HENRY V.

‘Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,To-day might I (hanging on Hotspur’s neck)Have talked of Monmouth’s grave.’

‘Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,

To-day might I (hanging on Hotspur’s neck)

Have talked of Monmouth’s grave.’

The truth is, that we never could forgive the Prince’s treatment of Falstaff; though perhaps Shakespear knew what was best, according to the history, the nature of the times, and of the man. We speak only as dramatic critics. Whatever terror the French in those days might have of HenryV.yet, to the readers of poetry at present, Falstaff is the better man of the two. We think of him and quote him oftener.

Henry V.is a very favourite monarch with the English nation, and he appears to have been also a favourite with Shakespear, who labours hard to apologise for the actions of the king, by shewing us the character of the man, as ‘the king of good fellows.’ He scarcely deserves this honour. He was fond of war and low company:—we know little else of him. He was careless, dissolute, and ambitious;—idle, or doing mischief. In private, he seemed to have no idea of the common decencies of life, which he subjected to a kind of regal licence; in public affairs, he seemed to have no idea of any rule of right or wrong, but brute force, glossed over with a little religious hypocrisy and archiepiscopal advice. His principles did not change with his situation and professions. His adventure on Gadshill was a prelude to the affair of Agincourt, only a bloodless one; Falstaff was a puny prompter of violence and outrage, compared with the pious and politic Archbishop of Canterbury, who gave the kingcarte blanche, in a genealogical tree of his family, to rob and murder in circles of latitude and longitude abroad—to save the possessions of the church at home. This appears in the speeches in Shakespear, where the hidden motives that actuate princes and their advisers in war and policy are better laid open than in speeches from the throne or woolsack. Henry, because he did not know how to govern his own kingdom, determined to make war upon his neighbours. Because his own title to the crown was doubtful, he laid claim to that of France. Because he did not know how to exercise the enormous power, which had just dropped into his hands, to any one good purpose, he immediately undertook (a cheap and obvious resource of sovereignty) to do all the mischief he could. Even if absolute monarchs had the wit to find out objects of laudable ambition, they could only ‘plume up their wills’ in adhering to the more sacred formula of the royal prerogative, ‘the right divine of kings to govern wrong,’ because will is only then triumphant when it is opposed to the will of others, because the pride of power is onlythen shewn, not when it consults the rights and interests of others, but when it insults and tramples on all justice and all humanity. Henry declares his resolution ‘when France is his, to bend it to his awe, or break it all to pieces’—a resolution worthy of a conqueror, to destroy all that he cannot enslave; and what adds to the joke, he lays all the blame of the consequences of his ambition on those who will not submit tamely to his tyranny. Such is the history of kingly power, from the beginning to the end of the world;—with this difference, that the object of war formerly, when the people adhered to their allegiance, was to depose kings; the object latterly, since the people swerved from their allegiance, has been to restore kings, and to make common cause against mankind. The object of our late invasion and conquest of France was to restore the legitimate monarch, the descendant of Hugh Capet, to the throne: HenryV.in his time made war on and deposed the descendant of this very Hugh Capet, on the plea that he was a usurper and illegitimate. What would the great modern catspaw of legitimacy and restorer of divine right have said to the claim of Henry and the title of the descendants of Hugh Capet? HenryV.it is true, was a hero, a King of England, and the conqueror of the king of France. Yet we feel little love or admiration for him. He was a hero, that is, he was ready to sacrifice his own life for the pleasure of destroying thousands of other lives: he was a king of England, but not a constitutional one, and we only like kings according to the law; lastly, he was a conqueror of the French king, and for this we dislike him less than if he had conquered the French people. How then do we like him? We like him in the play. There he is a very amiable monster, a very splendid pageant. As we like to gaze at a panther or a young lion in their cages in the Tower, and catch a pleasing horror from their glistening eyes, their velvet paws, and dreadless roar, so we take a very romantic, heroic, patriotic, and poetical delight in the boasts and feats of our younger Harry, as they appear on the stage and are confined to lines of ten syllables; where no blood follows the stroke that wounds our ears, where no harvest bends beneath horses’ hoofs, no city flames, no little child is butchered, no dead men’s bodies are found piled on heaps and festering the next morning—in the orchestra!

So much for the politics of this play; now for the poetry. Perhaps one of the most striking images in all Shakespear is that given of war in the first lines of the Prologue.

‘O for a muse of fire, that would ascendThe brightest heaven of invention,A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,Assume the port of Mars, andat his heelsLeash’d in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fireCrouch for employment.’

‘O for a muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention,

A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,

And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!

Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,

Assume the port of Mars, andat his heels

Leash’d in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire

Crouch for employment.’

Rubens, if he had painted it, would not have improved upon this simile.

The conversation between the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely, relating to the sudden change in the manners of HenryV.is among the well-knownBeautiesof Shakespear. It is indeed admirable both for strength and grace. It has sometimes occurred to us that Shakespear, in describing ‘the reformation’ of the Prince, might have had an eye to himself—

‘Which is a wonder how his grace should glean it,Since his addiction was to courses vain,His companies unletter’d, rude and shallow,His hours fill’d up with riots, banquets, sports;And never noted in him any study,Any retirement, any sequestrationFrom open haunts and popularity.Ely.The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,And wholesome berries thrive and ripen bestNeighbour’d by fruit of baser quality:And so the prince obscur’d his contemplationUnder the veil of wildness, which no doubtGrew like the summer-grass, fastest by night,Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.’

‘Which is a wonder how his grace should glean it,

Since his addiction was to courses vain,

His companies unletter’d, rude and shallow,

His hours fill’d up with riots, banquets, sports;

And never noted in him any study,

Any retirement, any sequestration

From open haunts and popularity.

Ely.The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,And wholesome berries thrive and ripen bestNeighbour’d by fruit of baser quality:And so the prince obscur’d his contemplationUnder the veil of wildness, which no doubtGrew like the summer-grass, fastest by night,Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.’

Ely.The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,

And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best

Neighbour’d by fruit of baser quality:

And so the prince obscur’d his contemplation

Under the veil of wildness, which no doubt

Grew like the summer-grass, fastest by night,

Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.’

This at least is as probable an account of the progress of the poet’s mind as we have met with in any of the Essays on the Learning of Shakespear.

Nothing can be better managed than the caution which the king gives the meddling Archbishop, not to advise him rashly to engage in the war with France, his scrupulous dread of the consequences of that advice, and his eager desire to hear and follow it.

‘And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,Or nicely charge your understanding soulWith opening titles miscreate, whose rightSuits not in native colours with the truth.For God doth know how many now in healthShall drop their blood, in approbationOf what your reverence shall incite us to.Therefore take heed how you impawn your person,How you awake our sleeping sword of war;We charge you in the name of God, take heed.For never two such kingdoms did contendWithout much fall of blood, whose guiltless dropsAre every one a woe, a sore complaint‘Gainst him, whose wrong gives edge unto the swordsThat make such waste in brief mortality.Under this conjuration, speak, my lord;For we will hear, note, and believe in heart,That what you speak, is in your conscience wash’d,As pure as sin with baptism.’

‘And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,

That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,

Or nicely charge your understanding soul

With opening titles miscreate, whose right

Suits not in native colours with the truth.

For God doth know how many now in health

Shall drop their blood, in approbation

Of what your reverence shall incite us to.

Therefore take heed how you impawn your person,

How you awake our sleeping sword of war;

We charge you in the name of God, take heed.

For never two such kingdoms did contend

Without much fall of blood, whose guiltless drops

Are every one a woe, a sore complaint

‘Gainst him, whose wrong gives edge unto the swords

That make such waste in brief mortality.

Under this conjuration, speak, my lord;

For we will hear, note, and believe in heart,

That what you speak, is in your conscience wash’d,

As pure as sin with baptism.’

Another characteristic instance of the blindness of human nature to every thing but its own interests, is the complaint made by the king of ‘the ill neighbourhood’ of the Scot in attacking England when she was attacking France.

‘For once the eagle England being in prey,To her unguarded nest the weazel ScotComes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs.’

‘For once the eagle England being in prey,

To her unguarded nest the weazel Scot

Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs.’

It is worth observing that in all these plays, which give an admirable picture of the spirit of thegood old times, the moral inference does not at all depend upon the nature of the actions, but on the dignity or meanness of the persons committing them. ‘The eagle England’ has a right ‘to be in prey,’ but ‘the weazel Scot’ has none ‘to come sneaking to her nest,’ which she has left to pounce upon others. Might was right, without equivocation or disguise, in that heroic and chivalrous age. The substitution of right for might, even in theory, is among the refinements and abuses of modern philosophy.

A more beautiful rhetorical delineation of the effects of subordination in a commonwealth can hardly be conceived than the following:—

‘For government, though high and low and lower,Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,Congruing in a full and natural close,Like music.——Therefore heaven doth divideThe state of man in divers functions,Setting endeavour in continual motion;To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,Obedience: for so work the honey-bees;Creatures that by a rule in nature, teachThe art of order to a peopled kingdom.They have a king, and officers of sorts:Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,Make boot upon the summer’s velvet buds;Which pillage they with merry march bring homeTo the tent-royal of their emperor;Who, busied in his majesty, surveysThe singing mason building roofs of gold;The civil citizens kneading up the honey;The poor mechanic porters crowding inTheir heavy burthens at his narrow gate;The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,Delivering o’er to executors paleThe lazy yawning drone. I this infer,—That many things, having full referenceTo one consent, may work contrariously:As many arrows, loosed several ways,Come to one mark;As many ways meet in one town;As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea;As many lines close in the dial’s centre;So may a thousand actions, once a-foot,End in one purpose, and be all well borneWithout defeat.’

‘For government, though high and low and lower,

Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,

Congruing in a full and natural close,

Like music.

——Therefore heaven doth divide

The state of man in divers functions,

Setting endeavour in continual motion;

To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,

Obedience: for so work the honey-bees;

Creatures that by a rule in nature, teach

The art of order to a peopled kingdom.

They have a king, and officers of sorts:

Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;

Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;

Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,

Make boot upon the summer’s velvet buds;

Which pillage they with merry march bring home

To the tent-royal of their emperor;

Who, busied in his majesty, surveys

The singing mason building roofs of gold;

The civil citizens kneading up the honey;

The poor mechanic porters crowding in

Their heavy burthens at his narrow gate;

The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,

Delivering o’er to executors pale

The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,—

That many things, having full reference

To one consent, may work contrariously:

As many arrows, loosed several ways,

Come to one mark;

As many ways meet in one town;

As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea;

As many lines close in the dial’s centre;

So may a thousand actions, once a-foot,

End in one purpose, and be all well borne

Without defeat.’

Henry V.is but one of Shakespear’s second-rate plays. Yet by quoting passages, like this, from his second-rate plays alone, we might make a volume ‘rich with his praise,’

‘As is the oozy bottom of the seaWith sunken wrack and sumless treasuries.’

‘As is the oozy bottom of the sea

With sunken wrack and sumless treasuries.’

Of this sort are the king’s remonstrance to Scroop, Grey, and Cambridge, on the detection of their treason, his address to the soldiers at the siege of Harfleur, and the still finer one before the battle of Agincourt, the description of the night before the battle, and the reflections on ceremony put into the mouth of the king.

‘O hard condition; twin-born with greatness,Subjected to the breath of every fool,Whose sense no more can feel but his own wringing!What infinite heart’s ease must kings neglect,That private men enjoy; and what have kings,That privates have not too, save ceremony?Save general ceremony?And what art thou, thou idol ceremony?What kind of God art thou, that suffer’st moreOf mortal griefs, than do thy worshippers?What are thy rents? what are thy comings-in?O ceremony, shew me but thy worth!What is thy soul, O adoration?Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,Creating awe and fear in other men?Wherein thou art less happy, being feared,Than they in fearing.What drink’st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,But poison’d flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!Think’st thou, the fiery fever will go outWith titles blown from adulation?Will it give place to flexure and low bending?Can’st thou, when thou command’st the beggar’s knee,Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,That play’st so subtly with a king’s repose,I am a king, that find thee: and I know,’Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,The enter-tissu’d robe of gold and pearl,The farsed title running ‘fore the king,The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pompThat beats upon the high shore of this world,No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,Not all these, laid in bed majestical,Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave;Who, with a body fill’d, and vacant mind,Gets him to rest, cramm’d with distressful bread,Never sees horrid night, the child of hell:But like a lacquey, from the rise to set,Sweats in the eye of Phœbus, and all nightSleeps in Elysium; next day, after dawn,Doth rise, and help Hyperion to his horse;And follows so the ever-running yearWith profitable labour, to his grave:And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,Winding up days with toil, and nights with sleep,Has the forehand and vantage of a king.The slave, a member of the country’s peace,Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots,What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,Whose hours the peasant best advantages.’

‘O hard condition; twin-born with greatness,

Subjected to the breath of every fool,

Whose sense no more can feel but his own wringing!

What infinite heart’s ease must kings neglect,

That private men enjoy; and what have kings,

That privates have not too, save ceremony?

Save general ceremony?

And what art thou, thou idol ceremony?

What kind of God art thou, that suffer’st more

Of mortal griefs, than do thy worshippers?

What are thy rents? what are thy comings-in?

O ceremony, shew me but thy worth!

What is thy soul, O adoration?

Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,

Creating awe and fear in other men?

Wherein thou art less happy, being feared,

Than they in fearing.

What drink’st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,

But poison’d flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,

And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!

Think’st thou, the fiery fever will go out

With titles blown from adulation?

Will it give place to flexure and low bending?

Can’st thou, when thou command’st the beggar’s knee,

Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,

That play’st so subtly with a king’s repose,

I am a king, that find thee: and I know,

’Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,

The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,

The enter-tissu’d robe of gold and pearl,

The farsed title running ‘fore the king,

The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp

That beats upon the high shore of this world,

No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,

Not all these, laid in bed majestical,

Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave;

Who, with a body fill’d, and vacant mind,

Gets him to rest, cramm’d with distressful bread,

Never sees horrid night, the child of hell:

But like a lacquey, from the rise to set,

Sweats in the eye of Phœbus, and all night

Sleeps in Elysium; next day, after dawn,

Doth rise, and help Hyperion to his horse;

And follows so the ever-running year

With profitable labour, to his grave:

And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,

Winding up days with toil, and nights with sleep,

Has the forehand and vantage of a king.

The slave, a member of the country’s peace,

Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots,

What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,

Whose hours the peasant best advantages.’

Most of these passages are well known: there is one, which we do not remember to have seen noticed, and yet it is no whit inferior to the rest in heroic beauty. It is the account of the deaths of York and Suffolk.

‘Exeter.The duke of York commends him to your majesty.K. Henry.Lives he, good uncle? thrice within this hour,I saw him down; thrice up again, and fighting;From helmet to the spur all blood he was.Exeter.In which array (brave soldier) doth he lie,Larding the plain: and by his bloody side(Yoke-fellow to his honour-owing wounds)The noble earl of Suffolk also lies.Suffolk first died: and York, all haggled o’er,Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteep’d,And takes him by the beard; kisses the gashes,That bloodily did yawn upon his face;And cries aloud—Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk!My soul shall thine keep company to heaven:Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly a-breast;As, in this glorious and well-foughten field,We kept together in our chivalry!Upon these words I came, and cheer’d him up:He smil’d me in the face, raught me his hand,And, with a feeble gripe, says—Dear my lord,Commend my service to my sovereign.So did he turn, and over Suffolk’s neckHe threw his wounded arm, and kiss’d his lips;And so, espous’d to death, with blood he seal’dA testament of noble-ending love.’

‘Exeter.The duke of York commends him to your majesty.

K. Henry.Lives he, good uncle? thrice within this hour,I saw him down; thrice up again, and fighting;From helmet to the spur all blood he was.

K. Henry.Lives he, good uncle? thrice within this hour,

I saw him down; thrice up again, and fighting;

From helmet to the spur all blood he was.

Exeter.In which array (brave soldier) doth he lie,Larding the plain: and by his bloody side(Yoke-fellow to his honour-owing wounds)The noble earl of Suffolk also lies.Suffolk first died: and York, all haggled o’er,Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteep’d,And takes him by the beard; kisses the gashes,That bloodily did yawn upon his face;And cries aloud—Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk!My soul shall thine keep company to heaven:Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly a-breast;As, in this glorious and well-foughten field,We kept together in our chivalry!Upon these words I came, and cheer’d him up:He smil’d me in the face, raught me his hand,And, with a feeble gripe, says—Dear my lord,Commend my service to my sovereign.So did he turn, and over Suffolk’s neckHe threw his wounded arm, and kiss’d his lips;And so, espous’d to death, with blood he seal’dA testament of noble-ending love.’

Exeter.In which array (brave soldier) doth he lie,

Larding the plain: and by his bloody side

(Yoke-fellow to his honour-owing wounds)

The noble earl of Suffolk also lies.

Suffolk first died: and York, all haggled o’er,

Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteep’d,

And takes him by the beard; kisses the gashes,

That bloodily did yawn upon his face;

And cries aloud—Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk!

My soul shall thine keep company to heaven:

Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly a-breast;

As, in this glorious and well-foughten field,

We kept together in our chivalry!

Upon these words I came, and cheer’d him up:

He smil’d me in the face, raught me his hand,

And, with a feeble gripe, says—Dear my lord,

Commend my service to my sovereign.

So did he turn, and over Suffolk’s neck

He threw his wounded arm, and kiss’d his lips;

And so, espous’d to death, with blood he seal’d

A testament of noble-ending love.’

But we must have done with splendid quotations. The behaviour of the king, in the difficult and doubtful circumstances in which he is placed, is as patient and modest as it is spirited and lofty in his prosperous fortune. The character of the French nobles is also very admirably depicted; and the Dauphin’s praise of his horse shews the vanity of that class of persons in a very striking point of view. Shakespear always accompanies a foolish prince with a satirical courtier, as we see in this instance. The comic parts ofHenry V.are very inferior to those ofHenry IV.Falstaff is dead, and without him, Pistol, Nym, and Bardolph, are satellites without a sun. Fluellen the Welchman is the most entertaining character in the piece. He is good-natured, brave, choleric, and pedantic. His parallel between Alexander and Harry of Monmouth, and his desire to have ‘some disputations’ with Captain Macmorris on the discipline of the Roman wars, in the heat of the battle, are never to be forgotten. His treatment of Pistol is as good as Pistol’s treatment of his French prisoner. There are two other remarkable prose passages in this play: the conversation of Henry in disguise with the three centinels on the duties of a soldier, and his courtship of Katherine in broken French. We like them both exceedingly, though the first savours perhaps too much of the king, and the last too little of the lover.

HENRY VI.IN THREE PARTS

During the time of the civil wars of York and Lancaster, England was a perfect bear-garden, and Shakespear has given us a very lively picture of the scene. The three parts ofHenry VI.convey a picture of very little else; and are inferior to the other historical plays. They have brilliant passages; but the general ground-work is comparatively poor and meagre, the style ‘flat and unraised.’ There are few lines like the following:—

‘Glory is like a circle in the water;Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.’

‘Glory is like a circle in the water;

Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,

Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.’

The first part relates to the wars in France after the death of HenryV.and the story of the Maid of Orleans. She is here almost as scurvily treated as in Voltaire’s Pucelle. Talbot is a very magnificent sketch: there is something as formidable in this portrait of him, as there would be in a monumental figure of him or in the sight of the armour which he wore. The scene in which he visits the Countess of Auvergne, who seeks to entrap him, is a very spirited one, and his description of his own treatment while a prisoner to the French not less remarkable.

‘Salisbury.Yet tell’st thou not how thou wert entertain’d.Talbot.With scoffs and scorns, and contumelious taunts.In open market-place produced they me,To be a public spectacle to all.Here, said they, is the terror of the French,The scarecrow that affrights our children so.Then broke I from the officers that led me,And with my nails digg’d stones out of the ground,To hurl at the beholders of my shame.My grisly countenance made others fly,None durst come near for fear of sudden death.In iron walls they deem’d me not secure:So great a fear my name amongst them spread,That they suppos’d I could rend bars of steel,And spurn in pieces posts of adamant.Wherefore a guard of chosen shot I had:They walk’d about me every minute-while;And if I did but stir out of my bed,Ready they were to shoot me to the heart.’

‘Salisbury.Yet tell’st thou not how thou wert entertain’d.

Talbot.With scoffs and scorns, and contumelious taunts.In open market-place produced they me,To be a public spectacle to all.Here, said they, is the terror of the French,The scarecrow that affrights our children so.Then broke I from the officers that led me,And with my nails digg’d stones out of the ground,To hurl at the beholders of my shame.My grisly countenance made others fly,None durst come near for fear of sudden death.In iron walls they deem’d me not secure:So great a fear my name amongst them spread,That they suppos’d I could rend bars of steel,And spurn in pieces posts of adamant.Wherefore a guard of chosen shot I had:They walk’d about me every minute-while;And if I did but stir out of my bed,Ready they were to shoot me to the heart.’

Talbot.With scoffs and scorns, and contumelious taunts.

In open market-place produced they me,

To be a public spectacle to all.

Here, said they, is the terror of the French,

The scarecrow that affrights our children so.

Then broke I from the officers that led me,

And with my nails digg’d stones out of the ground,

To hurl at the beholders of my shame.

My grisly countenance made others fly,

None durst come near for fear of sudden death.

In iron walls they deem’d me not secure:

So great a fear my name amongst them spread,

That they suppos’d I could rend bars of steel,

And spurn in pieces posts of adamant.

Wherefore a guard of chosen shot I had:

They walk’d about me every minute-while;

And if I did but stir out of my bed,

Ready they were to shoot me to the heart.’

The second part relates chiefly to the contests between the nobles during the minority of Henry, and the death of Gloucester, the good Duke Humphrey. The character of Cardinal Beaufort is the most prominent in the group: the account of his death is one of our author’s master-pieces. So is the speech of Gloucester to the nobles on the loss of the provinces of France by the King’s marriage with Margaret of Anjou. The pretensions and growing ambition of the Duke of York, the father of RichardIII.are also very ably developed. Among the episodes, the tragi-comedy of Jack Cade, and the detection of the impostor Simcox are truly edifying.

The third part describes Henry’s loss of his crown: his death takes place in the last act, which is usually thrust into the common acting play ofRichard III.The character of Gloucester, afterwards King Richard, is here very powerfully commenced, and his dangerous designs and long-reaching ambition are fully described in his soliloquy in the third act, beginning, ‘Aye, Edward will use women honourably.’ HenryVI.is drawn as distinctly as his high-spirited Queen, and notwithstanding the very mean figure which Henry makes as a King, we still feel more respect for him than for his wife.

We have already observed that Shakespear was scarcely more remarkable for the force and marked contrasts of his characters than for the truth and subtlety with which he has distinguished those which approached the nearest to each other. For instance, the soul of Othello is hardly more distinct from that of Iago than that of Desdemona is shewn to be from Æmilia’s; the ambition of Macbeth is as distinct from the ambition of RichardIII.as it is from the meekness of Duncan; the real madness of Lear is as different from the feigned madness of Edgar[69]as from the babbling of the fool; the contrast between wit and folly in Falstaff and Shallow is not more characteristic though more obvious than the gradations of folly, loquacious or reserved, in Shallow and Silence; and again, the gallantry of Prince Henry is as little confounded with that of Hotspur as with the cowardice of Falstaff, or as the sensual and philosophic cowardice of the Knight is with the pitiful and cringing cowardice of Parolles. All these several personages were as different in Shakespear as they would have been in themselves: his imagination borrowed from the life, and every circumstance, object, motive, passion, operated there as it would in reality, and produced a world of men and women as distinct, as true and as various as those thatexist in nature. The peculiar property of Shakespear’s imagination was this truth, accompanied with the unconsciousness of nature: indeed, imagination to be perfect must be unconscious, at least in production; for nature is so.—We shall attempt one example more in the characters of RichardII.and HenryVI.

The characters and situations of both these persons were so nearly alike, that they would have been completely confounded by a common-place poet. Yet they are kept quite distinct in Shakespear. Both were kings, and both unfortunate. Both lost their crowns owing to their mismanagement and imbecility; the one from a thoughtless, wilful abuse of power, the other from an indifference to it. The manner in which they bear their misfortunes corresponds exactly to the causes which led to them. The one is always lamenting the loss of his power which he has not the spirit to regain; the other seems only to regret that he had ever been king, and is glad to be rid of the power, with the trouble; the effeminacy of the one is that of a voluptuary, proud, revengeful, impatient of contradiction, and inconsolable in his misfortunes; the effeminacy of the other is that of an indolent, good-natured mind, naturally averse to the turmoils of ambition and the cares of greatness, and who wishes to pass his time in monkish indolence and contemplation.—Richard bewails the loss of the kingly power only as it was the means of gratifying his pride and luxury; Henry regards it only as a means of doing right, and is less desirous of the advantages to be derived from possessing it than afraid of exercising it wrong. In knighting a young soldier, he gives him ghostly advice—

‘Edward Plantagenet, arise a knight,And learn this lesson, draw thy sword in right.’

‘Edward Plantagenet, arise a knight,

And learn this lesson, draw thy sword in right.’

RichardII.in the first speeches of the play betrays his real character. In the first alarm of his pride, on hearing of Bolingbroke’s rebellion, before his presumption has met with any check, he exclaims—

‘Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords:This earth shall have a feeling, and these stonesProve armed soldiers, ere her native kingShall faulter under proud rebellious arms.. . . . . .Not all the water in the rough rude seaCan wash the balm from an anointed king;The breath of worldly man cannot deposeThe Deputy elected by the Lord.For every man that Bolingbroke hath prest,To lift sharp steel against our golden crown,Heaven for his Richard hath in heavenly payA glorious angel; then if angels fight,Weak men must fall; for Heaven still guards the right.’

‘Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords:This earth shall have a feeling, and these stonesProve armed soldiers, ere her native kingShall faulter under proud rebellious arms.

‘Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords:

This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones

Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king

Shall faulter under proud rebellious arms.

. . . . . .

Not all the water in the rough rude seaCan wash the balm from an anointed king;The breath of worldly man cannot deposeThe Deputy elected by the Lord.For every man that Bolingbroke hath prest,To lift sharp steel against our golden crown,Heaven for his Richard hath in heavenly payA glorious angel; then if angels fight,Weak men must fall; for Heaven still guards the right.’

Not all the water in the rough rude sea

Can wash the balm from an anointed king;

The breath of worldly man cannot depose

The Deputy elected by the Lord.

For every man that Bolingbroke hath prest,

To lift sharp steel against our golden crown,

Heaven for his Richard hath in heavenly pay

A glorious angel; then if angels fight,

Weak men must fall; for Heaven still guards the right.’

Yet, notwithstanding this royal confession of faith, on the very first news of actual disaster, all his conceit of himself as the peculiar favourite of Providence vanishes into air.

‘But now the blood of twenty thousand menDid triumph in my face, and they are fled.All souls that will be safe fly from my side;For time hath set a blot upon my pride.’

‘But now the blood of twenty thousand men

Did triumph in my face, and they are fled.

All souls that will be safe fly from my side;

For time hath set a blot upon my pride.’

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;Is not the King’s name forty thousand names?Arm, arm, my name: a puny subject strikesAt thy great glory.’

‘Awake, thou coward Majesty, thou sleep’st;

Is not the King’s name forty thousand names?

Arm, arm, my name: a puny subject strikes

At thy great glory.’

King Henry does not make any such vapouring 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 favourites, 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:Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyesWrite sorrow in the bosom of the earth!Let’s chuse executors, and talk of wills:And yet not so—for what can we bequeath,Save our deposed bodies to the ground?Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke’s,And nothing can we call our own but death,And that small model of the barren earth,Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.For heaven’s sake let us sit upon the ground,And tell sad stories of the death of Kings:How some have been depos’d, some slain in war;Some haunted by the ghosts they dispossess’d;Some poison’d by their wives, some sleeping kill’d;All murder’d:—for within the hollow crown,That rounds the mortal temples of a king,Keeps death his court: and there the antic sits,Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp!Allowing him a breath, a little sceneTo monarchize, be fear’d, and kill with looks;Infusing him with self and vain conceit—As if this flesh, which walls about our life,Were brass impregnable; and, humour’d thus,Comes at the last, and, with a little pin,Bores through his castle wall, and—farewell king!Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and bloodWith solemn reverence; throw away respect,Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,For you have but mistook me all this while:I live on bread like you, feel want, taste grief,Need friends, like you;—subjected thus,How can you say to me—I am a king?’

‘Aumerle.Where is the duke my father, with his power?

K. Richard.No matter where: of comfort no man speak:Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyesWrite sorrow in the bosom of the earth!Let’s chuse executors, and talk of wills:And yet not so—for what can we bequeath,Save our deposed bodies to the ground?Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke’s,And nothing can we call our own but death,And that small model of the barren earth,Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.For heaven’s sake let us sit upon the ground,And tell sad stories of the death of Kings:How some have been depos’d, some slain in war;Some haunted by the ghosts they dispossess’d;Some poison’d by their wives, some sleeping kill’d;All murder’d:—for within the hollow crown,That rounds the mortal temples of a king,Keeps death his court: and there the antic sits,Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp!Allowing him a breath, a little sceneTo monarchize, be fear’d, and kill with looks;Infusing him with self and vain conceit—As if this flesh, which walls about our life,Were brass impregnable; and, humour’d thus,Comes at the last, and, with a little pin,Bores through his castle wall, and—farewell king!Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and bloodWith solemn reverence; throw away respect,Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,For you have but mistook me all this while:I live on bread like you, feel want, taste grief,Need friends, like you;—subjected thus,How can you say to me—I am a king?’

K. Richard.No matter where: of comfort no man speak:

Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,

Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes

Write sorrow in the bosom of the earth!

Let’s chuse executors, and talk of wills:

And yet not so—for what can we bequeath,

Save our deposed bodies to the ground?

Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke’s,

And nothing can we call our own but death,

And that small model of the barren earth,

Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.

For heaven’s sake let us sit upon the ground,

And tell sad stories of the death of Kings:

How some have been depos’d, some slain in war;

Some haunted by the ghosts they dispossess’d;

Some poison’d by their wives, some sleeping kill’d;

All murder’d:—for within the hollow crown,

That rounds the mortal temples of a king,

Keeps death his court: and there the antic sits,

Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp!

Allowing him a breath, a little scene

To monarchize, be fear’d, and kill with looks;

Infusing him with self and vain conceit—

As if this flesh, which walls about our life,

Were brass impregnable; and, humour’d thus,

Comes at the last, and, with a little pin,

Bores through his castle wall, and—farewell king!

Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood

With solemn reverence; throw away respect,

Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,

For you have but mistook me all this while:

I live on bread like you, feel want, taste grief,

Need friends, like you;—subjected thus,

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 loseThe name of king? O’ God’s name let it go.I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads;My gorgeous palace for a hermitage;My gay apparel for an alms-man’s gown;My figur’d goblets for a dish of wood;My sceptre for a palmer’s walking staff;My subjects for a pair of carved saints,And my large kingdom for a little grave—A little, little grave, an obscure grave.’

‘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.

I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads;

My gorgeous palace for a hermitage;

My gay apparel for an alms-man’s gown;

My figur’d goblets for a dish of wood;

My sceptre for a palmer’s walking staff;

My subjects for a pair of carved saints,

And my large kingdom for a little grave—

A little, little grave, an obscure grave.’

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,When dying clouds contend with growing light,What time the shepherd blowing of his nails,Can neither call it perfect day or night.Here on this mole-hill will I sit me down;To whom God will, there be the victory!For Margaret my Queen and Clifford tooHave chid me from the battle, swearing bothThey prosper best of all when I am thence.Would I were dead, if God’s good will were so.For what is in this world but grief and woe?O God! methinks it were a happy lifeTo be no better than a homely swain,To sit upon a hill as I do now,To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,Thereby to see the minutes how they run:How many make the hour full complete,How many hours bring about the day,How many days will finish up the year,How many years a mortal man may live.When this is known, then to divide the times;So many hours must I tend my flock,So many hours must I take my rest,So many hours must I contemplate,So many hours must I sport myself;So many days my ewes have been with young,So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean,So many months ere I shall shear the fleece:So many minutes, hours, weeks, months, and yearsPast over, to the end they were created,Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.Ah! what a life were this! how sweet, how lovely!Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shadeTo shepherds looking on their silly sheep,Than doth a rich embroidered canopyTo kings that fear their subjects’ treachery?O yes it doth, a thousand fold it doth.And to conclude, the shepherds’ homely curds,His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,His wonted sleep under a fresh tree’s shade,All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,Is far beyond a prince’s delicates,His viands sparkling in a golden cup,His body couched in a curious bed,When care, mistrust, and treasons wait on him.’

‘This battle fares like to the morning’s war,

When dying clouds contend with growing light,

What time the shepherd blowing of his nails,

Can neither call it perfect day or night.

Here on this mole-hill will I sit me down;

To whom God will, there be the victory!

For Margaret my Queen and Clifford too

Have chid me from the battle, swearing both

They prosper best of all when I am thence.

Would I were dead, if God’s good will were so.

For what is in this world but grief and woe?

O God! methinks it were a happy life

To be no better than a homely swain,

To sit upon a hill as I do now,

To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,

Thereby to see the minutes how they run:

How many make the hour full complete,

How many hours bring about the day,

How many days will finish up the year,

How many years a mortal man may live.

When this is known, then to divide the times;

So many hours must I tend my flock,

So many hours must I take my rest,

So many hours must I contemplate,

So many hours must I sport myself;

So many days my ewes have been with young,

So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean,

So many months ere I shall shear the fleece:

So many minutes, hours, weeks, months, and years

Past over, to the end they were created,

Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.

Ah! what a life were this! how sweet, how lovely!

Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade

To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,

Than doth a rich embroidered canopy

To kings that fear their subjects’ treachery?

O yes it doth, a thousand fold it doth.

And to conclude, the shepherds’ homely curds,

His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,

His wonted sleep under a fresh tree’s shade,

All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,

Is far beyond a prince’s delicates,

His viands sparkling in a golden cup,

His body couched in a curious bed,

When 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 ofRichard II.his despair lends him courage: he beats the keeper, slays two of his assassins, and dies with imprecations in his mouth against Sir Pierce Exton, who ‘had staggered his royalperson.’ 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.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. Shakespear 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 cotemporaries, 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: but we cannot imagine any character represented with greater distinctness and precision, more perfectlyarticulatedin 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 general character by the variety of his resources. To be complete, his delineation of it should have more solidity, depth, sustained and impassioned feeling, with somewhat less brilliancy, with fewer glancing lights, pointed transitions, and pantomimic evolutions.

The Richard of Shakespear 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 talents and his crimes; a royal usurper, a princely hypocrite, a tyrant, and a murderer of the house of Plantagenet.

‘But I was born so high:Our aery buildeth in the cedar’s top,And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.’

‘But I was born so high:

Our aery buildeth in the cedar’s top,

And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.’

The idea conveyed in these lines (which are indeed omitted in the miserable medley acted forRichard III.) is never lost sight of by Shakespear, and should not be out of the actor’s mind for a moment.The restless and sanguinary Richard is not a man striving to be great, but to be greater than he is; conscious of his strength of will, his power of intellect, his daring courage, his elevated station; and making use of these advantages to commit unheard-of crimes, and to shield himself from remorse and infamy.

If Mr. Kean does not entirely succeed in concentrating all the lines of the character, as drawn by Shakespear, he gives an animation, vigour, and relief to the part which we have not seen equalled. He is more refined than Cooke; more bold, varied, and original than Kemble in the same character. In some parts he is deficient in dignity, and particularly in the scenes of state business, he has by no means an air of artificial authority. There is at times an aspiring elevation, an enthusiastic rapture in his expectations of attaining the crown, and at others a gloating expression of sullen delight, as if he already clenched the bauble, and held it in his grasp. The courtship scene with Lady Anne is an admirable exhibition of smooth and smiling villainy. The progress of wily adulation, of encroaching humility, is finely marked by his action, voice and eye. He seems, like the first Tempter, to approach his prey, secure of the event, and as if success had smoothed his way before him. The late Mr. Cooke’s manner of representing this scene was more vehement, hurried, and full of anxious uncertainty. This, though more natural in general, was less in character in this particular instance. Richard should woo less as a lover than as an actor—to shew his mental superiority, and power of making others the playthings of his purposes. Mr. Kean’s attitude in leaning against the side of the stage before he comes forward to address Lady Anne, is one of the most graceful and striking ever witnessed on the stage. It would do for Titian to paint. The frequent and rapid transition of his voice from the expression of the fiercest passion to the most familiar tones of conversation was that which gave a peculiar grace of novelty to his acting on his first appearance. This has been since imitated and caricatured by others, and he himself uses the artifice more sparingly than he did. His bye-play is excellent. His manner of bidding his friends ‘Good night,’ after pausing with the point of his sword, drawn slowly backward and forward on the ground, as if considering the plan of the battle next day, is a particularly happy and natural thought. He gives to the two last acts of the play the greatest animation and effect. He fills every part of the stage; and makes up for the deficiency of his person by what has been sometimes objected to as an excess of action. The concluding scene in which he is killed by Richmond is the most brilliant of the whole. He fights at last like one drunk with wounds; and the attitude in which he stands with his hands stretched out, afterhis sword is wrested from him, has a preternatural and terrific grandeur, as if his will could not be disarmed, and the very phantoms of his despair had power to kill.—Mr. Kean has since in a great measure effaced the impression of his RichardIII.by the superior efforts of his genius in Othello (his master-piece), in the murder-scene in Macbeth, in RichardII., in Sir Giles Overreach, and lastly in Oroonoko; but we still like to look back to his first performance of this part, both because it first assured his admirers of his future success, and because we bore our feeble but, at that time, not useless testimony to the merits of this very original actor, on which the town was considerably divided for no other reason than because theywereoriginal.

The manner in which Shakespear’s plays have been generally altered or rather mangled by modern mechanists, is a disgrace to the English stage. The patch-workRichard III.which is acted under the sanction of his name, and which was manufactured by Cibber, is a striking example of this remark.

The play itself is undoubtedly a very powerful effusion of Shakespear’s genius. The ground-work of the character of Richard, that mixture of intellectual vigour with moral depravity, in which Shakespear delighted to shew his strength—gave full scope as well as temptation to the exercise of his imagination. The character of his hero is almost every where predominant, and marks its lurid track throughout. The original play is however too long for representation, and there are some few scenes which might be better spared than preserved, and by omitting which it would remain a complete whole. The only rule, indeed, for altering Shakespear is to retrench certain passages which may be considered either as superfluous or obsolete, but not to add or transpose any thing. The arrangement and developement of the story, and the mutual contrast and combination of thedramatis personæ, are in general as finely managed as the developement of the characters or the expression of the passions.

This rule has not been adhered to in the present instance. Some of the most important and striking passages in the principal character have been omitted, to make room for idle and misplaced extracts from other plays; the only intention of which seems to have been to make the character of Richard as odious and disgusting as possible. It is apparently for no other purpose than to make Gloucester stab King Henry on the stage, that the fine abrupt introduction of the character in the opening of the play is lost in the tedious whining morality of the uxorious king (taken from another play);—we saytedious, because it interrupts the business of the scene, and loses its beauty and effect by having no intelligible connection with the previouscharacter of the mild, well-meaning monarch. The passages which the unfortunate Henry has to recite are beautiful and pathetic in themselves, but they have nothing to do with the world that Richard has to ‘bustle in.’ In the same spirit of vulgar caricature is the scene between Richard and Lady Anne (when his wife) interpolated without any authority, merely to gratify this favourite propensity to disgust and loathing. With the same perverse consistency, Richard, after his last fatal struggle, is raised up by some Galvanic process, to utter the imprecation, without any motive but pure malignity, which Shakespear has so properly put into the mouth of Northumberland on hearing of Percy’s death. To make room for these worse than needless additions, many of the most striking passages in the real play have been omitted by the foppery and ignorance of the prompt-book critics. We do not mean to insist merely on passages which are fine as poetry and to the reader, such as Clarence’s dream, etc. but on those which are important to the understanding of the character, and peculiarly adapted for stage-effect. We will give the following as instances among several others. The first is the scene where Richard enters abruptly to the queen and her friends to defend himself:—

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