to say nothing of an approach to Macbeth and Iago. Richard is sometimes a human being, sometimes a monster, and always a stage villain. But the very fact that critics have delighted to analyze and moralize over his traits is proof that Shakespeare, in spite of the monstrosities of his conception, gave to its dramatic presentation not only a stage effectiveness but also plausibility. This plausibility must be accredited largely to the vigorous colloquialism of his speeches. The play manifests the usual conflict of artificial and natural styles; the elaborate stichomythia and the wailing and cursing queens furnish examples of the common affectations of tragic style; and the rhetorical display appears not infrequently in Richard's speeches. But in the main he speaks with a naturalness and directness far greater than was usual in tragic heroes, and the natural-speaking Richard often makes plausible and convincing the theatrical and rhetorical villain. Thus, after the opening soliloquy he drops his rhetoric for the conversational tone of his conference with Clarence; and thus, the procession of ghosts remains still impressive on our stage because it is followed by a soliloquy that surpasses all except a few of Marlowe's in power and naturalness. Throughout the play, while others declaim, wail, and curse, the most impossible figure of them all becomes the only convincing human being, very largely because of the realism of his speech. In "Richard II," written at about the time of "Richard III," Shakespeare was also writing under the influence of Marlowe, but now in direct imitation and rivalry of "Edward II." The first part of the reign of Richard II had already received treatment in "Jack Straw" and "Woodstock," and the theme of a weak king forced to abdicate had been presented in "Henry VI" as well as "Edward II." Shakespeare followed, as always hitherto, his source, Holinshed, very closely, and the historical material determined the plot and characterization, but Marlowe's example led him to an interpretation of the fifteen years' history as the tragedy of the reversal of fortune of a king whose temperament made him contemptible in prosperity but pitiable in adversity. Along with the story of the rise and progress of the conflict between Richard and the barons under Bolingbroke, there runs the story of "the reluctant pangs of abdicating royalty," which give a new pathos to that favorite theme of medieval tragedy and Elizabethan history, the vanquishment of a prince by scornful Fortune. The struggle within Richard's own heart, even more than in the case of Edward II, absorbs the interest and points the moral, the hollowness and uncertainty of earthly grandeur.