Shakspeare and His Times [Vol. 2 of 2] / Including the Biography of the Poet; criticisms on his genius and writings; a new chronology of his plays; a disquisition on the on the object of his sonnets; and a history of the manners, customs, and amusements, superstitions, poetry, and elegant literature of his age

by Nathan Drake

—— "frame his face to all occasions,"[374:B]

and accordingly appears, during the course of his career, under the contrasted forms of a subject and a monarch, a politician and a wit, a soldier and a suitor, a sinner and a saint; and in all with such apparent ease and fidelity to nature, that while to the explorer of the human mind he affords, by his penetration and address, a subject of peculiar interest and delight, he offers to the practised performer a study well calculated to call forth his fullest and finest exertions. He, therefore, whose histrionic powers are adequate to the just

exhibition of this character, may be said to have attained the highest honours of his profession; and, consequently, the popularity of Richard the Third, notwithstanding the moral enormity of its hero, may be readily accounted for, when we recollect, that the versatile and consummate hypocrisy of the tyrant has been embodied by the talents of such masterly performers as Garrick, Kemble, Cook, and Kean.

So overwhelming and exclusive is the character of Richard, that the comparative insignificancy of all the other persons of the drama may be necessarily inferred; they are reflected to us, as it were, from his mirror, and become more or less important, and more or less developed, as he finds it necessary to act upon them; so that our estimate of their character is entirely founded on his relative conduct, through which we may very correctly appreciate their strength or weakness.

The only exception to this remark is in the person of Queen Margaret, who, apart from the agency of Richard, and dimly seen in the darkest recesses of the picture, pours forth, in union with the deep tone of this tragedy, the most dreadful curses and imprecations; with such a wild and prophetic fury, indeed, as to involve the whole scene in tenfold gloom and horror.

We have to add that the moral of this play is great and impressive. Richard, having excited a general sense of indignation, and a general desire of revenge, and, unaware of his danger from having lost, through familiarity with guilt, all idea of moral obligation, becomes at length the victim of his own enormous crimes; he falls not unvisited by the terrors of conscience, for, on the eve of danger and of death, the retribution of another world is placed before him; the spirits of those whom he had murdered, reveal the awful sentence of his fate, and his bosom heaves with the infliction of eternal torture.

11. King Richard the Second: 1596. Our great poet having been induced to improve and re-compose the Dramatic History of Henry the Sixth, and to continue the character of Gloucester to the close of his usurpation, in the drama of Richard the Third, very

naturally, from the success which had crowned these efforts, reverted to the prior part of our national story for fresh subjects, and, led by a common principle of association, selected for the commencement of a new series of historical plays, which should form an unbroken chain with those that he had previously written, the reign of Richard the Second. On this account, therefore, and from the intimation of time, noticed by Mr. Chalmers, towards the conclusion of the first [376:A]act, we are led to coincide with this gentleman in assigning the composition of Richard the Second to the year 1596.

Of the character of this unfortunate young prince, Shakspeare has given us a delineation in conformity with the general tone of history, but heightened by many exquisite and pathetic touches. Richard was beautiful in his person, and elegant in his manners[376:B]; affectionate, generous, and faithful in his attachments, and though intentionally neglected in his education, not defective in understanding. Accustomed, by his designing uncles, to the company of the idle and the dissipated, and to the unrestrained indulgence of his passions, we need not wonder that levity, ostentation, and prodigality, should mark his subsequent career, and should ultimately lead him to destruction.

Though the errors of his misguided youth are forcibly depicted in the drama, yet the poet has reserved his strength for the period of adversity. Richard, descending from his throne, discovers the unexpected virtues of humility, fortitude, and resignation, and becomes not only an object of love and pity, but of admiration; and there is nothing in the whole compass of our author's plays better calculated