THE INTRODUCTORY HE reader is acquainted with our opinion touching the authorship of the three plays of King Henry VI., and will remember that the inclination of our belief lighted upon Shakspere as the person by whom they were composed. Genius, where it exists at all, cannot long exist without judgment. It is a subtle essence which flies off and is dispersed to nought, unless restrained by that which strengthens while it distributes it. Shakspere, any more than men of lesser pretensions, was not in his youth exempt from that crude and vicious ambition which incited him to make an exhibition of his natural powers while yet judgment had scarce power to germinate within him. Perhaps, likewise, he undervalued that cool, deliberate, and, to the young, unpoetical quality, as a medium through which the creations of the imagination were to be made manifest; and forgot, or rather, did not then know that rhapsodies, however splendid, hold no sure footing in this unstedfast world of ours—that they carry no feature whereby futurity shall recognise them—that they have no hands wherewith to grasp immortality. At all events, it must be said that he adopted the dramatic forms as he found them, paying little heed to their imperfections, and, consequently, evincing as little anxiety to amend them; careful chiefly to shew the "prodigality of nature." Ebullitions of genius they were, but not works of art ;-art, which is the decus et tutamen, at once the grace and security of genius. This froward delusion was not destined to find a lengthened entertainment in the mind of so mighty a genius and so subtle a philosopher as Shakspere. Vain glory was not for him, and true glory is the child of labour. Before, like his older rivals, he had presented pieces; performances, indeed, which made these rivals wonder whence this youth had come; now he began to revolve works which, when produced, constrained them to marvel whither he was going, and at what distance they were to be left behind. The envious and splenetic Greene waxed wrath, and poured his rancorous emotions into the kindred breast of Peele; whilst the greater Marlowe held his peace—it is to be hoped, for it may be believed, in wonderstricken admiration of the new-comer, who was never to depart. Behold the first result of awakened and diligent judgment in the following play. Never was old Hesiod's saying, that "the half is more than the whole," more happily verified than in the drama of Richard III., as compared with the three preceding plays. Here there is no crowd; no pressure of incidents or of persons. The former have room to move in, the latter have space to breathe. There is air about them and between them; and it gives them life and spirit and vigour. The character of Richard, in all its phases of wickedness (a most arduous one to depict), is very finely sustained. The grave and trifling dissembler, the saintly hypocrite, the mocking fiend, the inexorable tyrant, and the renowned soldier ;-valour, decision, shrewdness, wit, refined dissimulation, and the grossest cunning-the difficult conjunction of these qualities in one man is effected with a master's skill. There is no character in Shakspere (Hamlet excepted) that required more exquisite labour at the hands of its author, or that has received it. Again, how wonderfully great is Queen Margaret! We have seen her in the former plays: look upon her now. No longer immediately interested in the events that take place before her she moves upon the scene, overshadowing it like a portentous destiny. "She rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm." Her curses, words before, now are works. They have become omens. Nor is our reason shocked when, as the play advances, we see her direful predictions verified. She has watched with fiend-like sagacity and untiring patience, the sequence of events, the effects of causes, the operations of character, "Till old experience did attain To something like prophetic strain." Nothing is left for chance to divert or to accomplish. She "sees as in a map, the end of all;" and when she departs for France, we scarcely require to be told the issue of Bosworth field. "Richard III." is constructed with remarkable skill, and the language is eminently dramatic. several times published in quarto, previous to the first folio edition. It was Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings; And now, instead of mounting barbéd steeds, But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, I that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; Tendering my person's safety, hath appointed This conduct to convey me to the Tower. Glo. Upon what cause? Clar. Because my name is George. Glo. Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours: He should for that commit your godfathers:— O, belike his majesty hath some intent That you shall be new christened in the Tower. But what's the matter, Clarence may I know? Clar. Yea, Richard, when I know; for I protest As yet I do not. But, as I can learn, He hearkens after prophecies and dreams; And from the cross-row plucks the letter G, And says, a wizard told him that "by G women. 'Tis not the King that sends you to the Tower: My Lady Grey his wife, Clarence, 't is she That tempers him to this extremity. Was it not she, and that good man of worship Clar. By Heaven, I think there is no man secure But the Queen's kindred, and night-walking heralds That trudge betwixt the King and Mistress Shore: Glo. Humbly complaining to her deity Brak. I beseech your graces both to pardon me: You may partake of anything we say. tongue; And the Queen's kindred are made gentlefolks: How say you, sir; can you deny all this? Brak. With this, my lord, myself have nought to do. Glo. Naught to do with Mistress Shore? I tell thee, fellow, He that doth naught with her, excepting one, Were best to do it secretly, alone. Brak. What one, my lord? Glo. Her husband, knave:- wouldst thou betray me? Brak. I beseech your grace to pardon me; and withal Forbear your conference with the noble duke. Clar. We know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will obey. Glo. We are the Queen's abjects, and must obey. Brother, farewell: I will unto the King: Clar. I know it pleaseth neither of us well. Clar. I must perforce: farewell. [Exeunt CLARENCE, BRAKENBURY, and Guard. Glo. Go tread the path that thou shalt ne'er return, Simple, plain Clarence! I do love thee so Enter HASTINGS. Hast. Good time of day unto my gracious lord. Glo. As much unto my good lord chamberlain : Well are you welcome to this open air. How hath your lordship brooked imprisonment? Hast. With patience, noble lord, as prisoners must: But I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks That were the cause of my imprisonment. Glo. No doubt, no doubt; and so shall Clarence too: For they that were your enemies are his, While kites and buzzards prey at liberty. Glo. What news abroad? Hast. No news so bad abroad as this at home: The King is sickly, weak, and melancholy, And his physicians fear him mightily. Glo. Now by Saint Paul this news is bad indeed! O he hath kept an evil diet long, Clarence hath not another day to live: By marrying her, which I must reach unto. When they are gone then must I count my gains. [Exil. SCENE II.-The same. Another Street. Enter the corpse of KING HENRY THE SIXTH, borne in an open coffin; Gentlemen, bearing halberds, to guard it; and LADY ANNE, as mourner. Anne. Set down, set down your honourable load (If honour may be shrouded in a hearse), Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament The untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.Poor key-cold figure of a holy king, Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster, Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood, Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost To hear the lamentations of poor Anne, Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughtered son, Stabbed by the self-same hand that made these wounds! I Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life May fright the hopeful mother at the view: If ever he have wife, let her be made [The bearers take up the corpse, and advance. |