the first two appear the only unpromising subjects; -and those two dramas must be formed wholly or mainly of invented private stories, which, however, could not have happened except in consequence of the events and measures of these reigns, and which should furnish opportunity both of exhibiting the manners and oppressions of the times, and of narrating dramatically the great events;if possible, the death of the two sovereigns, at least of the latter, should be made to have some influence on the finale of the story. All the rest are glorious subjects; especially Henry I. (being the struggle between the men of arms and of letters, in the persons of Henry and Becket), Stephen, Richard I., Edward II., and Henry VII.

"KING JOHN."

ACT I. sc. 1.—

"Bast. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave awhile?

Gur. Good leave, good Philip.

Bast. Philip? sparrow! James," &c.

THEOB

HEOBALD adopts Warburton's conjecture of "spare me."

O true Warburton! and the sancta simplicitas of honest dull Theobald's faith in him! Nothing can be more lively or characteristic than "Philip? Sparrow!" Had Warburton read old Skelton's Philip Sparrow, an exquisite and original poem, and, no doubt, popular in Shakespeare's time, even Warburton would scarcely have made so deep a plunge into the bathetic as to have deathified sparrow" into "spare me!”

66

Act iii. sc. 2. Speech of Faulconbridge :

Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot;
Some airy devil hovers in the sky," &c.

Theobald adopts Warburton's conjecture of "fiery. I prefer the old text: the word "devil" implies "fiery." You need only read the line, laying a full and strong emphasis on "devil," to perceive the uselessness and tastelessness of Warburton's alteration.

"RICHARD II."

I

HAVE stated that the transitional link between the epic poem and the drama is the historic drama; that in the epic poem a preannounced fate gradually adjusts and employs the will and the events as its instruments, whilst the drama, on the other hand, places fate and will in opposition to each other, and is then most perfect, when the victory of fate is obtained in consequence of imperfections in the opposing will, so as to leave a final impression that the fate itself is but a higher and a more intelligent will.

From the length of the speeches, and the circumstance that, with one exception, the events are all historical, and presented in their results, not produced by acts seen by, or taking place before, the audience, this tragedy is ill suited to our present large theatres. But in itself, and for the closet, I feel no hesitation in placing it as the first and most admirable of all Shakespeare's purely historical plays. For the two parts of Henry IV. form a species of themselves, which may be named the mixed drama. The distinction does not depend on the mere quantity of historical events in the play compared with the fictions; for there is as much history in Macbeth as in Richard, but in the relation of the history to the plot. In the purely historical plays, the history forms the plot; in the mixed, it directs it; in the rest, as Macbeth, Hamlet, Cymbeline, Lear; it subserves it.

L

But,

however unsuited to the stage this drama may be, God forbid that even there it should fall dead on the hearts of jacobinised Englishmen ! Then, indeed, we might say-præteriit gloria mundi ! For the spirit of patriotic reminiscence is the allpermeating soul of this noble work. It is, perhaps, the most purely historical of Shakespeare's dramas. There are not in it, as in the others, characters introduced merely for the purpose of giving a greater individuality and realness, as in the comic parts of Henry IV., by presenting as it were our very selves. Shakespeare avails himself of every opportunity to effect the great object of the historic drama,—that, namely, of familiarising the people to the great names of their country, and thereby of exciting a steady patriotism, a love of just liberty, and a respect for all those fundamental institutions of social life, which bind men together:

"This royal throne of kings, this sceptred 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 home,
Against the envy of less happier lands;

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

This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,

Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth," &c.

Add the famous passage in King John:

"This England never did nor ever shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,

And we shall shock them: nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true."