York.  Where did I leave?

   Duchess.  At that sad stop, my lord,
     Where rude misgovern’d hands, from window tops,
     Threw dust and rubbish on king Richard’s head.

   York.  Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke,
     Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed,
     Which his aspiring rider seem’d to know,
     With slow, but stately pace, kept on his course,
     While all tongues cried—­God save thee, Bolingbroke! 
     You would have thought the very windows spake,
     So many greedy looks of young and old
     Through casements darted their desiring eyes
     Upon his visage; and that all the walls,
     With painted imag’ry, had said at once—­
     Jesu preserve thee! welcome, Bolingbroke! 
     Whilst he, from one side to the other turning,
     Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed’s neck,
     Bespake them thus—­I thank you, countrymen: 
     And thus still doing thus he pass’d along.

   Duchess.  Alas, poor Richard! where rides he the while?

   York.  As in a theatre, the eyes of men,
     After a well-grac’d actor leaves the stage,
     Are idly bent on him that enters next,
     Thinking his prattle to be tedious: 
     Even so, or with much more contempt, men’s eyes
     Did scowl on Richard; no man cried God save him! 
     No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home: 
     But dust was thrown upon his sacred head! 
     Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off—­
     His face still combating with tears and smiles,
     The badges of his grief and patience—­
     That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel’d
     The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted. 
     And barbarism itself have pitied him.

HENRY IV

IN TWO PARTS

If Shakespeare’s fondness for the ludicrous sometimes led to faults in his tragedies (which was not often the case), he has made us amends by the character of Falstaff.  This is perhaps the most substantial comic character that ever was invented.  Sir John carries a most portly presence in the mind’s eye; and in him, not to speak it profanely, ’we behold the fullness of the spirit of wit and humour bodily’.  We are as well acquainted with his person as his mind, and his jokes come upon us with double force and relish from the quantity of flesh through which they make their way, as he shakes his fat sides with laughter, or ’lards the lean earth as he walks along’.  Other comic characters seem, if we approach and handle them, to resolve themselves into air, ‘into thin air’; but this is embodied and palpable to the grossest apprehension:  it lies ’three fingers deep upon the ribs’, it plays about the lungs and the diaphragm with all the force of animal enjoyment.  His body is like a good estate to his mind, from which he receives rents and revenues of profit and pleasure in kind,