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 favour, 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 armour of the invincible 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 Mowbray 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 valour 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 honour 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 thou dar'st.