There was a clatter of iron hooves over the London cobbles, a flutter of knightly plumes under the royal gates, and the commoners of London, "the poor mechanicals" of the poet, ran out from their shops and gaped down the street at Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex come from the Irish bogs to make his peace with Elizabeth. The noble earl's visit was impelled more by ardor than discretion, so the old chronicle hath it, for it was early morning and the queen was not in the parlor. Elizabeth received her favorite coldly, and Essex retired, not the first or last Englishman to regret his excursion to the fields of Ulster. Thereafter the Earl only sulked in his tent while the queen's advocate, the saturnine Bacon, polished his vindictive phrases in the office of the Cecils.

Essex's friend, Southampton, anxious to waken him to his peril and to win the support of the people, turned to a certain new dramatist all London was acclaiming. The crowds storming the Globe to see "Henry IV" had already applauded the wish that Essex might return from Ireland "bring rebellion broached on his sword:" only Shakespeare could waken their enthusiasm again, and show Essex his danger and his opportunity. And so the "History of King Richard II" was put on the boards on the Bankside, with a double moral for its time. The audience beheld the tyranny of Hereford, while Essex took the hint from the king who lost a crown by intriguing in Ireland. In February 1601, with three hundred followers, he rode again to the palace gates, but this time the queen was ready. The last act of Essex's tragedy confirmed the poet's prophesy.

The stormy background of Richard II is dim for readers today, and its Elizabethan undertones are lost, but the poetry remain, as Professor Matthiessen will demonstrate today in Emerson A at eleven o'clock.

TODAY

10 O'Clock

"Chaucer's 'Criseyde'," Dr. Spencer, Sever 11.

"Plato's Ethics," Professor Perry, Emerson D.

11 O'Clock

"Anglo-American Relations, 1815-1818," Professor Baxter, Harvard 1.

"Fanny Burney," Professor Maynadier, Sever 11.

"Richard II," Professor Matthiessen, Emerson A.

12 O'Clock

"School Plays," Professor Murray, Harvard 3.

"Handel and the Oratories," Professor Hill, Music Building.

"Newton's Laws of Motion," Professor Black, Jefferson Laboratory.