representative in the person of Pandulph, the English nobility in Salisbury and Norfolk, and those useful, subordinate agents, who in such periods of confusion aggrandize themselves, have theirs in Hubert de Burgh; while the medieval superstition-that caricature of the energetic faith of the church-is embodied in Peter of Pomfret. The fall of the Austrian Archduke by the hand of Faulconbridge is a necessary consequence of the relative position of these two characters; poetico-historical justice demanded the punishment of the Archduke for his unjust imprisonment of Richard the First, and the son of the injured party was naturally the fitting instrument of such poetical retribution. And here, also, the poet has but condensed into one prominent trait a multitude of circumstances which in the actual history are spread over a wide space.

The resolution of the nice critical question, when this unquestionably genuine play of Shakspeare's was composed, is so intimately connected with the no less disputable point whether the still extant older "King John" be or not a juvenile production of our poet, that I must postpone the consideration of both to the next section, to which the latter properly belongs.

"Richard the Second" may for many reasons be regarded as the companion of "King John." While John employs every evil means to maintain his usurped dignity, Richard forfeits his just right by a weak use of it. The vitality of history endures no abstract, dead notion. The fixed formula of an outward, legal, and conventional right, is as nothing in the sight of history, for which nothing is right but what is truly so, as having its foundation in morality. This Richard has forfeited before the eyes of men, by treading it himself under foot. The highest

earthly power is not exempt from the eternal laws of the universe; the majesty which is by the grace of God loses its title as soon as it abandons its only foundation in the grace of God, whose justice acknowledges no jurisprudence, no rights of family and inheritance, as against the immutable rights of truth and reason. Richard urges in vain his legal title and the sacred name of majesty; to no purpose does he invoke the angels of Him who set him on the throne; the rights and title of a king avail not to move a straw, because they are devoid of the mighty force of inward rectitude; God

will send no angel to protect him who has rejected His grace. The people, too, in turn abandon him who had first abandoned them. The injustice of rebellion prevails. The truly noble, but spoiled and corrupted nature of Richard, wanes before the prudence and moderation of Bolingbroke. However little of true moral power Henry the Fourth subsequently exhibits, nevertheless, as contrasted with the unworthy and most unkingly conduct of Richard, he looks a model of virtue, and designed by nature for a throne. In the doubtful scale a grain of sand turns the balance.

Under such an unkingly sovereign the people are of necessity plunged in dissension and misery. At the very opening of the piece we behold the nobility divided by party feuds; the people in Ireland in revolt against their lords, and the royal family itself distracted with hatred and dissension. The Duchess of Gloster bewails her husband's unjust fate, while Richard's arbitrary termination of the quarrel between Norfolk and Bolingbroke throws the aged Gaunt upon his death-bed with sorrow for his banished son. In vain does he warn the king; truth dies away on the ear which flattery has stopped. Caprice follows upon caprice, accumulating infamy upon infamy. Henry lets out his kingdom to farm, and rapaciously confiscates the property of the House of Lancaster to furnish the expenses necessary for putting down the rebellion in Ireland. While he trusts to his hereditary claims and to the divine right of kings, he nevertheless violates all the right of family and inheritance, and, by putting his own divine office out to hire, he becomes, with suicidal inconsistency, the first rebel, and with his own hand sows the seed of the revolution which eventually robs him of his life and crown. By disregarding in his own person the rights of the historical past-which is the true meaning of the so-called principle of stability-he places himself on an unsubstantial future. None but the more aged of his subjects -those who live on in a better past, who still see in him his heroic and noble-minded father, such as the old York and his sons, the Bishop of Carlisle, and the old Salisbury-remain faithful to him; all the vigour of youth and manhood, on the other hand, that from its very nature is engrossed by the present and future, which, however undermined by Richard, totters and threatens to fall, hesitates also, and at last goes over to the rebel Boling

broke. Here, too, the guiding hand of God is discernible. Had Richard returned one day sooner from Ireland, he would have found an army ready equipped for battle; but deceived by the accidental delay, and a rumour of the death of the king, it had dispersed or gone over to Henry. His resources being thus cut off, lost to himself, and powerless, he yields himself into the hands of his enemy; his spirit, like a rotten stem, is broken by the storm which he himself had raised. His creatures, Bushby, Bagot, Greene, and Wiltshire-the wicked instruments of a wicked master, who did but confirm him in his injustice-had previously fallen like the branches before the stem. His Queen-even in prosperity oppressed with a nameless pang, and looking into the future with a foreboding fear and assured feeling that nothing but misfortune could be the issue of Richard's unrighteous deeds, but who yet could be the partner of her husband's unkingly dissipation, and who at the death-bed of the old Gaunt could listen in silence to his fruitless exhortations, and hear without remonstrance the insults of Richard, and his unjust order for the spoliation of the House of Lancaster-she naturally, and with justice, shares her consort's fate. Both, however, alike make misfortune great; the way in which they meet their fate reconciles them both to God and man, and the close of the tragedy is at once truly tragic and profoundly poetical.

A single idea, it is plain, runs through the whole piece and its several parts. The poet has here laboured to illustrate the high historical significance of the kingly dignity in the light that it appears to the christian view of things, as the most exalted, but at the same time the most responsible vocation, that Heaven imposes upon man. Absolutely speaking, every man has no doubt his vocation from God; but whereas the duties and office of every individual member of the state are more or less modified by the governing power, the dignity of the sovereign stands in an immediate relation to God and his all-ruling grace. It pre-eminently is "by the grace of God." And, both on this account, and because, as Shakspeare shews, the happiness of the whole people depends on the sovereign, he ought to be only the more mindful of divine grace, and the greater is his guilt, whenever, forgetting

his true dignity, he acts unkingly, and contrary to justice and to grace. When he contradicts his high vocation he will call in vain upon its divinity to protect him. In being called to it, he was called to do justice; and it is only by obeying its call that he can maintain his own right. While, then, the poet has thus attempted to elucidate the true relation both of man to his own historical position, and of his vocation in life to God, and while he thus places the essence of the kingly dignity in its observance of its relation to God and the world, he has successfully illustrated modern political history under one of its most essential aspects, and in one of its principal ideas. This is the ground-idea of the whole drama.

His

"Richard the Second" is the first part of the grand five-act historical drama which closes with "Richard the Third." It is evident that the guilt of Bolingbroke's rebellion was not lessened by the injustice of Richard, of which, however, it was the just punishment. This truth is strikingly set forth in the two following pieces, which bear the title of "Henry the Fourth." usurped dignity reminds us in the first place of the stolen majesty of John. The circumstances of Henry the Fourth take, however, a different shape and hue. John was opposed by a pretender to the crown, supported by the church, by France, and the English nobles, and the chief interest was derived from the corruption, weakness, and abuse of the spiritual as well as of the temporal power, which, in their conflict with each other, shook in pieces the whole frame of society. Henry the Fourth, on the other hand, has only to contend with a few of his own barons, with whom are joined, it is true, some of the bishops and clergy, but rather as dignitaries of the kingdom than as representatives of the church. Consequently the whole action moves, as in "Richard the Second," within the limits of England, and in this respect the two parts of "Henry the Fourth" form, on one hand, the continuation, and, on the other, a contrast, to the former drama.

For whereas in "Richard the Second" a mere outward title is insufficient, in the absence of intrinsic right and justice, to protect the state from devastation, dissension, and rebellion, the same disturbances and civil broils appear in "Henry the Fourth," because the inward qualifications for a crown, which Bolingbroke

undoubtedly possessed in his moderation, prudence, and courage, are not associated with the outward right. The two ought never in fact to be disunited, but being blended organically together, to render to each other a mutual support. This is the unceasing requisition of moral order and of experience. Henry's inward capacity is in itself no inward justification. This he had irretrievably lost, when, instead of being content with the vindication of his own rights, he had presumed to usurp those of Richard; and when by robbing him of his crown, he became, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the cause of his sovereign's murder. This act had sapped the moral foundation of his private and public position. So far, therefore, as we miss intrinsic justice in the head and focus of the state, which is consequently convulsed in its whole organism, "Henry the Fourth" appears merely as a continuation of the old state of things. But every living continuation is at the same time an advance also; a transformation both inwardly and outwardly. The distinction between the two becomes apparent, and we see at once that "Henry the Fourth" is in its fundamental idea essentially different from "Richard the Second." It is not merely that though possessed of the inward right he is without the outward title-but the usurpation also of Henry is not contested, as the rightful throne of Richard the Second was, by violated justice; the aggressions upon it of his adversaries are equally unjustifiable. We have here wrong set against wrong, and usurpation struggling with usurpation, and the final decision rests with the superiority of mental and material power. Accordingly, Henry's high qualifications for governing gain the day; his own prudence and the bravery of his son are victorious over the weakness and incapacity of his adversaries. Henry dies in the undisturbed possession of his kingly dignity and power. But he dies without pleasure in life, and yet not rejoicing in death, distracted and disturbed by the discontent of his own conscience, and the worry of the ceaseless efforts he is called upon to make in order to defend a questionable and unrighteous acquisition. He leaves the crown to his son; but in the memory of the people, and beneath the very throne of his successors, the embers of unsatisfied wrongs are smouldering, and await only more favourable circumstances to fan them into flames.

BB