CHAPTER XXXVII.
To write a really good play is undoubtedly a much more difficult thing, and the achievement a much more glorious one, than to write a good romance; and yet the dramatist has some very great advantages over the romance writer. He is conventionally permitted to skip over all dull details, which the romance-writer is obliged to furnish. The prominent points alone are those with which he deals; the burden of the rest is cast upon nimble-footed imagination, who, supplies in a moment, from her own inexhaustible stores, all that is requisite to complete the tale, with much richer and more brilliant materials than pen or tongue can afford. If some reference to events going on at a distance from the scene be necessary in words, they may be as brief as the writer wills; and all that is needful to describe the approach of dangers, which have been long preparing, and the effect upon him to whom the tale is told, is comprised in two brief sentences:
Stanley--Richmond is on the seas.
King Richard--There let him sink--and be the seas on him,
White-livered runagate!
This is quite enough; and although I have heard the admirable critics object to the conceit approaching to a pun, expressed in the second line, as unnatural, when placed in the mouth of a man agitated by violent passions, as in the case of Richard, yet that man must have been a very poor observer of human nature, who does not know that the expression of strong passion is full of conceits. It seems as if ordinary words and ordinary forms fail before the energies of passion, and that recourse is had to language often obscure, often. extravagant, sometimes ludicrous, and always full of conceits.
However that may be, it is needful for me to give somewhat more at length the course of events which Shakspeare summed up but briefly. I will be rapid too, and pretend, in this short chapter, to give but a sketch of events, which took several months in action.
Weary men sleep not always sound; and, in less than four hours after the earl of Richmond had laid his head upon his pillow at Angers, he again came forth from his chamber, and went down to that large public room, which in those days, and for many years after, was to be found in every inn, both in France and England. When he entered, the room was tenanted by only one person, for the dinner hour was passed; but that person advanced to meet him at once, with a low reverence. "Ha, Sir Christopher Urswick," said the earl; "right glad am I to see you. The passport you obtained for me from the court of France served me right well this morning at the city gates. By my faith, the pursuers were close upon my heels. But why did you not come yourself?"
"Because I should have been in prison at Nantes by this time, and could serve you better in France," replied Urswick. "There are many of your friends waiting for you, sir, with anxious expectation, at the court of Langeais; and Madame de Beaujeu, the regent of the kingdom, is prepared to receive you as your dignity requires."
"Then am I expected?" asked Richmond.