738 POETRY 



an expression which gives not only the fact of growing darkness, but 

 also its qualities. 



The picture of the poetical nature that Shakespeare has given us 

 in Macbeth is considerably heightened if by the side of it we add for 

 contrast his Richard II. Without working out the parallel in any 

 detail, it will be enough to call attention to two points. In the first 

 place, Richard has no imagination in the sense which we have seen 

 reason to give to that term; he has no intuition into the scope and 

 meaning and consequences of events. Compare, for instance, with 

 Macbeth's picture of old age, Richard's picture of a dethroned king : 



I'll give my jewels for a set of beads, 

 My gorgeous palace for a hermitage; 

 My gay apparel for an almsman's gown; 

 My figured goblets for a dish of wood; 

 My sceptre for a farmer's walking staff, 

 My subjects for a pair of carved saints; 

 And my large kingdom for a little grave, etc. 



The points in the picture which rouse Richard's emotion, and which 

 he sets out before us, are all merely superficial; never once does he 

 touch the real heart of the matter. The other noticeable thing is 

 that Richard is much less interested in persons or events than in his 

 feeling.? about them, and then only in such as are lamentable; and 

 perhaps, it would be true to add, less in the lamentable feelings than 

 in the pathetic language in which they can be expressed. He " ham- 

 mers out " a simile as though it was an end in itself, and is moved by 

 a curious phrase so as almost to forget his troubles. In the corona- 

 tion scene, after Richard has cast down the looking-glass with the 

 words, 



How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face, 



Bolingbroke, with all a practical man's contempt of play-acting and 

 rhetoric, satirically replies : 



The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed 

 The shadow of your face, 



whereupon Richard is at once arrested : 



Say that again! 

 The shadow of my sorrow ! ha ! let's see ! 



Could there be a truer portrait of the " minor poet " or sentimen- 

 talist ? 



