"
And when Bolingbroke kneels to him he plays upon words, as Gaunt did a
little earlier in the play misery making sport to mock itself. He says:
"Up, cousin, up; your heart is up, I know,
Thus high at least, although your knee be low"--
and then he abandons himself to do "what force will have us do."
The Queen's wretchedness is next used to heighten our sympathy with
Richard, and immediately afterwards we have that curious scene between
the gardener and his servant which is merely youthful Shakespeare, for
such a gardener and such a servant never yet existed. The scene
[Footnote: Coleridge gives this scene as an instance of Shakespeare's
"wonderful judgement"; the introduction of the gardener, he says,
"realizes the thing," and, indeed, the introduction of a gardener would
have this tendency, but not the introduction of this pompous, priggish
philosopher togged out in old Adam's likeness. Here is the way this
gardener criticises the King:
"All superfluous branches
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live;
Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,
Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.
Pages:
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122