"As, in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-graced actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next." Act V., Scene 2. The painting of this description is so lively, and the words so moving, that I have scarce read anything comparable to it in any other language.-DRYDEN. "Aumerle that was: But that is lost, for being Richard's friend; The Dukes of Aumerle, Surrey, and Exeter, were deprived of their dukedoms by an act of the first parliament of Henry IV.; but were allowed to retain the earldoms of Rutland, Kent, and Huntingdon. "Can no man tell of my unthrifty son?"-Act V., Scene 3. This is a very proper introduction to the future character of King Henry V.: to his debaucheries in his youth, and his greatness in his manhood.-JOHNSON. In point of fact, the prince was too young at the time in question, to act in the manner here spoken of, even if he ever did so, which appears doubtful; but on this point the poet adopted the popular notion. "Our scene is allered, from a serious thing, And now changed to 'The Beggar and the King."' Act V., Scene 3. It is probable that the old ballad of "King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid" is here alluded to. There may have been a popular interlude on the subject, for the story is referred to by various contemporary writers. "But for our trusty brother-in-law, and the abbot, The brother-in-law in question, was John, Duke of Exeter (brother of Edward II.), who had married the lady Elizabeth, Bolingbroke's sister. In "KING RICHARD II.," the poet exhibits to us a noble kingly nature, at first obscured by levity and the errors of unbridled youth, and afterwards purified by misfortune, and rendered more highly splendid and illustrious. When he has lost the love and reverence of his subjects, and is on the point of losing his throne, he then feels, with painful inspiration, the elevated vocation of the kingly dignity, and its prerogatives over personal merit and changeable institutions. When the earthly crown has fallen from off his head, he first appears as a king whose innate nobility no humiliation can annihilate. This is felt by a poor groom: he is shocked that his master's favourite horse should have carried the proud Bolingbroke at his coronation: he visits the captive King in his prison, and shames the desertion of the great. The political history of the deposition is represented with extraordinary knowledge of the world:-the ebb of fortune on the one hand, and the swelling tide on the other, which carries every thing along with it. While Bolingbroke acts as a king, and his adherents behave towards him as if he really was so, he still continues to give out that he comes with an armed band merely for the sake of demandThe ing his birthright, and the removal of abuses. usurpation has been long completed before the word is pronounced and the thing publicly avowed. John of Gaunt is a model of chivalrous birth: he stands there like a pillar of the olden time which he had outlived. -SCHLEGEL. The action of the present play commences in 1398, when Richard had attained his thirty-second year; and closes with his death in 1400. Holinshed furnished the facts which the poet dramatised; and, with the exception of a few minor points, Shakspere adhered with considerable exactness to his authority.✦✦ To avoid all mention of the bad features of his hero's character was impossible; but the dramatist touched them with a lenient hand. He found Richard a voluptuary, a tyrant, and a desponding coward; but by commencing his play within two years of Richard's deposition, he sunk twenty of violence, rapacity, and tyranny. Shakspere judiciously selected the banishment of Hereford, and the seizure of Gaunt's wealth, as instances of Richard's despotism and rapacity; for both those events are intimately connected with the subsequent action of the play. This inadequate tribute having been paid to truth, the reverse of the picture is heightened by the most strenuous exertion of the poet's skill. Bold and various imagery, pious, philosophical, and sublime reflection, and all the graces of impassioned eloquence, are lavished on Richard. If he had manfully braved the buffets of calamity, and become a prey to sorrows, subdued only by the might of their accumulation, the struggle might have been awful; but as he pusillanimously yielded to despair, our sympathy is but slight, and Richard is upbraided and forgotten. Holinshed relates, that, under his misfortunes, Richard was "almost consumed with sorrow, and in a manner half dead." Such is the historian's slight mention of the King's character in the hour of adversity; and this brief notice has been expanded by the magic genius of Shakspere into a perfect picture of intellectual cowardice.-SKOTTOWE. The story of Richard's murder by Sir Pierce of Exton, is now generally disbelieved, and the prevalent opinion is, that the King died in prison in the year 1400. Some think that he starved himself to death; others, that he was starved by his keepers. On the other hand, it has been maintained by Mr. Tytler that he escaped, and lived for several years in Scotland. The controversy is much too voluminous for us; and I would refer those who wish to have a notion of it to a paper, read by the late Lord Dover to the Royal Society of Literature, on the 4th of May, 1832. Lord Dover sums up carefully and fairly, and finally pronounces judgment in favour of Mr. Amyot, who disbelieves the Scottish story.COURTENAY. BEN JONSON, in his grand eulogy of Shakspere, before which all other panegyrics upon this greatest of poets sink into insignificance, has not failed to perfect his praise by recording, that not to nature alone was he indebted for his pre-eminence, but to art also: "Let me not forget Thy art, my gentle Shakspere." None better knew than "rare Ben" that the greatest genius (if, indeed, we can conceive of genius as a quality independent of judgment),-that the most glorious gift of nature, were comparatively useless to its possessor, without that requisite adjunct which was, perhaps, as constantly active and present to Shakspere as to any inventor, great or small, that ever existed. Had it been otherwise, Jonson had been the last man breathing (being, as he was, almost an idolater of the ancient dramatists) to have set his friend, not only above the great ones of his own country, but to have rated him far higher than Sophocles, Euripides, and "thundering Eschylus," in tragedy; and in comedy, than Plautus and Terence. The play upon which the reader is about to enter is a most conspicuous example of felicitously successful art. Let him observe well the construction of the plot; the composition, as a painter might term it, of this extraordinary picture; the variety (including the incomparable Sir John) of the characters; and the nice dexterity with which the comedy is made, sometimes by contrast to heighten the more serious parts, and by complication to knit the play into one perfect whole. What a genius in the conception of Falstaff: but what an artist in the conduct of his character! It has been frequently observed, that Shakspere excels all writers in giving distinctness and individuality to his persons, at the same time that it is apparent they are not copies from life, but from nature;-that they are not human beings whom he has seen, but life-like creatures whom he has invented; that the faculty which produced them took none of its hue from the mere observation of mankind, but all its unerring force and precision from a study of the principles of human nature, the feelings that dilate or contract, the passions that pervert, and the humours that colour them. It is the profound art with which Shakspere evolves the characters his genius has conceived, that has caused some of his more subtle creations to be misunderstood. Falstaff, for instance, is not the gross, fat, obvious fellow, with more wit than grace, "a boaster and a coward," whom some of the commentators have described. Dr. Johnson truly tells us that "no man but Shakspere could have drawn Sir John:" but when he describes the delineation, he does not, with submission, seem clearly or justly to apprehend what his author has drawn. In Falstaff, Shakspere meant to portray a man whom nature intended for better, perhaps for great, things. He has given him wit which might have awaked to wisdom, and humour which might have been allied to tenderness. But this man has become imbruted by a long course of sordid and selfish indulgence. It is true his wit remains, nor has his intellect deserted him: he could not be so witty else: but it is observable that he cannot properly be said to speak at any time from his understanding. What exquisite things he says; but what a fool he makes of himself! The moral is-to this complexion must wit, and honour, and valour come at last, when the passions have been permitted to usurp the throne of reason. The essential beauty of this admirable play is obscured, if we regard Falstaff as a natural coward. He is intended by the author for a positive warning to Prince Henry. On the one hand stands the chivalrous Hotspur; on the other the self-degraded Falstaff:-"Which of these two wilt thou become? There is small time to choose; for vice quickly expels honour. Seest thou not, that as Falstaff might once have elevated himself into a Hotspur, so mayst thou, heroic as Percy, descend into a Falstaff? Make thy election." |