Critical Comments. I. Argument. I. After the death of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, the throne of England is seized by his brother John from the feeble grasp of their nephew Arthur, the rightful heir. King Philip of France supports the claims of Arthur, and menaces England with war; whereupon King John plans an invasion of France, and chooses as one of his generals a natural son of Coeur-de-Lion, whom he creates Sir Richard Plantagenet. II. The English troops encounter the French forces before the city of Angiers-an English possession, which, however, refuses to open its gates to either king till the succession of the English tnrone be determined upon. The two sovereigns fight a battle without decisive result, and afterwards propose a treaty of peace. A niece of John is given in marriage to the French Dauphin. The treaty results in an acquisition of English territory on the part of Philip, who is thereby disaffected to the cause of Arthur. III. King John refuses to bow to the authority of the Pope, and the latter excommunicates him. The papal legate incites Philip to break the treaty. War is resumed. The French are defeated in a general engagement, and Arthur is taken prisoner by his uncle, who gives secret orders that he be put to death. IV. Upon the return of John to England, Hubert, a courtier, is instructed to burn out Arthur's eyes; but the young prince's entreaties so soften Hubert's heart that he ventures to disobey the cruel mandate. Soon after Arthur attempts to escape from the castle where he is confined, by leaping from the battlements. The leap kills him, and his mangled body is found by some discontented nobles. They believe him to have been murdered by the King's command, and are confirmed in their purpose of deserting John and joining their strength with that of the Dauphin, who, armed with papal approval, is invading England. V. The timid heart of John yields at this evidence of the Pope's wrath and power. He surrenders his authority to the papal legate, thinking thus to arrest the French invasion. But the Dauphin, urged by successes and claiming the English throne through his wife, continues to press forward. The English troops are mustered by Plantagenet, who valiantly battles with the French. The issue of the fray remains in doubt, each side having met with severe losses through outside and natural causes. The English nobles who had joined with the Dauphin now desert him, and he is disposed to terms of peace, which are willingly listened to by the enfeebled English. During the battle John has been removed in a state of illness to an abbey, where he is poisoned by a monk. Upon his death, his son Henry III. ascends the throne. MCSPADDEN: Shakespearian Synopses. II. Philip the Bastard. The character that bears the weight of the piece, as an acting play, is the illegitimate son of Richard Coeurde-Lion, Philip Faulconbridge. He is John Bull himself in the guise of a medieval knight, equipped with great strength and a racy English humour, not the wit of a Mercutio, a gay Italianising cavalier, but the irre pressible ebullitions of rude health and blunt gaiety befitting an English Hercules. The scene in the first act, in which he appears along with his brother, who seeks to deprive him of his inheritance as a Faulconbridge on the ground of his alleged illegitimacy, and the subsequent scene with his mother, from whom he tries to wring the secret of his paternity, both appear in the old play; but in it everything that the Bastard says is in grim earnest the embroidery of wit belongs to Shakespeare alone. It is he who has placed in Faulconbridge's mouth such sayings as this: 66 Madam, I was not old Sir Robert's son: Upon Good Friday, and ne'er broke his fast." And it is quite in Shakespeare's spirit when the son, after her confession, thus consoles his mother: "Madam, I would not wish a better father. In later years, at a time when his outlook upon life was darkened, Shakespeare accounted for the villany of Edmund, in King Lear, and for his aloofness from anything like normal humanity, on the ground of his irregular birth; in the Bastard of this play, on the contrary, his aim was to present a picture of all that health, vigour, and full-blooded vitality which popular belief attributes to a "love-child." Faulconbridge is at first full of youthful insolence, the true medieval nobleman, who despises the burgess class simply as such. When the inhabitants of Angiers refuse to open their gates either to King John or to King Philip of France, who has espoused the cause of Arthur, the Bastard is so indignant at this peace-loving circumspection that he urges the kings to join their forces. against the unlucky town, and cry truce to their feud until the ramparts are levelled to the earth. But in the course of the action he ripens more and more, and displays ever greater and more estimable qualities-humanity, right-mindedness, and a fidelity to the King which does not interfere with generous freedom of speech towards him. His method of expression is always highly imaginative, more so than that of the other male characters in the play. Even the most abstract ideas he personifies. Thus he talks (III. i.) of— "Old Time, the clock-setter, that bald sexton Time." In the old play whole scenes are devoted to his execution of the task here allotted him of visiting the monasteries of England and lightening the abbots' bursting money-bags. Shakespeare has suppressed these ebullitions of an anti-Catholic fervour, which he did not share. On the other hand, he has endowed Faulconbridge with genuine moral superiority. At first he is only a cheery, fresh-natured, robust personality, who tramples upon all social conventions, phrases, and affectations; and indeed he preserves to the last something of that contempt for "cockered silken wantons which Shakespeare afterwards elaborates so magnificently in Henry Percy. But there is real greatness in his attitude when, at the close of the play, he addresses the vacillating John in this manly strain (V. i.):— "Let not the world see fear, and sad distrust, Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire; BRANDES: William Shakespeare. III. John. The king reigns neither by warrant of a just title, nor, like Bolingbroke, by warrant of the right of the strongest. He knows that his house is founded upon the sand; he knows that he has no justice of God and no virtue of man on which to rely. Therefore he assumes an air of authority and regal grandeur. But within all is rottenness and shame. Unlike the bold usurper Richard, John endeavours to turn away his eyes from facts of which he is yet aware; he dare not gaze into his own wretched and cowardly soul. When threatened by France with war, and now alone with his mother, John exclaims, making an effort to fortify his heart:— "Our strong possession and our right for us." But Elinor, with a woman's courage and directness, forbids the unavailing self-deceit : "Your strong possession much more than your right, King Richard, when he would make away with the young princes, summons Tyrrel to his presence, and inquires, with cynical indifference to human sentiment: "Dar'st thou resolve to kill a friend of mine?" and when Tyrrel accepts the commission, Richard, in a moment of undisguised exultation, breaks forth with "Thou sing'st sweet music!" John would inspire Hubert with his murderous purpose rather like some vague influence than like a personal will, obscurely as some pale mist works which creeps across the fields, and leaves blight behind it in the sunshine. He trembles lest he should have said too much; he trembles lest he should not have said enough; at last the nearer fear prevails, and the words "death," death," "a grave," form themselves upon his lips. Having touched a spring which will pro |