The
change of tone and behaviour in the two competitors for the throne
according to their change of fortune, from the capricious sentence
of banishment passed by Richard upon Bolingbroke, the suppliant
offers and modest pretensions of the latter on his return, to the
high and haughty tone with which he accepts Richard's resignation of
the crown after the loss of all his power, the use which he makes of
the deposed king to grace his triumphal progress through the streets
of London, and the final intimation of his wish for his death, which
immediately finds a servile executioner, is marked throughout with
complete effect and without the slightest appearance of effort. The
steps by which Bolingbroke mounts the throne are those by which
Richard sinks into the grave. We feel neither respect nor love for
the deposed 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, however,
human in his distresses; for to feel pain, and sorrow, weakness,
disappointment, remorse and anguish, is the lot of humanity, and we
sympathize with him accordingly.
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