'Gur'. Good leave, good Philip. 'Bast'. Philip? _sparrow_! James, &c. Theobald adopts Warburton's conjecture of '_spare me_.' O true Warburton! and the 'sancta simplicitas' of honest dull Theobald's faith in him! Nothing can be more lively or characteristic than 'Philip! Sparrow!' Had Warburton read old Skelton's 'Philip Sparrow,' an exquisite and original poem, and, no doubt, popular in Shakspeare's time, even Warburton would scarcely have made so deep a plunge into the _bathetic_ as to have deathified 'sparrow' into 'spare me!' Act iii. sc. 2. Speech of Faulconbridge:-- Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot; Some _airy_ devil hovers in the sky, &c. Theobald adopts Warburton's conjecture of 'fiery.' I prefer the old text; the word 'devil' implies 'fiery.' You need only read the line, laying a full and strong emphasis on 'devil,' to perceive the uselessness and tastelessness of Warburton's alteration. RICHARD II. I have stated that the transitional link between the epic poem and the drama is the historic drama; that in the epic poem a pre-announced fate gradually adjusts and employs the will and the events as its instruments, whilst the drama, on the other hand, places fate and will in opposition to each other, and is then most perfect, when the victory of fate is obtained in consequence of imperfections in the opposing will, so as to leave a final impression that the fate itself is but a higher and a more intelligent will. From the length of the speeches, and the circumstance that, with one exception, the events are all historical, and presented in their results, not produced by acts seen by, or taking place before, the audience, this tragedy is ill suited to our present large theatres. But in itself, and for the closet, I feel no hesitation in placing it as the first and most admirable of all Shakspeare's purely historical plays. For the two parts of Henry IV. form a species of themselves, which may be named the mixed drama. The distinction does not depend on the mere quantity of historical events in the play compared with the fictions; for there is as much history in Macbeth as in Richard, but in the relation of the history to the plot.