,
And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,
Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.

AUMERLE. Thou dar'st not, coward, live to see the day.
FITZWATER. Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.
AUMERLE. Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this.
PERCY. Aumerle, thou liest; his honor is as true,

In this appeal, as thou art all unjust;
And that thou art so, there I throw my gage

To prove it on thee, to th' extremest point

Of mortal breathing. Seize it, if thơu dar'st.

AUMERLE. And if I do not, may my hands rot off,
And never brandish more revengeful steel

Over the glittering helmet of my foe.

Who sets me else? By heav'n, I'll throw at all

I have a thousand spirits in my breast,

To answer twenty thousand such as you

Sunny. My Lord Fitzwater, I remember well

The very time Aumerle and you did talk.

FITZWATER. My lord, 'tis true: you were in presence then:

And you can witness with me, this is true.

SURRY. As false, by heav'n, as heav'n itself is true.

FITEWATER. Surry, thou liest.

SURRY. Dishonorable boy'

That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword,

That it shail render vengeance and revenge

Till thou the lie-giver and that lie rest
In earth as quiet as thy father's skull.
In proof whereof, there is mine honor's pawa ;
Engage it to the trial, if thou dar ́st.

FITZWATER. How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse:

If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live,

I dare meet Surry in a wilderness,

And spit upon him, whilst I say he lies,
And lies, and lies: there is my bond of faith,
To tie thee to thy strong correction

As I do hope to thrive in this new world,
Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal."

The truth is, that there is neither truth nor honor in all these noble persons: they answer words with words, as they do blows with blows, in mere self-defence: nor have they any principle whatever but that of courage in maintaining any wrong they dare commit, or any falsehood which they find it useful to assert. How different were these noble knights and "barons bold" from their more refined descendants in the present day, who, instead of deciding questions of right by brute force, refer everything to convenience, fashion, and good breeding! In point of any abstract love of truth or justice, they are just the same now that they were then.

The characters of old John of Gaunt, and of his brother York, uncles to the King, the one stern and foreboding, the other honest, good-natured, doing all for the best, and therefore doing nothing, are well kept up. The speech of the former, in praise of England, is one of the most eloquent that ever was penned. We should, perhaps, hardly be disposed to feed the pampered ego. tism of our countrymen by quoting this description, were it not that the conclusion of it (which looks prophetic) may qualify any improper degree of exultation.

"This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,
This earth of Majesty, this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-Paradise,
This fortress built by nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war;
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
(Or as a moat defensive to a house)

Against the envy of less happy lands.

This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings.

Q

So many greedy looks of young and old
Through casements darted their desiring eyes
Upon his visage; and that all the walls,
With painted imagʼry, had said at once-
Jesu preserve thee! welcome Bolingbroke!
Whilst he, from one side to the other turning,
Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed's neck,
Bespake them thus-I thank you, countrymen :
And thus still doing thus he pass'd along.

Duchess. Alas, poor Richard! where rides he the while?
YORK. As in a theatre, the eyes of men,

After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,
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 hit 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 barbarist itself have pitied him."

HENRY IV.

IN TWO PARTS.

IF Shakspeare's fondness for the ludicrous sometimes led to faults in his tragedies (which was not often the case) he has made us amends by the character of Falstaff. This is perhaps the most substantial comic character that ever was invented. Sir John carries a most portly presence in the mind's eye; and in him, not to speak it profanely, "we behold the fulness of the spirit of wit and humor bodily." We are as well acquainted with his person as his mind, and his jokes come upon us with double force and relish from the quantity of flesh through which they make their way, as he shakes his fat sides with laughter, or "lards the lean earth as he walks along." Other comic characters seem, if we approach and handle them, to resolve themselves into air," into thin air;" but this is embodied and palpable to the grossest apprehension: it lies "three fingers deep upon the ribs," it plays about the lungs and the diaphragm with all the force of animal enjoyment. His body is like a good estate to his mind, from which he receives rents and revenues of profit and pleasure in kind, according to its extent, and the richness of the soil. Wit is often a meagre substitute for pleasurable sensation; an effusion of spleen and petty spite at the comforts of others, from feeling none in itself. Falstaff's wit is an emanation of a fine constitution; an exuberance of good-humor and good-nature; an overflowing of his love of laughter and goodfellowship; a giving vent to his heart's ease and over-contentment with himself and others. He would not be in character, if he were not so fat as he is; for there is the greatest keeping