Richmond; he brings him the intelligence of Richmond's landing; he leaves his son as a hostage, and in this case of need stakes the life dearest to him that he may play out his deceptive part, which costs Richard his kingdom and life and brings a crown to Richmond. This latter is the only pure character, predicting better times. The poet thought it necessary to do but little in honour of the founder of the house of Tudor, the grandfather of Queen Elizabeth, after having blackened his enemy Richard as much as possible. The pious general of God had been like the princes, Edward's sons, early removed from this dreadful society of the Court; the blessing of Henry VI. rested on him. The princes, on the contrary, fall a sacrifice to the fearful age. Upon this we shall remark further in King John. The delineation of the two boys is a masterpiece of the poet, which would have been impossible to such men as Greene and Marlowe. With what scanty means does he develop a disposition in the Prince of Wales which promises a perfect manhood! In his words on his father's death and title, how much there is of tender feeling and modesty! In the censuring question to his brother (a beggar?') what a delicate reminder of propriety! In his reply to Gloster: I fear no uncles dead, an if they live, I hope I need not fear;' what caution, and at the same time what acuteness of mind is exhibited in the equivocal words! And in what beautiful contrast to this stands again the quick wit of the bold, precocious, pert, and clever York, which he so delicately weakens by a kindly blunting of its sting! In both, we should think, the opposite qualities of hypocrisy and regardless candour are moderated into qualities natural and human, in Edward into delicate respect and caution, in York into impulsive expression, scarcely restraining a saucy thought, but yet knowing how to temper it forbearingly, so that even these two characters are placed in a fine relation to the main idea of the play. After having considered all these counterparts and opposites to Richard, it may appear as if, when combined, they were not powerful enough to form a corresponding counterbalance to the overwhelming nature of the hero. The poet also has sought for a still more forcible contrast, in order that he may exhibit an eye capable of watching over the malicious course of the raging boar, and a power capable of crossing him; to his advancing success he has opposed a fallen fortune, to his deep hypocrisy a regardlessness which every moment tears asunder the veil, to his bloodthirstiness a carelessness which mocks at death. It is that Margaret, the widow of King Henry VI., who once came over to England as a beggar, who planted there the seeds of evil, who turned upon her own head every calamity and the hatred of all, who is now outlawed, and who at the close goes back again to France as a beggar. Before she accomplishes this -and this is a poetic arrangement on the part of our poetthe hated one tarries in the midst of the hated society, in order that she may witness the end of the fearful tragedy, though she herself had already withdrawn from the scene. Poor, insensible to ambition, she scorns the danger and death to which her remaining exposes her; she presses into the circle of her enemies, and wholly incapable of commanding herself, and utterly unwilling to conceal herself or her feelings, with impotent passion, with incautious openness, and with prophetic rage, she casts forth the most unsparing reproaches, the most regardless truths, and the most fearful curses-like the loud trumpet of God's judgment-upon the degraded humanity around her. And these words have more weight and power than all the bloody deeds of Richard and his cunning intrigues, and her hunger for revenge is more appeased than Richard's thirst for greatness. The old York (in Henry VI.) had once cursed her, when she committed the womanly outrage of giving him a napkin bathed in the blood of his son Rutland; his curse was fulfilled on her when she lost throne, husband, and the son whom Richard stabbed, and at whose fall Rivers, Grey, Hastings, and Vaughan were present as accessories. But on this day the power of York's curse was transferred to her, and her vengeanceloving soul panted with desire to requite it upon all her enemies. The manifold misery which she lives to see befall her enemies sweetens her own misery, and she would fain 'slip her weary head' out of the yoke of her sorrow, to leave the burden of it upon the hated Elizabeth. We have said before (in Henry VI.) that the Chronicle also remarks at the death of Margaret's son that all those present drank subsequently of the same cup, 'in consequence of the merited justice and the due punishment of God.' This judgment is embodied in the fearful Margaret and her curses, in which the avenging spirit utters its terrible decree. With striking glaringness, distinctness, and intensity, Shakespeare has pronounced, repeated, and accomplished these imprecations. Margaret hurled the curse over all the accomplices in the murder of her son, and in all it comes to maturity, it is fulfilled in the dying Edward; it is fulfilled in Clarence, who perjured himself when he had promised to fight for Lancaster; it is fulfilled in Hastings, who had sworn false reconciliation in presence of the dying Edward; it is fulfilled in Elizabeth, who, only the vain semblance of herself, was left without brother, without husband, and almost without children; upon Buckingham her mere warning, directed by her to one still guiltless, falls like a curse when he becomes guilty. It is not enough that Margaret pronounces these curses upon all; most of them, Buckingham, Hastings, and Anne, call down the imprecation by sinful promises upon themselves, and when it is fulfilled the poet recalls once more to mind the exact prediction. Finally upon Richard himself these revengeful curses are heaped, and they are realised most decidedly. And he, too, in the moment of his unbridled scorn (Act IV. sc. 4), calls down the curse upon himself. Nay, more than this: his own mother, the Duchess of York, who, placed between Elizabeth and Margaret, by turns, according to time and circumstance, possesses the violent flashes of the one and the mild composure of the other, she, Richard's own mother, says to him (Act IV. sc. 4) that her prayers would 'fight for the adverse party;' and she desires that her curse on the day of battle may 'tire him more than all the complete armour that he wears.' Wonderful use is made of this curse in the scene before the battle of Bosworth, a use worth more than all the other occasions on which the poet has employed these imprecations. Without looking back to that maternal sentence, without himself remembering it, Richard's 'beaver' burdens him in the battle, so that he orders it to be made easier, and his arm is weary with the lance, which he exchanges for a lighter one. This is better than the accumulated impression of the severe curses, and their literal and ever-repeated fulfilment; and better, too, is the imprecation of the mother, temporarily irritated when occasion demanded it, than the steady excess of the revengeful curses of Margaret. But the excess and the repetition alone are to be blamed, not the thing itself. We must be careful of appearing on the side of those interpreters who consider the introduction of Margaret and her reproaches at Court absurd, as well as Richard's wooing in the street. For it is a wise contrast which necessitates the part assigned to Margaret, and even the glaring prominence given to her curses and their fulfilment has its wise intention. The more secretly the sins of this brood of hypocrites were practised, the more visibly and notoriously was punishment to overtake them; the manifest retribution of God ought to be made all the more evident when employed against the secrecy and the deceit of men; and the interference of eternal justice ought plainly and tangibly to appear against the evil-doers, who think to ensnare Heaven itself, who believe not in an avenging power, nor in the curse which rests on evil deeds themselves. On the way to death Buckingham says: That high All-Seer which I dallied with And just so his own curse discharges itself on Richard's head, a curse which he wantonly called down upon himself. RICHARD II. THE date of Richard II. has been already pointed out; we conjectured that it was written soon after Richard III. Passionate high-strained passages, one even (Act v. sc. 3) which treats a tragic subject almost humorously, are written in rhyming couplets: alternate rhymes and alliteration also occur. In its profound design, and in its characters, as well as in the treatment of it in conformity with the historical story, the play shows certain progress when compared with Richard III. Setting aside stage effect, Coleridge justly calls it the first and most admirable of Shakespeare's purely historical plays, in which the history forms the story, and not, as in Henry IV., merely leads it. The historical events which Richard II. comprises extend from September 1398 to February 1400. Everything essential in the events is strictly taken from Holinshed's Chronicle; the only liberty Shakespeare allowed himself is in those externals which he never regarded when he could make them serve poetic objects. Shakespeare had in this play also a previous dramatic work, which, however, is unknown to us. We know only from the statement of a Dr. Forman that in 1611 a play of Richard II. was performed on Shakespeare's stage; and from the indication of its contents it must have handled the earlier years of Richard's reign, and must have been more rich in facts and more bloody than Shakespeare's work. An interesting historical incident is connected with this piece. When the Earl of Essex, in 1601, wished to excite the London citizens to an insurrection, in order that he might remove his enemies from the person of the queen, he ordered his confidential friends, Sir Gilly Merrick and others, to act the tragedy of Richard II. in public streets and houses, previous to the outbreak of the conspiracy, in order to inflame the minds of the people; Elizabeth hearing of this performance, alluded to it in conversation, calling herself |