n some form is at the root of all Shakespearean tragedy. In
this play it takes many forms, among which two are principal, the
treachery of a king to his duty as a king, and the treachery of a
subject to his duty as a subject. As usual in Shakespearean tragedy, the
play is filled full by the abundant mind of the author with
illustrations of his idea. The apricocks at Langley are like King
Richard, the sprays of the trees like Bolingbroke, the weeds like the
King's friends. Everybody in the play (even the horse in the last act)
is in passionate relation to the central idea.

King Richard is of a type very interesting to Shakespeare. He is wilful,
complex, passionate, with a beauty almost childish and a love of
pleasure that makes him greedy of all gay, light, glittering things. He
loves the music that does not trouble with passion and the thought not
touched with the world. He loves that kind of false, delicate beauty
which is made in societies where life is too easy. There is much that is
beautiful in him. He has all the charm of those whom the world calls the
worthless. His love is a woman, as beautiful and unreal as himself. He
fails because, like other rare things, he is not common. The world cares
little for the rare and the interesting. The world calls for the rough
and common virtue that guides a plough in a furrow, and sergeantly
chaffs by the camp fires. The soul that suffers more than other souls is
little regarded here. The tragedy of the sensitive soul, always acute,
becomes terrible when that soul is made king here by one of the
accidents of life. As a king, Richard neglects his duties with that kind
of wilfulness which the world never fails to punish. The wilfulness
takes the form of a shutting of the eyes to all that is truly kingly. He
rebukes devotion to duty by banishing Bolingbroke, who tries to rid him
of a traitor. He rebukes old age and wisdom in the truly great person
of old John of Gaunt. Worst, and most unkingly of all, he is incapable
of seeing and rewarding the large generosity of mind that makes
sacrifices for an idea. Richard, who likes beautiful things, cannot see
the beauty of old, rough, dying Gaunt, who condemns his own son to exile
rather than betray his idea of justice. Bolingbroke, who cares intensely
for nothing but justice (and could not give even that caring a name, if
questioned), is deeply and nobly generous to York, who would condemn his
own son, and to the Bishop of Carlisle, who