called, or historical dramas, are transcripts from the page of Hall or Hollingshed; and, in some instances, are his workings on old plays, and belong to him no otherwise than as he imparted to them the powerful delineation of character, or enriched them with some exquisite scenes. These pieces, however, which affect not the combination of a fable; but, wrought upon the page of the chronicler or of the elder dramatist, follow the current of events, as it flows on in historic succession, must be made the first subjects of our remarks; and we will then pass to those dramas, which are more properly and strictly his own. To these historical plays, then, whatever may be their original materials, the power of the Poet has communicated irresistible attraction; not, as Samuel Johnson would wish us to believe," by being not long soft or pathetic without some idle conceit or contemptible equivocation:" not "by checking and blasting terror and pity, as they are rising in the mind, with sudden frigidity,” but by the strongest exertions of the highest poetry; and by commanding, with the royalty of genius, every avenue to the human heart. For the truth of what we assert, we will make our appeal to the frantic and soul-piercing lamentations of Constance in "King John;" to the scene between that monarch and Hubert; and between Hubert and young Arthur; to the subsequent scene between Hubert and his murderous sovereign, when the effects of the reported death of Arthur on the populace are described, and the murderer quarrels with his agent: to the scene, finally, in which the king dies, and which concludes the play.

For the evidence of the power of our great Poet we might appeal also to many scenes and descriptions even in “Richard II.;" though of all his historical dramas this, perhaps, is the least instinct with animation, and the least attractive with dramatic interest. Of "Riehard II." we may say with Mr. Skottowe, that, "though it is an exquisite poem, it is an indifferent play." But in the drama which, in its historic order, succeeds to it, we receive an ample compensation for any failure of the dramatist in "Richard II." In every page of " Henry

IV., ," both the serious and the comic, Shakspeare“ is himself again;" and our fancy is either elevated or amused without the interruption of a single discordant or uncharacteristic sentiment. Worcester, indeed, says, "And 'tis no little reason bids us speed

To save our heads by raising of a head,"

and is thus guilty of a quibble; an offense of which the Prince, on two occasions, shows himself to be capable; once when he sees Falstaff apparently dead on the field of Shrewsbury; and once when, on his accession to the throne, he appoints his father's Chief Justice to a continuance in his high office: and these, as I believe, are the sole instances of our Poet's dalliance with his Cleopatra, for whose love he was content to lose the world, throughout the whole of the serious parts of this long and admirable drama.

The succeeding play of" Henry V." bears noble testimony to the poetic and the dramatic supremacy of Shakspeare: to the former, more especially in its three fine choruses, one of them serving as the prologue to the play, one opening the third act, and one describing the night preceding the battle of Agincourt: to the latter, in every speech of the King's, and in the far greater part of the remaining dialogue, whether it be comic or tragic. "Henry V.," however, is sullied with some weak and silly scenes; and, on the whole, is certainly inferior in dramatic attraction to its illustrious predecessor. But it is a very fine production, and far-far above the reach of any other English writer, who has been devoted to the service of the stage.

Of" Henry VI," that drum and trumpet thing, as it has happily been called by a man of genius*, who ranged himself with the advocates of Shakspeare, I shall not take any notice on the present occasion, as the three parts of this dramatized history are nothing more than three old plays, corrected by the hand of Shakspeare, and here and there illustrious with the

*The late Mr. Maurice Morgann; who wrote an eloquent essay on the dramatic character of Falstaff.

fire-drops which fell from his pen. Though we consider them, therefore, as possessing much attraction, and as disclosing Shakspeare in their outbreaks of fine writing, and in their strong characteristic portraiture, we shall now pass them by to proceed without delay to their dramatic successor, "Richard III." Of" Richard II.," fine as it occasionally is in poetry, and rich in sentiment and pathos, we have remarked that, with reference to the other productions of its great author, it was low in the scale of merit. In "Richard II." he found an insufficient and an unawakening subject for his genius, and it acted drowsily and as if it were half asleep: but in the third Richard there was abundant excitement for all its powers; and the victim of Tudor malignity and calumny rushes from the scene of our mighty dramatist in all the black efficiency of the demoniac tyrant. Besides Sir Thomas More's history of Richard of Gloster, our Poet had the assistance, as it seems, of a play upon the same subject, which had been popular before he began his career upon the stage. Adhering servilely neither to the historian nor to the old dramatist, Shakspeare contented himself with selecting from each of them such parts as were suited to his purpose; and with the materials thus obtained, compounded with others supplied by his own invention, he has produced a drama, which cannot be read in the closet, or seen in its representation on the stage without the strongest agitation of the mind. The character of Richard is drawn with inimitable effect; and in the minor parts of the execution of the drama, there is nothing among all the creations of poetry more splendid and terrific than the dream of Clarence. But this noble effort of the tragic power is not altogether faultless. Some of its scenes, as not promoting the action of the drama, are superfluous and even tedious; and the violation of history, for the purpose of introducing the deposed queen, Margaret, upon the stage, may reasonably be censured. I am not certain, however, that I should be satisfied to resign her on the requisition of truth. Her curses are thrilling, and their fulfilment is awful. Shakspeare, as

it may be remarked, has accumulated uncommitted crimes on the head of the devoted Richard. By the historian, this monarch is cleared of the deaths of Clarence and of Anne, his wife: to the latter of whom he is said to have approved himself an affectionate husband; whilst the murther of Clarence is imputed to the intrigues of the relations of his sister-in-law, the queen. His hand certainly did not shed the blood of the pious Henry; and even his assassination of the two illegitimate sons of his brother, Edward, is supported by very questionable evidence, for there is reason to think that the eldest of these young princes walked at his uncle's coronation; and that the youngest escaped to meet his death, under the name of Perkin Warbeck, from the hand of the first Tudor. But the scene of Shakspeare has stampt deeper and more indelible deformity on the memory of the last sovereign of the house of York, than all the sycophants of the Tudors had been able to impress; or than all that the impartiality, and the acute research of the modern historian have ever

had the power to erase. We are certain that Richard possessed a lawful title to the throne which he filled: that he was a wise and patriotic sovereign: that his death was a calamity to his country, which it surrendered to a race of usurpers and tyrants, who trampled on its liberties, and stained its soil with much innocent and rich blood:-to that cold-blooded murtherer and extortioner, Henry VII.-to that monster of cruelty and lust, his ferocious son: to the sanguinary and ruthless bigot, Mary: to the despotic and unamiable Elizabeth ; the murderess of a suppliant queen, of kindred blood, who had fled to her for protection. Such was the result of Bosworth's field, preceded, as it was on the stage of Shakspeare, by visions of bliss to Richmond, and by visions of terror to Richard. But Shakspeare wrote with all the prejudices of a partizan of the Tudors; and at a time also when it was still expedient to flatter that detestable family.

His next task was one of yet greater difficulty:-to smooth down the rugged features of the eighth Henry,

VOL. I.

h

and to plant a wreath on the brutal and blood-stained brow of the odious father of Elizabeth. This task he has admirably executed, and without offering much violation to the truth of history. He has judiciously limited his scene to that period of the tyrant's reign in which the more disgusting deformities of his character had not yet been revealed-to the death of Catharine, the fall of Wolsey, and the birth of Elizabeth: and the crowned savage appears to us only as the generous, the munificent, the magnanimous monarch, striking down the proud, and supporting with a strong arm the humble and the oppressed. But the whole pathos and power of the scene are devoted to Catharine and Wolsey. On these two characters the dramatist has expended all his force; and our pity is inseparably attached to them to the last moment of their lives. They expire, indeed, bedewed with our tears. Of this, the last of Shakspeare's dramatic histories, it may be remarked that it is written in a style different from that of its predecessors: that it is less interspersed with comic scenes; that in its serious parts its diction is more stately and formal; more elevated and figurative: that its figures are longer and more consistently sustained: that it is more rich in theatric exhibition, or in the spectacle, as Aristotle calls it, and by whom it is regarded as a component part of the drama. To any attentive reader these distinguishing characters of the dramatic history of Henry VIII. must be sufficiently obvious; and we can only wonder that the same mind should produce such fine pieces as those of " Henry IV.," " Richard III.," and "Henry VIII.," each written with a pen appropriate to itself, and the last with a pen not employed in any other instance.

66

If we were to pause in this stage of our progress, we might confidently affirm that we had suggested to the minds of our readers such a mass of poetic and dramatic genius as would be sufficient to excite the general interest of an intellectual and literary people. But we are yet only in the vestibule which opens into the magnificence of the palace, where Shakspeare is seated on the throne of his greatness. The plays, which we have