RICHARD II.

‘Cordelia.How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty!Lear.You do me wrong, to take me out o’ the grave:Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am boundUpon a wheel of fire, that mine own tearsDo scald like molten lead.Cordelia.Sir, do you know me?Lear.You are a spirit I know: when did you die?Cordelia.Still, still, far wide!Physician.He’s scarce awake; let him alone awhile.Lear.Where have I been? Where am I?—Fair daylight?——I am mightily abus’d.—I should even die with pity,To see another thus.—I know not what to say.——I will not swear these are my hands:—let’s see;I feel this pin prick. ‘Would I were assuredOf my condition.Cordelia.O, look upon me, sir,And hold your hands in benediction o’er me:——No, sir, you must not kneel.Lear.Pray, do not mock me:I am a very foolish fond old man,Fourscore and upward;And, to deal plainly,I fear, I am not in my perfect mind.Methinks, I shou’d know you, and know this man;Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorantWhat place this is; and all the skill I haveRemembers not these garments; nor I know notWhere I did lodge last night: do not laugh at me;For, as I am a man, I think this ladyTo be my child Cordelia.Cordelia.And so I am, I am!’

‘Cordelia.How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty!

Lear.You do me wrong, to take me out o’ the grave:Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am boundUpon a wheel of fire, that mine own tearsDo scald like molten lead.

Lear.You do me wrong, to take me out o’ the grave:

Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound

Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears

Do scald like molten lead.

Cordelia.Sir, do you know me?

Lear.You are a spirit I know: when did you die?

Cordelia.Still, still, far wide!

Physician.He’s scarce awake; let him alone awhile.

Lear.Where have I been? Where am I?—Fair daylight?——I am mightily abus’d.—I should even die with pity,To see another thus.—I know not what to say.——I will not swear these are my hands:—let’s see;I feel this pin prick. ‘Would I were assuredOf my condition.

Lear.Where have I been? Where am I?—Fair daylight?——

I am mightily abus’d.—I should even die with pity,

To see another thus.—I know not what to say.——

I will not swear these are my hands:—let’s see;

I feel this pin prick. ‘Would I were assured

Of my condition.

Cordelia.O, look upon me, sir,And hold your hands in benediction o’er me:——No, sir, you must not kneel.

Cordelia.O, look upon me, sir,

And hold your hands in benediction o’er me:——

No, sir, you must not kneel.

Lear.Pray, do not mock me:I am a very foolish fond old man,Fourscore and upward;And, to deal plainly,I fear, I am not in my perfect mind.Methinks, I shou’d know you, and know this man;Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorantWhat place this is; and all the skill I haveRemembers not these garments; nor I know notWhere I did lodge last night: do not laugh at me;For, as I am a man, I think this ladyTo be my child Cordelia.

Lear.Pray, do not mock me:

I am a very foolish fond old man,

Fourscore and upward;

And, to deal plainly,

I fear, I am not in my perfect mind.

Methinks, I shou’d know you, and know this man;

Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorant

What place this is; and all the skill I have

Remembers not these garments; nor I know not

Where I did lodge last night: do not laugh at me;

For, as I am a man, I think this lady

To be my child Cordelia.

Cordelia.And so I am, I am!’

Almost equal to this in awful beauty is their consolation of each other when, after the triumph of their enemies, they are led to prison.

‘Cordelia.We are not the first,Who, with best meaning, have incurr’d the worst.For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down;Myself could else out-frown false fortune’s frown.—Shall we not see these daughters, and these sisters?Lear.No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison:We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage:When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down,And ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live,And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laughAt gilded butterflies, and hear poor roguesTalk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too—Who loses, and who wins; who’s in, who’s out;—And take upon us the mystery of things,As if we were God’s spies: and we’ll wear out,In a wall’d prison, packs and sects of great ones,That ebb and flow by the moon.Edmund.Take them away.Lear.Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,The gods themselves throw incense.’

‘Cordelia.We are not the first,

Who, with best meaning, have incurr’d the worst.

For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down;

Myself could else out-frown false fortune’s frown.—

Shall we not see these daughters, and these sisters?

Lear.No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison:We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage:When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down,And ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live,And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laughAt gilded butterflies, and hear poor roguesTalk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too—Who loses, and who wins; who’s in, who’s out;—And take upon us the mystery of things,As if we were God’s spies: and we’ll wear out,In a wall’d prison, packs and sects of great ones,That ebb and flow by the moon.

Lear.No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison:

We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage:

When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down,

And ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live,

And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh

At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues

Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too—

Who loses, and who wins; who’s in, who’s out;—

And take upon us the mystery of things,

As if we were God’s spies: and we’ll wear out,

In a wall’d prison, packs and sects of great ones,

That ebb and flow by the moon.

Edmund.Take them away.

Lear.Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,The gods themselves throw incense.’

Lear.Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,

The gods themselves throw incense.’

The concluding events are sad, painfully sad; but their pathos is extreme. The oppression of the feelings is relieved by the very interest we take in the misfortunes of others, and by the reflections to which they give birth. Cordelia is hanged in prison by the orders of the bastard Edmund, which are known too late to be countermanded, and Lear dies broken-hearted, lamenting over her.

‘Lear.And my poor fool is hang’d! No, no, no life:Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,And thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no more,Never, never, never, never, never!——Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.’

‘Lear.And my poor fool is hang’d! No, no, no life:

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

And thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no more,

Never, never, never, never, never!——

Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.’

He dies, and indeed we feel the truth of what Kent says on the occasion—

‘Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him,That would upon the rack of this rough worldStretch him out longer.’

‘Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him,

That would upon the rack of this rough world

Stretch him out longer.’

Yet a happy ending has been contrived for this play, which is approved of by Dr. Johnson and condemned by Schlegel. A better authority than either, on any subject in which poetry and feeling are concerned, has given it in favour of Shakespear, in some remarks on the acting of Lear, with which we shall conclude this account:

‘TheLearof Shakespear cannot be acted. The contemptible machinery with which they mimic the storm which he goes out in, is not more inadequate to represent the horrors of the real elements than any actor canbe to represent Lear. The greatness of Lear is not in corporal dimension, but in intellectual; the explosions of his passions are terrible as a volcano: they are storms turning up and disclosing to the bottom that rich sea, his mind, with all its vast riches. It is his mind which is laid bare. This case of flesh and blood seems too insignificant to be thought on; even as he himself neglects it. On the stage we see nothing but corporal infirmities and weakness, the impotence of rage—while we read it, we see not Lear, but we are Lear;—we are in his mind; we are sustained by a grandeur, which baffles the malice of daughters and storms; in the aberrations of his reason, we discover a mighty irregular power of reasoning, immethodised from the ordinary purposes of life, but exerting its powers, as the wind blows where it listeth, at will on the corruptions and abuses of mankind. What have looks or tones to do with that sublime identification of his age with that ofthe heavens themselves, when in his reproaches to them for conniving at the injustice of his children, he reminds them that “they themselves are old!” What gesture shall we appropriate to this? What has the voice or the eye to do with such things? But the play is beyond all art, as the tamperings with it shew: it is too hard and stony: it must have love-scenes, and a happy ending. It is not enough that Cordelia is a daughter, she must shine as a lover too. Tate has put his hook in the nostrils of this Leviathan, for Garrick and his followers, the shew-men of the scene, to draw it about more easily. A happy ending!—as if the living martyrdom that Lear had gone through,—the flaying of his feelings alive, did not make a fair dismissal from the stage of life the only decorous thing for him. If he is to live and be happy after, if he could sustain this world’s burden after, why all this pudder and preparation—why torment us with all this unnecessary sympathy? As if the childish pleasure of getting his gilt robes and sceptre again could tempt him to act over again his misused station,—as if at his years and with his experience, any thing was left but to die.’[68]

Four things have struck us in readingLear:

1. That poetry is an interesting study, for this reason, that it relates to whatever is most interesting in human life. Whoever therefore has a contempt for poetry, has a contempt for himself and humanity.

2. That the language of poetry is superior to the language of painting; because the strongest of our recollections relate to feelings, not to faces.

3. That the greatest strength of genius is shewn in describing the strongest passions: for the power of the imagination, in works of invention, must be in proportion to the force of the natural impressions, which are the subject of them.

4. That the circumstance which balances the pleasure against thepain in tragedy is, that in proportion to the greatness of the evil, is our sense and desire of the opposite good excited; and that our sympathy with actual suffering is lost in the strong impulse given to our natural affections, and carried away with the swelling tide of passion, that gushes from and relieves the heart.

Richard II.is a play little known compared withRichard III.which last is a play that every unfledged candidate for theatrical fame chuses to strut and fret his hour upon the stage in; yet we confess that we prefer the nature and feeling of the one to the noise and bustle of the other; at least, as we are so often forced to see it acted. InRichard II.the weakness of the king leaves us leisure to take a greater interest in the misfortunes of the man. After the first act, in which the arbitrariness of his behaviour only proves his want of resolution, we see him staggering under the unlooked-for blows of fortune, bewailing his loss of kingly power, not preventing it, sinking under the aspiring genius of Bolingbroke, his authority trampled on, his hopes failing him, and his pride crushed and broken down under insults and injuries, which his own misconduct had provoked, but which he has not courage or manliness to resent. The change of tone and behaviour in the two competitors for the throne according to their change of fortune, from the capricious sentence of banishment passed by Richard upon Bolingbroke, the suppliant offers and modest pretensions of the latter on his return to the high and haughty tone with which he accepts Richard’s resignation of the crown after the loss of all his power, the use which he makes of the deposed king to grace his triumphal progress through the streets of London, and the final intimation of his wish for his death, which immediately finds a servile executioner, is marked throughout with complete effect and without the slightest appearance of effort. The steps by which Bolingbroke mounts the throne are those by which Richard sinks into the grave. We feel neither respect nor love for the deposed monarch; for he is as wanting in energy as in principle: but we pity him, for he pities himself. His heart is by no means hardened against himself, but bleeds afresh at every new stroke of mischance, and his sensibility, absorbed in his own person, and unused to misfortune, is not only tenderly alive to its own sufferings, but without the fortitude to bear them. He is, however, human in his distresses; for to feel pain, and sorrow, weakness, disappointment, remorse andanguish, is the lot of humanity, and we sympathize with him accordingly. The sufferings of the man make us forget that he ever was a king.

The right assumed by sovereign power to trifle at its will with the happiness of others as a matter of course, or to remit its exercise as a matter of favour, is strikingly shewn in the sentence of banishment so unjustly pronounced on Bolingbroke and Mowbray, and in what Bolingbroke says when four years of his banishment are taken off, with as little reason.

‘How long a time lies in one little word!Four lagging winters and four wanton springsEnd in a word: such is the breath of kings.’

‘How long a time lies in one little word!

Four lagging winters and four wanton springs

End in a word: such is the breath of kings.’

A more affecting image of the loneliness of a state of exile can hardly be given than by what Bolingbroke afterwards observes of his having ‘sighed his English breath in foreign clouds’; or than that conveyed in Mowbray’s complaint at being banished for life.

‘The language I have learned these forty years,My native English, now I must forego;And now my tongue’s use is to me no moreThan an unstringed viol or a harp,Or like a cunning instrument cas’d up,Or being open, put into his handsThat knows no touch to tune the harmony.I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,Too far in years to be a pupil now.’—

‘The language I have learned these forty years,

My native English, now I must forego;

And now my tongue’s use is to me no more

Than an unstringed viol or a harp,

Or like a cunning instrument cas’d up,

Or being open, put into his hands

That knows no touch to tune the harmony.

I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,

Too far in years to be a pupil now.’—

How very beautiful is all this, and at the same time how veryEnglishtoo!

Richard II.may be considered as the first of that series of English historical plays, in which ‘is hung armour of the invincible knights of old,’ in which their hearts seem to strike against their coats of mail, where their blood tingles for the fight, and words are but the harbingers of blows. Of this state of accomplished barbarism the appeal of Bolingbroke and Mowbray is an admirable specimen. Another of these ‘keen encounters of their wits,’ which serve to whet the talkers’ swords, is where Aumerle answers in the presence of Bolingbroke to the charge which Bagot brings against him of being an accessory in Gloster’s death.

‘Fitzwater.If that thy valour stand on sympathies,There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine;By that fair sun that shows me where thou stand’st,I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak’st it,That thou wert cause of noble Gloster’s death.If thou deny’st it twenty times thou liest,And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heartWhere it was forged, with my rapier’s point.Aumerle.Thou dar’st not, coward, live to see the day.Fitzwater.Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.Aumerle.Fitzwater, thou art damn’d to hell for this.Percy.Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true,In this appeal, as thou art all unjust;And that thou art so, there I throw my gageTo prove it on thee, to the extremest pointOf mortal breathing. Seize it, if thou dar’st.Aumerle.And if I do not, may my hands rot off,And never brandish more revengeful steelOver the glittering helmet of my foe.Who sets me else? By heav’n, I’ll throw at all.I have a thousand spirits in my breast,To answer twenty thousand such as you.Surry.My lord Fitzwater, I remember wellThe very time Aumerle and you did talk.Fitzwater.My lord, ’tis true: you were in presence then:And you can witness with me, this is true.Surry.As false, by heav’n, as heav’n itself is true.Fitzwater.Surry, thou liest.Surry.Dishonourable boy,That lie shall lye so heavy on my sword,That it shall render vengeance and revenge,Till thou the lie-giver and that lie restIn earth as quiet as thy father’s skull.In proof whereof, there is mine honour’s pawn:Engage it to the trial, if thou dar’st.Fitzwater.How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse:If I dare eat or drink, or breathe or live,I dare meet Surry in a wilderness,And spit upon him, whilst I say he lies,And lies, and lies: there is my bond of faith,To tie thee to thy strong correction.As I do hope to thrive in this new world,Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal.’

‘Fitzwater.If that thy valour stand on sympathies,

There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine;

By that fair sun that shows me where thou stand’st,

I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak’st it,

That thou wert cause of noble Gloster’s death.

If thou deny’st it twenty times thou liest,

And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart

Where it was forged, with my rapier’s point.

Aumerle.Thou dar’st not, coward, live to see the day.

Fitzwater.Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.

Aumerle.Fitzwater, thou art damn’d to hell for this.

Percy.Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true,In this appeal, as thou art all unjust;And that thou art so, there I throw my gageTo prove it on thee, to the extremest pointOf mortal breathing. Seize it, if thou dar’st.

Percy.Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true,

In this appeal, as thou art all unjust;

And that thou art so, there I throw my gage

To prove it on thee, to the extremest point

Of mortal breathing. Seize it, if thou dar’st.

Aumerle.And if I do not, may my hands rot off,And never brandish more revengeful steelOver the glittering helmet of my foe.Who sets me else? By heav’n, I’ll throw at all.I have a thousand spirits in my breast,To answer twenty thousand such as you.

Aumerle.And if I do not, may my hands rot off,

And never brandish more revengeful steel

Over the glittering helmet of my foe.

Who sets me else? By heav’n, I’ll throw at all.

I have a thousand spirits in my breast,

To answer twenty thousand such as you.

Surry.My lord Fitzwater, I remember wellThe very time Aumerle and you did talk.

Surry.My lord Fitzwater, I remember well

The very time Aumerle and you did talk.

Fitzwater.My lord, ’tis true: you were in presence then:And you can witness with me, this is true.

Fitzwater.My lord, ’tis true: you were in presence then:

And you can witness with me, this is true.

Surry.As false, by heav’n, as heav’n itself is true.

Fitzwater.Surry, thou liest.

Surry.Dishonourable boy,That lie shall lye so heavy on my sword,That it shall render vengeance and revenge,Till thou the lie-giver and that lie restIn earth as quiet as thy father’s skull.In proof whereof, there is mine honour’s pawn:Engage it to the trial, if thou dar’st.

Surry.Dishonourable boy,

That lie shall lye so heavy on my sword,

That it shall render vengeance and revenge,

Till thou the lie-giver and that lie rest

In earth as quiet as thy father’s skull.

In proof whereof, there is mine honour’s pawn:

Engage it to the trial, if thou dar’st.

Fitzwater.How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse:If I dare eat or drink, or breathe or live,I dare meet Surry in a wilderness,And spit upon him, whilst I say he lies,And lies, and lies: there is my bond of faith,To tie thee to thy strong correction.As I do hope to thrive in this new world,Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal.’

Fitzwater.How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse:

If I dare eat or drink, or breathe or live,

I dare meet Surry in a wilderness,

And spit upon him, whilst I say he lies,

And lies, and lies: there is my bond of faith,

To tie thee to thy strong correction.

As I do hope to thrive in this new world,

Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal.’

The truth is, that there is neither truth nor honour in all these noble persons: they answer words with words, as they do blows with blows, in mere self defence: nor have they any principle whatever but that of courage in maintaining any wrong they dare commit, or any falsehood which they find it useful to assert. How different were these noble knights and ‘barons bold’ from their more refined descendants in the present day, who, instead of deciding questions of right by brute force, refer everything to convenience,fashion, and good breeding! In point of any abstract love of truth or justice, they are just the same now that they were then.

The characters of old John of Gaunt and of his brother York, uncles to the King, the one stern and foreboding, the other honest, good-natured, doing all for the best, and therefore doing nothing, are well kept up. The speech of the former, in praise of England, is one of the most eloquent that ever was penned. We should perhaps hardly be disposed to feed the pampered egotism of our countrymen by quoting this description, were it not that the conclusion of it (which looks prophetic) may qualify any improper degree of exultation.

‘This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,This earth of Majesty, this seat of Mars,This other Eden, demi-Paradise,This fortress built by nature for herselfAgainst infection and the hand of war;This happy breed of men, this little world,This precious stone set in the silver sea,Which serves it in the office of a wall,Or as a moat defensive to a houseAgainst the envy of less happy lands:This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,Fear’d for their breed and famous for their birth,Renowned for their deeds as far from home,(For Christian service and true chivalry)As is the sepulchre in stubborn JewryOf the world’s ransom, blessed Mary’s son;This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,Dear for her reputation through the world,Is now leas’d out (I die pronouncing it)Like to a tenement or pelting farm.England bound in with the triumphant sea,Whose rocky shore beats back the envious surgeOf wat’ry Neptune, is bound in with shame,With inky-blots and rotten parchment bonds.That England that was wont to conquer others,Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.’

‘This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,

This earth of Majesty, this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-Paradise,

This fortress built by nature for herself

Against infection and the hand of war;

This happy breed of men, this little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea,

Which serves it in the office of a wall,

Or as a moat defensive to a house

Against the envy of less happy lands:

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,

This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,

Fear’d for their breed and famous for their birth,

Renowned for their deeds as far from home,

(For Christian service and true chivalry)

As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry

Of the world’s ransom, blessed Mary’s son;

This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,

Dear for her reputation through the world,

Is now leas’d out (I die pronouncing it)

Like to a tenement or pelting farm.

England bound in with the triumphant sea,

Whose rocky shore beats back the envious surge

Of wat’ry Neptune, is bound in with shame,

With inky-blots and rotten parchment bonds.

That England that was wont to conquer others,

Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.’

The character of Bolingbroke, afterwards HenryIV.is drawn with a masterly hand:—patient for occasion, and then steadily availing himself of it, seeing his advantage afar off, but only seizing on it when he has it within his reach, humble, crafty, bold, and aspiring, encroaching by regular but slow degrees, building power on opinion, and cementing opinion by power. His disposition is first unfoldedby Richard himself, who however is too self-willed and secure to make a proper use of his knowledge.

‘Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green,Observed his courtship of the common people:How he did seem to dive into their hearts,With humble and familiar courtesy,What reverence he did throw away on slaves;Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles,And patient under-bearing of his fortune,As ‘twere to banish their affections with him.Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;A brace of draymen bid God speed him well,And had the tribute of his supple knee,With thanks my countrymen, my loving friends;As were our England in reversion his,And he our subjects’ next degree in hope.’

‘Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green,

Observed his courtship of the common people:

How he did seem to dive into their hearts,

With humble and familiar courtesy,

What reverence he did throw away on slaves;

Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles,

And patient under-bearing of his fortune,

As ‘twere to banish their affections with him.

Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;

A brace of draymen bid God speed him well,

And had the tribute of his supple knee,

With thanks my countrymen, my loving friends;

As were our England in reversion his,

And he our subjects’ next degree in hope.’

Afterwards, he gives his own character to Percy, in these words:

‘I thank thee, gentle Percy, and be sureI count myself in nothing else so happy,As in a soul rememb’ring my good friends;And as my fortune ripens with thy love,It shall be still thy true love’s recompense.’

‘I thank thee, gentle Percy, and be sure

I count myself in nothing else so happy,

As in a soul rememb’ring my good friends;

And as my fortune ripens with thy love,

It shall be still thy true love’s recompense.’

We know how he afterwards kept his promise. His bold assertion of his own rights, his pretended submission to the king, and the ascendancy which he tacitly assumes over him without openly claiming it, as soon as he has him in his power, are characteristic traits of this ambitious and politic usurper. But the part of Richard himself gives the chief interest to the play. His folly, his vices, his misfortunes, his reluctance to part with the crown, his fear to keep it, his weak and womanish regrets, his starting tears, his fits of hectic passion, his smothered majesty, pass in succession before us, and make a picture as natural as it is affecting. Among the most striking touches of pathos are his wish ‘O that I were a mockery king of snow to melt away before the sun of Bolingbroke,’ and the incident of the poor groom who comes to visit him in prison, and tells him how ‘it yearned his heart that Bolingbroke upon his coronation-day rode on Roan Barbary.’ We shall have occasion to return hereafter to the character of RichardII.in speaking of HenryVI.There is only one passage more, the description of his entrance into London with Bolingbroke, which we should like to quote here, if it had not been so used and worn out, so thumbed and got by rote, so praised and painted; but its beauty surmounts all these considerations.

‘Duchess.My lord, you told me you would tell the rest,When weeping made you break the story offOf our two cousins coming into London.York.Where did I leave?Duchess.At that sad stop, my lord,Where rude misgovern’d hands, from window tops,Threw dust and rubbish on king Richard’s head.York.Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke,Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed,Which his aspiring rider seem’d to know,With slow, but stately pace, kept on his course,While all tongues cried—God save thee, Bolingbroke!You would have thought the very windows spake,So many greedy looks of young and oldThrough casements darted their desiring eyesUpon his visage; and that all the walls,With painted imag’ry, had said at once—Jesu preserve thee! welcome, Bolingbroke!Whilst he, from one side to the other turning,Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed’s neck,Bespake them thus—I thank you, countrymen:And thus still doing thus he pass’d along.Duchess.Alas, poor Richard! where rides he the while?York.As in a theatre, the eyes of men,After a well-grac’d actor leaves the stage,Are idly bent on him that enters next,Thinking his prattle to be tedious:Even so, or with much more contempt, men’s eyesDid scowl on Richard; no man cried God save him!No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home:But dust was thrown upon his sacred head!Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off—His face still combating with tears and smiles,The badges of his grief and patience—That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel’dThe hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,And barbarism itself have pitied him.’

‘Duchess.My lord, you told me you would tell the rest,When weeping made you break the story offOf our two cousins coming into London.

‘Duchess.My lord, you told me you would tell the rest,

When weeping made you break the story off

Of our two cousins coming into London.

York.Where did I leave?

Duchess.At that sad stop, my lord,Where rude misgovern’d hands, from window tops,Threw dust and rubbish on king Richard’s head.

Duchess.At that sad stop, my lord,

Where rude misgovern’d hands, from window tops,

Threw dust and rubbish on king Richard’s head.

York.Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke,Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed,Which his aspiring rider seem’d to know,With slow, but stately pace, kept on his course,While all tongues cried—God save thee, Bolingbroke!You would have thought the very windows spake,So many greedy looks of young and oldThrough casements darted their desiring eyesUpon his visage; and that all the walls,With painted imag’ry, had said at once—Jesu preserve thee! welcome, Bolingbroke!Whilst he, from one side to the other turning,Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed’s neck,Bespake them thus—I thank you, countrymen:And thus still doing thus he pass’d along.

York.Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke,

Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed,

Which his aspiring rider seem’d to know,

With slow, but stately pace, kept on his course,

While all tongues cried—God save thee, Bolingbroke!

You would have thought the very windows spake,

So many greedy looks of young and old

Through casements darted their desiring eyes

Upon his visage; and that all the walls,

With painted imag’ry, had said at once—

Jesu preserve thee! welcome, Bolingbroke!

Whilst he, from one side to the other turning,

Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed’s neck,

Bespake them thus—I thank you, countrymen:

And thus still doing thus he pass’d along.

Duchess.Alas, poor Richard! where rides he the while?

York.As in a theatre, the eyes of men,After a well-grac’d actor leaves the stage,Are idly bent on him that enters next,Thinking his prattle to be tedious:Even so, or with much more contempt, men’s eyesDid scowl on Richard; no man cried God save him!No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home:But dust was thrown upon his sacred head!Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off—His face still combating with tears and smiles,The badges of his grief and patience—That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel’dThe hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,And barbarism itself have pitied him.’

York.As in a theatre, the eyes of men,

After a well-grac’d actor leaves the stage,

Are idly bent on him that enters next,

Thinking his prattle to be tedious:

Even so, or with much more contempt, men’s eyes

Did scowl on Richard; no man cried God save him!

No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home:

But dust was thrown upon his sacred head!

Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off—

His face still combating with tears and smiles,

The badges of his grief and patience—

That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel’d

The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,

And barbarism itself have pitied him.’

If Shakespear’s fondness for the ludicrous sometimes led to faults in his tragedies (which was not often the case) he has made us amends by the character of Falstaff. This is perhaps the most substantial comic character that ever was invented. Sir John carries a most portly presence in the mind’s eye; and in him, not to speak itprofanely, ‘we behold the fulness of the spirit of wit and humour bodily.’ We are as well acquainted with his person as his mind, and his jokes come upon us with double force and relish from the quantity of flesh through which they make their way, as he shakes his fat sides with laughter, or ‘lards the lean earth as he walks along.’ Other comic characters seem, if we approach and handle them, to resolve themselves into air, ‘into thin air’; but this is embodied and palpable to the grossest apprehension: it lies ‘three fingers deep upon the ribs,’ it plays about the lungs and the diaphragm with all the force of animal enjoyment. His body is like a good estate to his mind, from which he receives rents and revenues of profit and pleasure in kind, according to its extent, and the richness of the soil. Wit is often a meagre substitute for pleasurable sensation; an effusion of spleen and petty spite at the comforts of others, from feeling none in itself. Falstaff’s wit is an emanation of a fine constitution; an exuberance of good-humour and good-nature; an overflowing of his love of laughter and good-fellowship; a giving vent to his heart’s ease, and over-contentment with himself and others. He would not be in character, if he were not so fat as he is; for there is the greatest keeping in the boundless luxury of his imagination and the pampered self-indulgence of his physical appetites. He manures and nourishes his mind with jests, as he does his body with sack and sugar. He carves out his jokes, as he would a capon or a haunch of venison, where there iscut and come again; and pours out upon them the oil of gladness. His tongue drops fatness, and in the chambers of his brain ‘it snows of meat and drink.’ He keeps up perpetual holiday and open house, and we live with him in a round of invitations to a rump and dozen.—Yet we are not to suppose that he was a mere sensualist. All this is as much in imagination as in reality. His sensuality does not engross and stupify his other faculties, but ‘ascends me into the brain, clears away all the dull, crude vapours that environ it, and makes it full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes.’ His imagination keeps up the ball after his senses have done with it. He seems to have even a greater enjoyment of the freedom from restraint, of good cheer, of his ease, of his vanity, in the ideal exaggerated description which he gives of them, than in fact. He never fails to enrich his discourse with allusions to eating and drinking, but we never see him at table. He carries his own larder about with him, and he is himself ‘a tun of man.’ His pulling out the bottle in the field of battle is a joke to shew his contempt for glory accompanied with danger, his systematic adherence to his Epicurean philosophy in the most trying circumstances. Again, such is his deliberate exaggeration of his own vices, that itdoes not seem quite certain whether the account of his hostess’s bill, found in his pocket, with such an out-of-the-way charge for capons and sack with only one halfpenny-worth of bread, was not put there by himself as a trick to humour the jest upon his favourite propensities, and as a conscious caricature of himself. He is represented as a liar, a braggart, a coward, a glutton, etc. and yet we are not offended but delighted with him; for he is all these as much to amuse others as to gratify himself. He openly assumes all these characters to shew the humourous part of them. The unrestrained indulgence of his own ease, appetites, and convenience, has neither malice nor hypocrisy in it. In a word, he is an actor in himself almost as much as upon the stage, and we no more object to the character of Falstaff in a moral point of view than we should think of bringing an excellent comedian, who should represent him to the life, before one of the police offices. We only consider the number of pleasant lights in which he puts certain foibles (the more pleasant as they are opposed to the received rules and necessary restraints of society) and do not trouble ourselves about the consequences resulting from them, for no mischievous consequences do result. Sir John is old as well as fat, which gives a melancholy retrospective tinge to the character; and by the disparity between his inclinations and his capacity for enjoyment, makes it still more ludicrous and fantastical.

The secret of Falstaff’s wit is for the most part a masterly presence of mind, an absolute self-possession, which nothing can disturb. His repartees are involuntary suggestions of his self-love; instinctive evasions of every thing that threatens to interrupt the career of his triumphant jollity and self-complacency. His very size floats him out of all his difficulties in a sea of rich conceits; and he turns round on the pivot of his convenience, with every occasion and at a moment’s warning. His natural repugnance to every unpleasant thought or circumstance, of itself makes light of objections, and provokes the most extravagant and licentious answers in his own justification. His indifference to truth puts no check upon his invention, and the more improbable and unexpected his contrivances are, the more happily does he seem to be delivered of them, the anticipation of their effect acting as a stimulus to the gaiety of his fancy. The success of one adventurous sally gives him spirits to undertake another: he deals always in round numbers, and his exaggerations and excuses are ‘open, palpable, monstrous as the father that begets them.’ His dissolute carelessness of what he says discovers itself in the first dialogue with the Prince.

‘Falstaff.By the lord, thou say’st true, lad; and is not mine hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?

P. Henry.As the honey of Hibla, my old lad of the castle; and is not a buff-jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?

Falstaff.How now, how now, mad wag, what in thy quips and thy quiddities? what a plague have I to do with a buff-jerkin?

P. Henry.Why, what a pox have I to do with mine hostess of the tavern?’

In the same scene he afterwards affects melancholy, from pure satisfaction of heart, and professes reform, because it is the farthest thing in the world from his thoughts. He has no qualms of conscience, and therefore would as soon talk of them as of anything else when the humour takes him.

‘Falstaff.But Hal, I pr’ythee trouble me no more with vanity. I would to God thou and I knew where a commodity of good names were to be bought: an old lord of council rated me the other day in the street about you, sir; but I mark’d him not, and yet he talked very wisely, and in the street too.

P. Henry.Thou didst well, for wisdom cries out in the street, and no man regards it.

Falstaff.O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed able to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm unto me, Hal; God forgive thee for it. Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing, and now I am, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give it over, by the lord; an I do not, I am a villain. I’ll be damn’d for never a king’s son in Christendom.

P. Henry.Where shall we take a purse to-morrow, Jack?

Falstaff.Where thou wilt, lad, I’ll make one; an I do not, call me villain, and baffle me.

P. Henry.I see good amendment of life in thee, from praying to purse-taking.

Falstaff.Why, Hal, ’tis my vocation, Hal. ’Tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation.’

Of the other prominent passages, his account of his pretended resistance to the robbers, ‘who grew from four men in buckram into eleven’ as the imagination of his own valour increased with his relating it, his getting off when the truth is discovered by pretending he knew the Prince, the scene in which in the person of the old king he lectures the prince and gives himself a good character, the soliloquy on honour, and description of his new-raised recruits, his meeting with the chief justice, his abuse of the Prince and Poins, who overhear him, to Doll Tearsheet, his reconciliation with Mrs. Quickly who has arrested him for an old debt, and whom he persuades to pawn her plate to lend him ten pounds more, and the scenes with Shallow and Silence, are all inimitable. Of all of them, the scene in whichFalstaff plays the part, first, of the King, and then of Prince Henry, is the one that has been the most often quoted. We must quote it once more in illustration of our remarks.

‘Falstaff.Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also how thou art accompanied: for though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears. That thou art my son, I have partly thy mother’s word, partly my own opinion; but chiefly, a villainous trick of thine eye, and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip, that doth warrant me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point;——Why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher, and eat blackberries? A question not to be ask’d. Shall the son of England prove a thief, and take purses? a question not to be ask’d. There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch: this pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile; so doth the company thou keepest: for, Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion; not in words only, but in woes also:—and yet there is a virtuous man, whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name.

P. Henry.What manner of man, an it like your majesty?

Falstaff.A goodly portly man, i’faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, by’r-lady, inclining to threescore; and now I do remember me, his name is Falstaff: if that man should be lewdly given, he deceiveth me; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks. If then the fruit may be known by the tree, as the tree by the fruit, then peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff: him keep with, the rest banish. And tell me now, thou naughty varlet, tell me, where hast thou been this month?

P. Henry.Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and I’ll play my father.

Falstaff.Depose me? if thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbit-sucker, or a poulterer’s hare.

P. Henry.Well, here I am set.

Falstaff.And here I stand:—judge, my masters.

P. Henry.Now, Harry, whence come you?

Falstaff.My noble lord, from Eastcheap.

P. Henry.The complaints I hear of thee are grievous.

Falstaff.S’blood, my lord, they are false:—nay, I ‘ll tickle ye for a young prince, i’faith.

P. Henry.Swearest thou, ungracious boy? henceforth ne’er look on me. Thou art violently carried away from grace: there is a devil haunts thee, in the likeness of a fat old man; a tun of man is thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swoln parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuft cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manning-tree ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend vice, that grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years? wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it? wherein neatand cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? wherein cunning, but in craft? wherein crafty, but in villainy? wherein villainous, but in all things? wherein worthy, but in nothing?

Falstaff.I would, your grace would take me with you; whom means your grace?

P. Henry.That villainous, abominable mis-leader of youth, Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan.

Falstaff.My lord, the man I know.

P. Henry.I know thou dost.

Falstaff.But to say, I know more harm in him than in myself, were to say more than I know. That he is old (the more the pity) his white hairs do witness it: but that he is (saving your reverence) a whore-master, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked! if to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned: if to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh’s lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord; banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins: but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry’s company; banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.

P. Henry.I do, I will.

[Knocking; and Hostess and Bardolph go out.

Re-enterBardolph,running.

Bardolph.O, my lord, my lord; the sheriff, with a most monstrous watch, is at the door.

Falstaff.Out, you rogue! play out the play: I have much to say in the behalf of that Falstaff.’

One of the most characteristic descriptions of Sir John is that which Mrs. Quickly gives of him when he asks her ‘What is the gross sum that I owe thee?’

‘Hostess.Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself, and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire on Wednesday in Whitsun-week, when the prince broke thy head for likening his father to a singing man of Windsor; thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher’s wife, come in then, and call me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar; telling us, she had a good dish of prawns; whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I told thee, they were ill for a green wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with such poor people; saying, that ere long they should call me madam? And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath; deny it, if thou canst.’

This scene is to us the most convincing proof of Falstaff’s power of gaining over the good will of those he was familiar with, except indeedBardolph’s somewhat profane exclamation on hearing the account of his death, ‘Would I were with him, wheresoe’er he is, whether in heaven or hell.’

One of the topics of exulting superiority over others most common in Sir John’s mouth is his corpulence and the exterior marks of good living which he carries about him, thus ‘turning his vices into commodity.’ He accounts for the friendship between the Prince and Poins, from ‘their legs being both of a bigness’; and compares Justice Shallow to ‘a man made after supper of a cheese-paring.’ There cannot be a more striking gradation of character than that between Falstaff and Shallow, and Shallow and Silence. It seems difficult at first to fall lower than the squire; but this fool, great as he is, finds an admirer and humble foil in his cousin Silence. Vain of his acquaintance with Sir John, who makes a butt of him, he exclaims, ‘Would, cousin Silence, that thou had’st seen that which this knight and I have seen!’—‘Aye, Master Shallow, we have heard the chimes at midnight,’ says Sir John. To Falstaff’s observation ‘I did not think Master Silence had been a man of this mettle,’ Silence answers, ‘Who, I? I have been merry twice and once ere now.’ What an idea is here conveyed of a prodigality of living? What good husbandry and economical self-denial in his pleasures? What a stock of lively recollections? It is curious that Shakespear has ridiculed in Justice Shallow, who was ‘in some authority under the king,’ that disposition to unmeaning tautology which is the regal infirmity of later times, and which, it may be supposed, he acquired from talking to his cousin Silence, and receiving no answers.

‘Falstaff.You have here a goodly dwelling, and a rich.

Shallow.Barren, barren, barren; beggars all, beggars all, Sir John: marry, good air. Spread Davy, spread Davy. Well said, Davy.

Falstaff.This Davy serves you for good uses.

Shallow.A good varlet, a good varlet, a very good varlet. By the mass, I have drank too much sack at supper. A good varlet. Now sit down, now sit down. Come, cousin.’

The true spirit of humanity, the thorough knowledge of the stuff we are made of, the practical wisdom with the seeming fooleries in the whole of the garden-scene at Shallow’s country-seat, and just before in the exquisite dialogue between him and Silence on the death of old Double, have no parallel any where else. In one point of view, they are laughable in the extreme; in another they are equally affecting, if it is affecting to shewwhat a little thing is human life, what a poor forked creature man is!

The heroic and serious part of these two plays founded on the storyof HenryIV.is not inferior to the comic and farcical. The characters of Hotspur and Prince Henry are two of the most beautiful and dramatic, both in themselves and from contrast, that ever were drawn. They are the essence of chivalry. We like Hotspur the best upon the whole, perhaps because he was unfortunate.—The characters of their fathers, HenryIV.and old Northumberland, are kept up equally well. Henry naturally succeeds by his prudence and caution in keeping what he has got; Northumberland fails in his enterprise from an excess of the same quality, and is caught in the web of his own cold, dilatory policy. Owen Glendower is a masterly character. It as bold and original as it is intelligible and thoroughly natural. The disputes between him and Hotspur are managed with infinite address and insight into nature. We cannot help pointing out here some very beautiful lines, where Hotspur describes the fight between Glendower and Mortimer.

——‘When on the gentle Severn’s sedgy bank,In single opposition hand to hand,He did confound the best part of an hourIn changing hardiment with great Glendower:Three times they breath’d, and three times did they drink,Upon agreement, of swift Severn’s flood;Who then affrighted with their bloody looks,Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank,Blood-stained with these valiant combatants.’

——‘When on the gentle Severn’s sedgy bank,

In single opposition hand to hand,

He did confound the best part of an hour

In changing hardiment with great Glendower:

Three times they breath’d, and three times did they drink,

Upon agreement, of swift Severn’s flood;

Who then affrighted with their bloody looks,

Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,

And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank,

Blood-stained with these valiant combatants.’

The peculiarity and the excellence of Shakespear’s poetry is, that it seems as if he made his imagination the hand-maid of nature, and nature the plaything of his imagination. He appears to have been all the characters, and in all the situations he describes. It is as if either he had had all their feelings, or had lent them all his genius to express themselves. There cannot be stronger instances of this than Hotspur’s rage when HenryIV.forbids him to speak of Mortimer, his insensibility to all that his father and uncle urge to calm him, and his fine abstracted apostrophe to honour, ‘By heaven methinks it were an easy leap to pluck bright honour from the moon,’ etc. After all, notwithstanding the gallantry, generosity, good temper, and idle freaks of the mad-cap Prince of Wales, we should not have been sorry, if Northumberland’s force had come up in time to decide the fate of the battle at Shrewsbury; at least, we always heartily sympathise with Lady Percy’s grief, when she exclaims,

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