The character of Bolingbroke, afterwards Henry IV, is drawn with a masterly hand:—­patient for occasion, and then steadily availing himself of it, seeing his advantage afar off, but only seizing on it when he has it within his reach, humble, crafty, bold, and aspiring, encroaching by regular but slow degrees, building power on opinion, and cementing opinion by power.  His disposition is first unfolded by Richard himself, who however is too self-willed and secure to make a proper use of his knowledge.

     Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green,
     Observed his courtship of the common people;
     How he did seem to dive into their hearts,
     With humble and familiar courtesy,
     What reverence he did throw away on slaves;
     Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles,
     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: 

     I thank thee, gentle Percy, and be sure
     I count myself in nothing else so happy,
     As in a soul rememb’ring my good friends;
     And as my fortune ripens with thy love,
     It shall be still thy true love’s recompense.

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 touches of pathos are his wish, ’O that I were a mockery king of snow to melt away before the sun of Bolingbroke’, and the incident of the poor groom who comes to visit him in prison, and tells him how ’it yearned his heart that Bolingbroke upon his coronation day rode on Roan Barbary.  We shall have occasion to return hereafter to the character of Richard ii in speaking of Henry VI.  There is only one passage more, the description of his entrance into London with Bolingbroke, which we should like to quote here, if it had not been so used and worn out, so thumbed and got by rote, so praised and painted; but its beauty surmounts all these considerations.

   Duchess.  My lord, you told me you would tell the rest,
     When weeping made you break the story off
     Of our two cousins coming into London.