Page:William Hazlitt - Characters of Shakespear's Plays (1817).djvu/215

Rh And patient under-bearing of his fortune, As 'twere to banish their affections with him. Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench; A brace of draymen bid God speed him well, And had the tribute of his supple knee, With thanks my countrymen, my loving friends; As were our England in reversion his, And he our subjects' next degree in hope."

Afterwards, he gives his own character to Percy, in these words:

We know how he afterwards kept his promise. His bold assertion of his own rights, his pretended submission to the king, and the ascendancy which he tacitly assumes over him without openly claiming it, as soon as he has him in his power, are characteristic traits of this ambitious and politic usurper. But the part of Richard himself gives the chief interest to the play. His folly, his vices, his misfortunes, his reluctance to part with the crown, his fear to keep it, his weak and womanish regrets, his starting tears, his fits of hectic passion, his smothered majesty, pass in succession before us, and make a picture as natural as it is affecting. Among the most striking