The characters and situations of both these persons were so nearly alike, that they would have been completely confounded by a commonplace poet. Yet they are kept quite distinct in Shakespeare. Both were kings, and both unfortunate. Both lost their crowns owing to their mismanagement and imbecility; the one from a thoughtless, wilful abuse of power, the other from an indifference to it. The manner in which they bear their misfortunes corresponds exactly to the causes which led to them. The one is always lamenting the loss of his power which he has not the spirit to regain; the other seems only to regret that he had ever been king, and is glad to be rid of the power, with the trouble; the effeminacy of the one is that of a voluptuary, proud, revengeful, impatient of contradiction, and inconsolable in his misfortunes; the effeminacy of the other is that of an indolent, good-natured mind, naturally averse to the turmoils of ambition and the cares of greatness, and who wishes to pass his time in monkish indolence and contemplation.--Richard bewails the loss of the kingly power only as it was the means of gratifying his pride and luxury; Henry regards it only as a means of doing right, and is less desirous of the advantages to be derived from possessing it than afraid of exercising it wrong. In knighting a young soldier, he gives him ghostly advice-- Edward Plantagenet, arise a knight, And learn this lesson, draw thy sword in right. Richard II in the first speeches of the play betrays his real character. In the first alarm of his pride, on hearing of Bolingbroke's rebellion, before his presumption has met with any check, he exclaims: Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords: This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king Shall falter under proud rebellious arms. . . . . . Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm from an anointed king; The breath of worldly man cannot depose The Deputy elected by the Lord. For every man that Bolingbroke hath prest, To lift sharp steel against our golden crown, Heaven for his Richard hath in heavenly pay A glorious angel; then if angels fight, Weak men must fall; for Heaven still guards the right. Yet, notwithstanding this royal confession of faith, on the very first news of actual disaster, all his conceit of himself as the peculiar favourite of Providence vanishes into air. But now the blood of twenty thousand men Did triumph in my face, and they are fled. All souls that will be safe fly from my side; For time hath set a blot upon my pride. Immediately after, however, recollecting that 'cheap defence' of the divinity of kings which is to be found in opinion, he is for arming his name against his enemies.