Immediately after, however, recollecting that "cheap defence" of the divinity of kings which is to be found in opinion, he is for arming his name against his enemies. "Awake, thou coward Majesty, thou sleep'st; King Henry does not make any such vaporing resistance to the loss of his crown, but lets it slip from off his head as a weight which he is neither able nor willing to bear; stands quietly by to see the issue of the contest for his kingdom, as if it were a game at push-pin, and is pleased when the odds prove against him. When Richard first hears of the death of his favorites, Bushy, Bagot, and the rest, he indignantly rejects all idea of any further efforts, and only indulges in the extravagant impatience of his grief and his despair, in that fine speech which has been so often quoted : "AUMERLE. Where is the duke my father, with his power? K. RICHARD. No matter where: of comfort no man speak: Allowing him a breath, a little scene To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks; As if this flesh, which walls about our life, Bores through his castle wall, and-farewell king! For you have but mistook me all this while : How can you say to me-I am a king?" There is as little sincerity afterwards in his affected resignation to his fate, as there is fortitude in this exaggerated picture of his misfortunes before they have happened. When Northumberland comes back with the message from Bolingbroke, he exclaims, anticipating the result,— "What must the king do now? Must he submit? The king shall do it: must he be depos'd? The king shall be contented: must he lose The name of king? O' God's name let it go. How differently is all this expressed in King Henry's soliloquy during the battle with Edward's party :— "This battle fares like to the morning's war, Have chid me from the battle, swearing both O God! methinks it were a happy life To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, When this is known, then to divide the times: So many days my ewes have been with young, Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. Ah! what a life were this! how sweet, how lovely! To shepherds looking on their silly sheep, To kings that fear their subjects' treachery? Is far beyond a prince's delicates, His viands sparkling in a golden cup, His body couched in a curious bed, Where care, mistrust, and treasons wait on him." This is a true and beautiful description of a naturally quiet and contented disposition, and not, like the former, the splenetic effusion of disappointed ambition. In the last scene of Richard II. his despair lends him courage: he beats the keeper, slays two of his assassins, and dies with im precations in his mouth against Sir Pierce Exton, who "had staggered his royal person." Henry, when he is seized by the deer-stealers, only reads them a moral lecture on the duty of allegiance and the sanctity of an oath; and when stabbed by Gloucester in the Tower, reproaches him with his crimes, but pardons him his own death. RICHARD III. RICHARD III. may be considered as properly a stage-play: it belongs to the theatre, rather than to the closet. We shall therefore criticise it chiefly with a reference to the manner in which we have seen it performed. It is the character in which Garrick came out it was the second character in which Mr. Kean appeared, and in which he acquired his fame. Shakspeare we have always with us: actors we have only for a few seasons; and therefore some account of them may be acceptable, if not to our contemporaries, to those who come after us, if "that rich and idle personage, Posterity," should deign to look into our writings. It is possible to form a higher conception of the character of Richard than that given by Mr. Kean (not from seeing any other actor, but from reading Shakspeare); but we cannot imagine any character represented with greater distinctness and precision, more perfectly articulated in every part. Perhaps indeed there is too much of what is technically called execution When we first saw this celebrated actor in the part, we thought he sometimes failed from an exuberance of manner, and dissipated the impression of the character by the variety of his resources. To be perfect his delineation of it should have a little more solidity, depth, sustained and impassioned feeling, with somewhat less brilliancy, with fewer glancing lights, pointed transitions, and pantomimic evolutions. The Richard of Shakspeare is towering and lofty; equally impetuous and commanding; haughty, violent, and subtle; bold and treacherous; confident in his strength as well as in his cunning; raised high by his birth, and higher by his genius and his crimes; a royal usurper, a princely hypocrite, a tyrant and a murderer of the house of Piantagenet. |