the consciousness of power which attends the working of them. This is a feature which he holds in common with Iago. But then he does not labour with a "motiveless malignity," as lago does. He has no vague suspicions, no petty jealousies, no remembrance of slight affronts, to stimulate him to a disproportioned and unnatural vengeance. He does not hate his victims; but they stand in his way, and, as he does not love them, they perish. He chuckles in the fortitude which this alienation from humanity confers upon him : : "Simple, plain Clarence! I do love thee so, That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven, If Heaven will take the present at our hands." Other men, the most obdurate, have been wrought upon by a mother's tears and a mother's prayers: they are to him a jest :"Madam, my mother, I do cry you mercy, I did not see your grace:-Humbly on my knee I crave your blessing. Duch. God bless thee, and put meekness in thy breast, Love, charity, obedience, and true duty! Glo. Amen; and make me die a good old man! That is the butt-end of a mother's blessing; I marvel that her grace did leave it out." Villains of the blackest dye disguise their crimes even from themselves. Richard shrinks not from their avowal to others, for a purpose. The wooing of Lady Anne is, perhaps, the boldest thing in the Shaksperean drama. It is perpetually on the verge of the impossible; yet the marvellous consistency of character with which it is conducted renders the whole of this conduct probable, if we once get over the difficulty which startles Richard himself: "Was ever woman in this humour woo'd? Was ever woman in this humour won?" His exultation at having accomplished his purpose by the sole agency of "the plain devil, and dissembling looks" is founded on his unbounded reliance upon his mental powers; and that reliance is even strong enough to afford that he should abate so much of his self-love as to be joyous in the contemplation of his own bodily deformity. It is the result of the peculiar organization of Richard's mind, formed as it had been by circumstances as well as by nature, that he invariably puts himself in the attitude of one who is playing a part. It is this circumstance which makes the character (clumsy even as it has been made by the joinery of Cibber) such a favourite on the stage. It cannot be over-acted. It was not without a purpose that the author of 'The Contention' put in the mouth of Henry "What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?" Burbage, the original player of Richard, according to Bishop Corbet's description of his host at Bosworth *, was identified with him. This aptitude for subjecting all his real thoughts and all his natural impulses to the exigencies of the scene of life in which he was to play the chief part, equally govern his conduct whether he is wooing Lady Anne-or denouncing the relations of the queen-or protesting before the king, ""T is death to me to be at enmity"— or mentioning the death of Clarence as a thing of course-or begging the strawberries from the Bishop of Ely when he is meditating the execution of Hastings-or appearing on the Tower walls in rusty armour-or rejecting the crown which the citizens present to him—or dismissing Buckingham with "Thou troublest me, I am not in the vein' or soliciting the mother of his murdered nephews to win for him her daughter, "As I intend to prosper and repent.” "Mine host was full of ale and history, For when he would have said, King Richard died, It is only in the actual presence of a powerful enemy that Richard displays any portion of his natural character. His bravery required no dissimulation to uphold it. In his last battle-field he puts forth all the resources of his intellect in a worthy direction. But the retribution is fast approaching. It was not enough for offended justice that he should die as a hero: the terrible tortures of conscience were to precede the catastrophe. The drama has exhibited all it could exhibit -the palpable images of terror haunting a mind already anticipating the end. "Radcliff, I fear, I fear," is the first revelation of the true inward man to a fellow-being. But the terror is but momentary :— "Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls." To the last the poet exhibits the supremacy of Richard's intellect, his ready talent, and his unwearied energy. The tame address of Richmond to his soldiers, and the spirited exhortation of Richard, could not have been the result of accident. It appears to us, then, that the complete development of the character of Richard was absolutely essential to the completion of the great idea upon which the poet constructed these four dramas. There was a man to be raised up out of the wild turbulence of the long contest-not cruel, after the mere fashion of a Clifford's cruelty-not revengeful, according to the passionate impulses of the revenge of a Margaret and of an Edward -not false and perjured, in imitation of the irresolute weakness of a Clarence-but one who was cruel, and revengeful, and treacherous, upon the deepest premeditation and with the most profound hypocrisy. That man was also to be so confident in his intellectual power, that no resolve was too daring to be acted upon, no risk too great to be encountered. Fraud and force were to go hand in hand, and the one was to exterminate what the other could not win. This man was to be an instrument of that justice which was to preside to the end of this "sad eventful history." By his agency was the house of York to fall, as the house of Lancaster had fallen. The innocent by him were to be swept away with the guilty. Last of all, the Fate was to be appeased-the one great criminal was to perish out of the consequences of his own enormities. It is an observation of Horace Walpole that Shakspere, in his 'Richard III.,'" seems to deduce the woes of the house of York from the curses which Queen Margaret had vented against them." It was the faith of Margaret that curses were all-powerful :— "I'll not believe but they ascend the sky, And there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace."* This was the poetical faith of the author of these dramas-the power of the curse was associated with the great idea of a presiding Fate. But Margaret's were not the only curses. Richard himself, in one passage, where he appears to make words exhibit thoughts and not conceal them, refers to the same power of a curse-that of his father, insulted in his death-hour by the scorns of Margaret, and moved to tears by her atrocious cruelty. This is the assertion of the equal justice which is displayed in the dramatic issue of these fearful events; not justice upon the house of York alone, which Horace Walpole thinks Shakspere strove to exhibit in deference to Tudor prejudices, but justice upon the house of Lancaster as well as the house of York, for those individual crimes of the leaders of each house that had made a charnel-ground of England. When that justice had asserted its supremacy, tranquillity was to come. The poet has not chosen to exhibit the establishment of law and order in the astute government of Henry VII.; but in his drama of 'Henry VIII.' he has carried us onward to a new state of things, when the power of the sword was at an end. He came as near to his own times as was either safe or fitting; but he contrasts his own times with the days of civil fury, in a prophetic view of the reign of Elizabeth : "In her days, every man shall eat in safety, Under his own vine, what he plants; and sing The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours."+ Richard III.,' Act 1., Scene III. + Henry VIII.,' Act v., Scene IV. BOOK V. CHAPTER I. KING JOHN. by its glowing patriotism and warlike feelings; and he also assigns it for the most part to Shakspere. But he believes that the poet here wrought upon even an older production, or that it was written in companionship with some other dramatic author. In the comic scenes, particularly those between Faulconbridge and the monks and nuns, he can discover little of Shakspere's " facetious grace," but can trace only rudeness and vulgarity. He suffered, however, says Ulrici, the scenes to remain, because they suited the humour of the people. Ulrici perceives, further, a marked difference in the style of this old play and the undoubted works of our poet. In the greater portion, he maintains, the language and characterization are worthy of the great master. Still it is a youthful labour-imperfect, feeble, essentially crude. He considers that the notice of Meres applies to this elder performance. It is a transition to the 'Henry VI.,' in which Shakspere is more himself. Horn is more decided. In this old play Shakspere, in his opinion, manifested his knowledge of the relations between poetry and history, and in his youthful hand wielded the magic wand which was to become so potent in his riper years. THERE can be no doubt that Shakspere's | Catholicism, which he describes as fanatical, 'King John' is founded on a former play. That play, which consists of two Parts, is entitled 'The Troublesome Raigne of John King of England, with the Discoverie of King Richard Cordelion's base son, vulgarly named the Bastard Fauconbridge; also the death of King John at Swinstead Abbey.'— This play was first printed in 1591. The first edition has no author's name in the titlepage; the second, of 1611, has, "Written by W. Sh. ;”—and the third, of 1622, gives the name of "William Shakspeare." We think there can be little hesitation in affirming that the attempt to fix this play upon Shakspere was fraudulent; yet Steevens, in his valuable collection of ". Twenty of the Plays" that were printed in quarto, says, "the author (meaning Shakspere) seems to have been so thoroughly dissatisfied with this play as to have written it almost entirely anew. Steevens afterwards receded from this opinion. Coleridge, too, in the classification which he attempted in 1802, speaks of the old 'King John' as one of Shakspere's "transition-works-not his, yet of him." The German critics agree in giving the original authorship to Shakspere. Tieck holds that the play first printed in the folio of 1623 is amongst the poet's latest worksnot produced before 1611; and that production, he considers, called forth a new edition of the older play, which he determines to have been one of the earliest works of Shakspere. Ulrici holds that 'The Troublesome Reign of King John' was written very soon after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, which is shown by its zeal against Assuming that Shakspere did not write the 'King John' of 1591, it is impossible now, except on very general principles, to determine why a poet, who had the authentic materials of history before him, and possessed beyond all men the power of moulding those materials, with reference to a dramatic action, into the most complete and beautiful forms, should have subjected himself, in the | employment of language, as compared with the crude efforts of an unformed mind. The contrast is so remarkable that we cannot believe in this theory, even with the whole body of German critics in its favour. Bale's "pageant" of "Kynge Johan' has been published by the Camden Society, under the judicious editorship of Mr. J. P. Collier. This performance, which is in two Parts, has been printed from the original manuscript in the library of the Duke of Devonshire. Supposing it to be written about the middle of the sixteenth century, it presents a more remarkable example even than 'Howleglas,' or 'Hick Scorner' (of which an account is given in Percy's agreeable 'Essay on the Origin of the English Stage')*, of the extremely low state of the drama only forty years before the time of Shakspere. Here is a play written by a bishop; and yet the dirty ribaldry which is put into the mouths of some of the characters is beyond all description, and quite impossible to be exhibited by any example in these pages. We say nothing of the almost utter absence of any poetical feeling—of the dull monotony of the versification-of the tediousness of the dialogue-of the inartificial conduct of the story. These matters were not greatly amended till a very short period before Shakspere came to "reform them altogether." Our object in mentioning this play is to show that the 'King John' upon which Shakspere built was, in some degree, constructed upon the 'Kynge Johan' of Bale; and that a traditionary 'King John' had thus possessed the stage for nearly half a century before the period when Shakspere wrote his King John.' There might, without injury to this theory, have been an intermediate play. We avail ourselves of an extract from Mr. Collier's Introduction to the play of Bale : "The design of the two plays of 'Kynge Johan' was to promote and confirm the Reformation, of which, after his conversion, Bale was one of the most strenuous and unscrupulous supporters. This design he executed in a manner until then, I apprehend, unknown. He took some of the lead*Reliques of English Poetry,' vol. 1. ing and popular events of the reign of King | the crown to Pandulph-and the poisoning John, his disputes with the pope, the suffering of his kingdom under the interdict, his subsequent submission to Rome, and his imputed death by poison from the hands of a monk of Swinstead Abbey, and applied them to the circumstances of the country in the latter part of the reign of Henry VIII. * * * * This early application of historical events, of itself, is a singular circumstance, but it is the more remarkable when we recollect that we have no drama in our language of that date in which personages connected with, and engaged in, our public affairs, are introduced. In 'Kynge Johan' we have not only the monarch himself, who figures very prominently until his death, but Pope Innocent, Cardinal Pandulphus, Stephen Langton, Simon of Swinsett (or Swinstead), and a monk called Raymundus; besides abstract impersonations, such as England, who is stated to be a widow, Imperial Majesty, who is supposed to take the reins of government after the death of King John, Nobility, Clergy, Civil Order, Treason, Verity, and Sedition, who may be said to be the Vice, or Jester, of the piece. Thus we have many of the elements of historical plays, such as they were acted at our public theatres forty or fifty years afterwards, as well as some of the ordinary materials of the old moralities, which were gradually exploded by the introduction of real or imaginary characters on the scene. Bale's play, therefore, occupies an intermediate place between moralities and historical plays, and it is the only known existing specimen of that species of composition of so early a date." That the Kynge Johan' of the furious Protestant bishop was known to the writer of the 'King John' of 1591, we have little doubt. Our space will not allow us to point out the internal evidences of this; but one minute but remarkable similarity may be mentioned. When John arrives at Swinstead Abbey, the monks, in both plays, invite him to their treacherous repast by the cry of "Wassail." In the play of Bale we have no incidents whatever beyond the contests between John and the pope-the surrender of of John by a monk at Swinstead Abbey. The action goes on very haltingly ;—but not so the wordy war of the speakers. A vocabulary of choice terms of abuse, familiarly used in the times of the Reformation, might be constructed out of this curious performance. Here the play of 1591 is wonderfully reformed;-and we have a diversified action, in which the story of Arthur and Constance, and the wars and truces in Anjou, are brought to relieve the exhibition of papal domination and monkish treachery. The intolerance of Bale against the Romish church is the most fierce and rampant exhibition of passion that ever assumed the ill-assorted garb of religious zeal. In the John of 1591 we have none of this violence; but the writer has exhibited a scene of ribaldry, in the incident of Faulconbridge hunting out the "angels" of the monks; for he makes him find a nun concealed in a holy man's chest. This, no doubt, would be a popular scene. Shakspere has not a word of it. Mr. Campbell, to our surprise, thinks that Shakspere might have retained "that scene in the old play where Faulconbridge, in fulfilling King John's injunction to plunder religious houses, finds a young smooth-skinned nun in a chest where the abbot's treasures were supposed to be deposited."* When did ever Shakspere lend his authority to fix a stigma upon large classes of mankind, in deference to popular prejudice ? One of the most remarkable characteristics of Shakspere's 'John,' as opposed to the grossness of Bale and the ribaldry of his immediate predecessor, is the utter absence of all invective or sarcasm against the Romish church, apart from the attempt of the pope to extort a base submission from the English king. Here, indeed, we have his nationality in full power;-but how different is that from fostering hatreds between two classes of one people! It may amuse such of our readers as have not access to the play of Bale, or to the 'King John' of 1591, to see an example of the different modes in which the two writers treat *Remarks on Life and History of Shakspere,' prefixed to Moxon's edition, 1838. |