'Ib.' sc. 2.
'Gaunt'. Heaven's is the quarrel; for heaven's substitute,
His deputy anointed in his right,
Hath caus'd his death: the which, if wrongfully,
Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift
An angry arm against his minister.
Without the hollow extravagance of Beaumont and Fletcher's ultra-royalism, how carefully does Shakspeare acknowledge and reverence the eternal distinction between the mere individual, and the symbolic or representative, on which all genial law, no less than patriotism, depends. The whole of this second scene commences, and is anticipative of, the tone and character of the play at large.
'Ib.' sc. 3. In none of Shakspeare's fictitious dramas, or in those founded on a history as unknown to his auditors generally as fiction, is this violent rupture of the succession of time found:—a proof, I think, that the pure historic drama, like Richard II. and King John, had its own laws.
'Ib.' Mowbray's speech:—
A dearer merit Have I deserved at your highness' hand.
O, the instinctive propriety of Shakspeare in the choice of words!
'Ib.' Richard's speech:
Nor never by advised purpose meet,
To plot, contrive, or complot any ill,
'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.
Already the selfish weakness of Richard's character opens. Nothing will such minds so readily embrace, as indirect ways softened down to their 'quasi'-consciences by policy, expedience, &c.