The curious thing is that while Shakespeare is depicting Richard's heartlessness, he does his work badly; the traits, as I have shown, are crudely extravagant and even contradictory; but when he paints Richard's gentleness and amiability, he works like a master, every touch is infallible: he is painting himself.
It was natural for Shakespeare to sympathize deeply with Richard; he was still young when he wrote the play, young enough to remember vividly how he himself had been led astray by loose companions, and this formed a bond between them. At this time of his life this was Shakespeare's favourite subject: he treated it again in “Henry IV.,” which is at once the epilogue to “Richard II.” and a companion picture to it; for the theme of both plays is the same—youth yielding to unworthy companions—though the treatment in the earlier play is incomparably feebler than it became in “King Henry IV.” Bushy, Bagot, and Green, the favourites of Richard, are not painted as Shakespeare afterwards painted Falstaff and his followers. But partly because he had not yet attained to such objective treatment of character, Shakespeare identified himself peculiarly with Richard; and his painting of Richard is more intimate, more subtle, more self-revealing and pathetic than anything in “Henry IV.”
As I have already said, from the time when Richard appoints York as Regent, and leaves England, Shakespeare begins to think of himself as Richard, and from this moment to the end no one can help sympathizing with the unhappy King. At this point, too, the character-drawing becomes, of a sudden, excellent. When Richard lands in England, he is given speech after speech, and all he says and does afterwards throws light, it seems to me, on Shakespeare's own nature. Let us mark each trait First of all Richard is intensely, frankly emotional: he “weeps for joy” to be in England again; “weeping, smiling,” he greets the earth of England, and is full of hope. “The thief, the traitor,” Bolingbroke, will not dare to face the light of the sun; for “every man that Bolingbroke has in his pay,” he cries exultantly, God hath given Richard a “glorious angel; ... Heaven still guards the right.” A moment later he hears from Salisbury that the Welshmen whom he had relied upon as allies are dispersed and fled. At once he becomes “pale and dead.” From the height of pride and confidence he falls to utter hopelessness.
“All souls that will be safe fly from my side;
For time hath set a blot upon my pride.”
Aumerle asks him to remember who he is, and at once he springs from dejection to confidence again. He cries:
“Awake, thou sluggard majesty! thou sleepest.
Is not the king's name forty thousand names?”
The next moment Scroop speaks of cares, and forthwith fitful Richard is in the dumps once more. But this time his weakness is turned to resignation and sadness, and the pathos of this is brought out by the poet:
“Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?
Greater he shall not be; if he serve God
We'll serve him, too, and be his fellow so.
Revolt our subjects? that we cannot mend;
They break their faith to God, as well as us.
Cry woe, destruction, ruin, loss, decay;
The worst is death, and death will have his day.”
Who does not hear Hamlet speaking in this memorable last line? Like Hamlet, too, this Richard is quick to suspect even his friends' loyalty. He guesses that Bagot, Bushy, and Green have made peace with Bolingbroke, and when Scroop seems to admit this, Richard is as quick as Hamlet to unpack his heart with words:
“O villains, vipers, damned without redemption!
Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!
Snakes,”