humankind. In this instance they possess no human sympathy, are not really in human form, and are old, wild and haggard. Amid the warring of the elements they are first introduced, and under circumstances of a similar character they disappear.

Apart from the development of human character, this tragedy contains some splendid illustrations of the author's power of observation of external nature. The description of the position of Macbeth's castle by Duncan, the confirmation thereof by Banquo, in which the characteristics of the swallow is used to justify the king's approval, could only have been written by one who must closely have observed nature under her many forms, and failed not to tender the results of his observation.

"This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.

This guest of summer,

The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
By his lov'd mansionry, that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,

Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird

Hath made his pendant bed, and procreant cradle
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observ'd,
The air is delicate."

The governing power throughout this tragedy, as in that of Hamlet, is fate or circumstance. Everything is subordinate to fate. The weird-sisters are but the instruments of destiny, whose laws the whole of the characters obey. The forming and directing hand of outward and inward circumstance everywhere prevails. The web of life is enwoven, and within its threads the acts, wishes and desires of the whole dramatis persona are moulded and directed. The governing principles of

human nature in this great work are truly displayed, and so clearly are they presented that a more faithful rendering of humanity was never effected.

Under whatever form this tragedy is considered, it is one among the grandest that has ever been produced. The various characters spring into existence and are created by the wonderful knowledge which the poet possessed. From the depths of his own brain he has evolved the characters and by the force of his wondrous imagination made them entirely his own. He has endowed them with a reality, abounding in life and nature. None other but he who produced Hamlet and Lear could have written this truly great work; great in its irresistibleness, and great in its rapidity of action. The grandeur of its poetic diction and picturesqueness coupled with its truly living representations of persons, incidents and places, must for ever place it in the foremost rank of the works of its inimitable producer the "myriad-minded" Shakspere.

KING JOHN.

THIS play forms a fitting prologue to Shakspere's great dramatic chronicle, and it is unquestionably based upon an elder play of that name, which had been known to the English stage more than forty years prior to Shakspere's play. The elder work was written by Bale, a furious protestant bishop, whose production holds an intermediate place between the moralities and historical plays. In 1591 another play under this title was produced, but the name of the author is not known. Two other editions of this spurious play were published one in 1611, and one in 1622. Shakspere's play, in which there is no mention of Magna Charta was produced in 1596, and was first printed in the folio of 1623.

This is one of the most interesting of the great series of historic plays, for it is full of variety, force and splendour, and the poetic side of the principal characters, so necessary to dramatic fitness, is most excellently preserved. The darker shades in the character of King John are partially lightened up by Shakspere, for he makes the king to be the representative of the country and the exponent of her policy. The cares and troubles of John are not alone his personal cares and

troubles, but they are the cares and troubles of the English nation. In the king we see the nation and his deeds are made to represent the national will. The king is an incarnation of the national interest, and it is as an incarnation of that feeling, that he is always treated with respect, even by his opponents, despite the follies and crimes of which he has been guilty.

The closing scene of John's life is most masterly drawn and it fails not to win our pity for the dying king, whose "heart is cracked and burned," and whose life is "turned to one thread, one little hair," which breaks when he learns from the lips of his cousin, that the power on which he had trusted for the defence of his kingdom, was with his treasures, "in the night," "all unwarily devoured by the unexpected sea."

It is a great advantage to this play, a strong element in its success, that its chief interest should be of a national character. Its appeals are thus of a higher character than when appealing to motives of a personal nature, for they affect the spectator and the reader nationally, animating and developing their patriotic feelings and causing them to watch its course with much concern and interest, for the fortunes of their country are involved, either for evil or for good, in the fortunes of the king, who thus becomes the representative of the national policy.

Constance is most truthfully pourtrayed, for she is full of maternal love, and it is the strength of this feeling goaded by ambition, which produces so large an amount of activity in her nature. She is violently passionate when she cannot accomplish that which she desires, and she rails loudly and curses deeply when thwarted in her wishes. This is a weak point in her

character, leading to disastrous results to herself and to the cause of her "oppressed boy," yet this weakness is truly womanly. Her upbraidings of Austria are of the bitterest kind, so much so, that she loses friends, dispirits her son and defeats her own purpose. She presents a most forcible contrast in her changes of mood, which are of a varied character, from the extreme height of passion and bitterness to the tenderest depths of maternal love. She is imperious, the result of her grief, for “grief is proud," and "to the state of" her "great grief"

"Let kings assemble, for my grief's so great,
That no supporter but the huge firm earth
Can hold it up: here I and sorrows sit;

Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it."

She fully believes in the right of her son Arthur to the throne of England, and she is also fully convinced that he does "deserve a crown," for did not "nature and fortune," at his birth join to make him great. Her fears for his success engender doubts of the honesty of John and Philip, for hath "not France forsworn," and is not "fortune corrupted, changed and won" by hourly adulterating with his "uncle John." Her pride and her maternal love may be said to be the basis of her character, in which the power of imagination holds no mean sway. Whatever may be the nature of her passion, whether soft and subdued, or moved to vehemence of the strongest kind, the development of her imaginative power, charged as it is with rich poetic colouring, sheds a true feminine grace over her whole character, completely winning our sympathies and enlisting our opinions in favour of her claims.

When all chances of Arthur's success are entirely overthrown and there is no probability of her wishes

M