John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, descended of an honourable lineage, but born in Baste, more noble of blood than notable in learning, haut in stomack and high in countenance, rich above measure of all men, and to few liberal; disdainful to his kin, and dreadful to his lovers, preferring money before friendship, many things beginning and nothing performing. His covetous insaciable, and hope of long life, made him both to forget God, his prince, and himself, in his latter days; for Doctor John Baker, his privy counsellor and his chaplain, wrote that he, lying on his death-bed, said these words: Why should I die, having so much riches? If the whole realm would save my life, I am able either by policy to get it, or by riches to buy it. Fie! will not death be hired, nor will money do nothing? When my nephew of Bedford died, I thought myself half up the wheel; but when I saw my other nephew of Glocester deceased, then I thought myself able to be equal with kings, and so thought to increase my treasure in hope to have worn a triple crown. But I see now the world faileth me, and so I am deceived: praying you all to pray for me.'

Shakspere has given us every light and shadow of the partisanship of chivalry in his delineation of the various characters in these two dramas of the Second and Third Parts of ‹ Henry VI.' Apart and isolated from all active agency in the quarrel, stands out the remarkable creation of Henry. The poet, with his instinctive judgment, has given the king a much higher character than the Chroniclers assign to him. Their relations leave little doubt upon our minds that his imbecility was very nearly allied to utter incapacity; and that the thin partition between weakness and idiocy was sometimes wholly removed. But Shakspere has never painted Henry under this aspect he has shown us a king with virtues unsuited to the age in which he lived; with talents unfitted for the station in which he moved; contemplative amidst friends and foes hurried along by a distempered energy; peaceful under circumstances that could have no issue but in appeals to arms; just in thought, but powerless to assert even his own sense of right amidst the contests of injustice which hemmed him in. The entire conception of the character of Henry, in connection with the circumstances to which it was subjected, is to be found in the Parliament-scene of 'The Third Part of Henry VI.' We may boldly affirm that none but Shakspere could have depicted with such marvellous truth the weakness, based upon a hatred of strife-the vacillation, not of imbecile cunning but of clear-sighted candour-the assertion of power through the

influence of habit, but of a power trembling even at its cwn authority-the glimmerings of courage utterly extinguished by the threats of "armed men," and proposing compromise even worse than war. It was weakness such as this which inevitably raised up the fiery partisans that the poet has so wonderfully depicted; the bloody Clifford-the "she-wolf of France"-the dissembling York-the haughty Warwickthe voluptuous Edward-and, last and most terrible of all, he that best explains his own character, "I am myself alone."

One by one the partisans that are thus marshalled by the poet in the Parliament-scene of London are swept away by the steady progress of that justice which rides over their violence and their subtlety. The hollow truce is broken. Margaret is ready to assail York in his castle; York is prepared for the field, having learned from the precocious sophist Richard how an "oath is of no moment." Now are let loose all the "dogs of war." The savage Clifford strikes down the innocent Rutland; the more savage Margaret dips her napkin in his blood. York perishes under the prolonged retribution that awaited the ambition that dallied with murder and rebellion Clifford, to whom nothing is so odious as "harmful pity,” falls in the field of Towton, where the son was arrayed against the father, and the father against the son; and the king, more woe-begone than the unwilling victims of ambition, meralises upon the "happy life" of the "homely swain." The great actors of the tragedy are changed. Edward and Richard have become the leaders of the Yorkists, with Warwick, "the king-maker," to rest upon. Henry has fled to Scotland; Margaret to France. Then is unfolded another leaf of that Sibyl line book. Edward is on the throne, careless of everything but self-gratification; despising his supporters, offending eve his brothers. Warwick takes arms against him; Clarence deserts to Warwick; Richard alone remains faithful, sneering at his brother, and laughing in the concealment of his ow motives for fidelity. Edward is a fugitive, and finally a car tive; but Richard redeems him, and Clarence again cleares to him. The second revolution is accomplished. The "king maker" yields his "body to the earth” in the field of Barne: Margaret and her son become captives in the plains ne Tewksbury. Then comes the terrible hour to the unhap queen-that hour which she foresaw not when she gave t bloody napkin" to the wretched York-that hour whose tensity of suffering reached its climax of expression in “Y have no children.' But Richard is fled,

وو

"To make a bloody supper in the Tower."

The most striking incidents in the Third Part of 'Henry VI.' are the terrible revenges of the Lancastrians after the battle of Wakefield. Hall thus describes the murder of the young Earl of Rutland:"Whilst this battle was in fighting, a priest called Sir Robert Aspall, chaplain and schoolmaster to the young Earl of Rutland, son to the abovenamed Duke of York, scarce of the age of twelve years, a fair gentleman, and a maidenlike person, perceiving that flight was more safeguard than tarrying, both for him and his master, secretly conveyed the earl out of the field, by the Lord Clifford's band, toward the town; but ere he could enter into a house he was by the said Lord Clifford espied, followed, and taken, and by reason of his apparel demanded what he was. The young gentleman, dismayed, had not a word to speak, but kneeled on his knees imploring mercy, and desiring grace, both with holding up his hands and making dolorous countenance, for his speech was gone for fear. Save him, said his chaplain, for he is a prince's son, and peradventure may do you good hereafter. With that word, the Lord Clifford marked him, and said, 'By God's blood, thy father slew mine, and so will I do thee and all thy kin :' and with that word stuck the earl to the heart with his dagger, and bade his chaplain bear the earl's mother and brother word what he had done and said."

This ferocious revenge of Clifford is commented upon with just indignation by Hall:-"In this act the Lord Clifford was accompted a tyrant, and no gentleman." He then proceeds to describe the death of the Duke of York:"This cruel Clifford and deadly bloodsupper, not content with this homicide, or childkilling, came to the place where the dead corpse of the Duke of York lay, and caused his head to be stricken off, and set on it a crown of paper, and so fixed it on a pole, and presented it to the queen, not lying far from the field, in great despite and much derision, saying, Madam, your war is done, here is your king's ransom: at which present was much joy and great rejoicing; but many laughed then that sore lamented after."

The circumstances attending the death of York are, however, differently told. Holinshed says,-"Some write that the duke was taken alive, and in derision caused to stand upon a molehill, on whose head they put a garland instead of a crown, which they had fashioned and made of segges or bulrushes, and having so crowned him with that garland they kneeled down afore him as the Jews did to Christ in scorn, saying to him, Hail, king without rule; hail, king without heritage; hail, duke and prince without people or possessions. And at length, having thus scorned him with these and divers other the like

despiteful words, they stroke off his head, which (as ye have heard) they presented to the queen." The poet has taken the most picturesque parts of the two narratives.

KING RICHARD III.

THE character of Richard III. has been developed in the previous plays. Those who study the subject carefully will find how entire the unity is preserved between the last of these four dramas, which everybody admits to be the work of the "greatest name in all literature," in an unbroken link with the previous drama, which some have been in the habit of assigning to some obscure and very inferior writer. We are taught to open the Life and Death of King Richard III.,' and to lock upon the extraordinary being who utters the opening lines as some new creation, set before us in the perfect completeness of self-formed villainy. We have not learnt to trace the growth of the mind of this bold bad man; to see how his bravery became gradually darkened with ferocity; how his prodigious talents insensibly allied themselves with cunning and hypocrisy how, in struggling for his house, he ultimately proposed to struggle for himself; how, in fact, the bad ambition would be i naturally kindled in his mind, to seize upon the power which was sliding from the hands of the voluptuous Edward, and the simple, plain Clarence."

The poet of the 'Richard III.' goes straightforward to his object; for he has made all the preparation in the previous dramas. No gradual development is wanting of the character which is now to sway the action. The struggle of the house up to this point has been one only of violence; and it was therefore anarchical. "The big-boned" Warwick, and the fiery Clifford, alternately presided over the confusion. The power which changed the

"Dreadful marches to delightful measures

seemed little more than accident. But Richard proposed to himself to subject events to his domination, not by courag alone, or activity, or even by the legitimate exercise of a com manding intellect, but by the clearest and coolest perceptic: of the strength which he must inevitably possess who unite · the deepest sagacity to the most thorough unscrupulousness, its exercise, and is an equal master of the weapons of fore and of craft. The character of Richard is essentially differen

from any other character which Shakspere has drawn. His bloody violence is not that of Macbeth; nor his subtle treachery that of Iago. It is difficult to say whether he derives a greater satisfaction from the success of his crimes, or from 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 Iago 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. Villains of the blackest dye disguise their crimes even from themselves. Richard shrinks not from their avowal to others, for a purpose.

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 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 exhibitthe palpable images of terror haunting a mind already anticipating the end. Ratcliff, I fear, I fear," is the first revelation of the true inward man to a fellow-being. But the terror is but momentary :

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"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.

In the great drama before us, Shakspere fell in with the popular view of the character of Richard III.;-preserving all the strong lineaments of his guilty ambition, as represented by Sir Thomas More, and the Chroniclers who fellowed the narrasive of that illustrious man, with marvellous subservience to