I remember in the Sophoclean drama no more striking example of the {Greek (transliterated): To prepon kai semnon} than this speech; and the rhymes in the last six lines well express the preconcertedness of Bolingbroke's scheme so beautifully contrasted with the vehemence and sincere irritation of Mowbray.
'Ib.' Bolingbroke's speech:—
Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,
Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,
To me, for justice and rough chastisement.
NOTE the {Greek (transliterated): deinhon} of this 'to me,' which is evidently felt by Richard:—
How high a pitch his resolution soars!
and the affected depreciation afterwards;—
As he is but my father's brother's son.
'Ib.' Mowbray's speech:—
In haste whereof, most heartily I pray
Your highness to assign our trial day.
The occasional interspersion of rhymes, and the more frequent winding up of a speech therewith—what purpose was this designed to answer? In the earnest drama, I mean. Deliberateness? An attempt, as in Mowbray, to collect himself and be cool at the close?—I can see that in the following speeches the rhyme answers the end of the Greek chorus, and distinguishes the general truths from the passions of the dialogue; but this does not exactly justify the practice, which is unfrequent in proportion to the excellence of Shakspeare's plays. One thing, however, is to be observed,—that the speakers are historical, known, and so far formal, characters, and their reality is already a fact. This should be borne in mind. The whole of this scene of the quarrel between Mowbray and Bolingbroke seems introduced for the purpose of showing by anticipation the characters of Richard and Bolingbroke. In the latter there is observable a decorous and courtly checking of his anger in subservience to a predetermined plan, especially in his calm speech after receiving sentence of banishment compared with Mowbray's unaffected lamentation. In the one, all is ambitious hope of something yet to come; in the other it is desolation and a looking backward of the heart.