For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings-
How some have been deposed, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed
All murdered. 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 feared, and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,

As if this flesh, which walls-about our life,
Were brass impregnable; and, humoured 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 with bread like you, feel want, taste grief,
Need friends. Subjected thus,

How can you say to me, I am a king?

Yet it may be questioned whether there was in Richard the will to repent.

WAR.-In the period to which Shakspeare's Histories relate England was incessantly at war. There

were the wars with the French, sometimes on foreign soil and sometimes on the soil of England. Then there followed the Civil Wars, when the claims of the rival roses were being determined. Wherever war is taking place, it must move every section of society; and it was especially the absorbing interest of the classes with which Shakspeare chiefly concerned himself-the kings and the nobles. It was their trade and even their pastime; for the chief public entertainment was the mimic war of the tournament. Accordingly the pages of these Histories are crowded with war in all its phases. On the eve of an outbreak we hear the country ringing with the hammers of armourers and see the young men selling their all to buy a sword and a horse. Then, amidst sounds confused, the levies are shipped at the seaport; and now

behold the threaden sails,

Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,

Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea,
Breasting the lofty surge. Oh do but think
You stand upon the rivage, and behold
A city on the inconstant billows dancing,
For so appears this fleet majestical.

Then we see some French town approached from opposite sides by the contending armies, while the citizens tremble and their magistrates come out on the walls to carry on the difficult negotiations. Per

haps the flags of war are folded up, the dispute being settled by a contract of marriage between two young people of the contending countries, whereon ensues the stately ceremonial of the wedding. Or, if the valour of the troops is put to the proof, then at last the English are carried back again to the shores of Albion, where the inhabitants await them on the white cliffs; and the conqueror passes on, to enter London in triumph. Shakspeare is very great in the description of pageants; and never does his verse move with a lighter measure than when he is picturing the crowds, the flags and the cheering for a victory.

But, while he unfolds all the splendour of his genius in depicting the glorious side of war, he is not forgetful of the other side-of the lives sacrificed, of the weeping mothers and widows, of the fields torn up and the country harried. Along with brave men there went to the French wars all the tag-rag-andbobtail of the country; and multitudes, dishabituated to honest labour in the wars, became, when they returned home, the pests of the country. This class is depicted in Falstaff and his companions-the cowardly braggadocio Pistol, the fiery-faced Bardolph, the pot-valorous Nym and the rest.

As the type of those soldiering days we may take Harry Hotspur. This valiant dog-of-war never can get enough of fighting and marches to battle as gaily

as a maiden to a wedding. He delights in dogs and horses and, when on the back of a horse, feels that he is on his throne. When war is afoot, nothing can stay him—not even the dalliance of his lady wife :

We must have bloody noses and cracked crowns
And pass them current too.

He abhors a dandy, cannot be civil to a bore, and has
no patience with poetry. He is irascible and down-
right, calling a spade a spade. When he is angry,
nothing can stop the torrent of his words.
generous and would give anything to a friend;

But in the way of bargain, mark ye me,

I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.

He is

It is a thoroughly English and a thoroughly lovable type; and we grieve as we see him falling beneath the stroke of a cooler hand.

CHARACTER. -Already it has been indicated with what variety of character these Histories are crowded; but it still remains to note the chief efforts at character-painting.

The portraits of women in the Histories exhibit a singular monotony; and the leading feature is a remarkable one. How far it may have been due to the impressions made on him by the study of the history out of which he obtained his materials, or how far it may have been due to memories and experiences of

his own in early life, we cannot tell; but the conception of woman in the Histories is one of infinite sadness. The creed of the young author obviously was, that woman was made to mourn. In the three parts of Henry the Sixth and in Richard the Third there is a picture, drawn with great fulness of detail, of Queen Margaret; and a terrible one it is. She begins life in the pride of beauty, high spirits and a great position. But her husband, the King, is a weakling, who can neither satisfy her heart nor fill his royal station; and she becomes a guilty wife and a bold intriguer, scheming to maintain the position which is slipping from her. But disaster follows disaster: she loses her crown, her husband, her children, and her grandchildren, and sees her enemies exalted to the position which she has lost. As this goes on, she is transmuted into a fateful image of woe, not broken-down and penitent, but hardened, shrill and violent; and at the last she moves through the scenes as a terrific shape-a prophetic hag, living wholly in the element of sorrow, but unsubdued by it and glorying in the misfortunes of others. The Lady Constance, in King John, is the same type on a somewhat smaller scale and with the colours more subdued. But still there is unearthly grief; and her words are the outcome of a heart which is all one lake of tears. We gladly call to mind that at this period Shakspeare was able to create, side by side with these appalling figures, two such images of

The