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again in the dialogue that takes places over the dead body of the younger Clifford. Of course his sensitiveness is keenest touching the very particular wherein his vanity is most thwarted and wounded: he thinks of nothing so much as the ugliness that balks his desire, and resents nothing so sharply as the opinion or feeling it arrays against him. Accordingly his first and heaviest shots of sarcasm are at those who were the first to twit him on that score. And in the scene where Prince Edward is killed, he seems unmoved till the prince hits him in that eye, when his wrath takes fire at once, and bursts out in the reply,-"By Heaven, brat, I'll plague you for that word."

All which indicates the cause of his being so prone to "descant on his own deformity:" his thoughts still brood upon it, because it is the sorest spot in his condition; and because he never forgets it, therefore he is the more intent on turning it into the source of a dearer gratification than any it withholds from him, the consciousness, namely, of such an inward power as can bear him onward and upward in spite of such outward clogs. Thus the shame of personal disgrace, which in a good mind yields apt motive and occasion of a sweet and virtuous life, in the case of Richard inverts itself into a most hateful and malignant form of pride,—the pride of intellectual force and mastery. Hence he comes to glory in the very matter of his shame, to exaggerate it, and hang over it, as serving to approve, to set off, and magnify the strength and fertility of wit whereby he is able to triumph over it; as who would say, Nature indeed made me the scorn and reproach of men, nevertheless, I have proved too much for her, and made myself their wonder and applause; and though my body be such that men could not bear the sight of me, yet I have managed to charm their eyes.

It should be remarked that Richard, steeped as he is in essential villainy, is actuated by no such "motiveless malignity" as distinguishes Iago. Cruel and unrelenting in pursuit of his end, yet there is no wanton and gratuitous cruelty in him: in all his crimes he has a purpose beyond

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the act itself. Nor does he seem properly to hate those whom he kills: they stand between him and his ruling passion, and he "has neither pity, love, nor fear," that he should blench or scruple to hew them out of the way. And he has a certain redundant, impulsive, restless activity of nature, that he never can hold still; in virtue of which, as his thought seizes with amazing quickness and sureness where, and when, and how to cut, so he is equally sudden and sure of hand: the purpose flashes upon him, and he instantly darts to the crisis of performance, the thought setting his whole being a-stir with executive transport. It is as if such an excess of life and energy had been rammed into his little body, as to strain and bulge it out of shape.

COMMENTS

By SHAKESPEAREAN SCHOLARS

THE ENGLISH CHRONICLE PLAY

Among the many and diverse forms which the English drama displayed in the latter part of the sixteenth century there is none which was at once so popular in its day and so distinctively English as that which drew its subject-matter from the historical lore of the national chronicles. For years this variety of drama disputed with Romantic comedy and tragedy the supremacy of the stage, and only yielded to defeat with the subsidence of the national spirit of which it was born. The English Chronicle Play began with the tide of patriotism which united all England to repel the threatened invasion of Philip of Spain. It ebbed and lost its national character with the succession of James, an un-English prince, to the throne of Elizabeth.-SCHELLING, The English Chronicle Play.

HENRY VI

In prison Henry at last is really happy; now he is responsible for nothing; he enjoys for the first time tranquil solitude; he is a bird who sings in his cage. His latter days he will spend, to the rebuke of sin and the praise of his Creator, in devotion. Henry's equanimity is not of the highest kind; he is incapable of commotion. His peace is not that which underlies wholesome agitation, a peace which passes understanding. "Quietness is a grace, not in itself; only when it is grafted on the stem of faith, zeal, selfabasement, and diligence." If Henry had known the nobleness of true kingship, his content in prison might be

admirable; as it is, the beauty of that content does not strike us as of a rich or vivid kind. But the end is come, and that is a gain. Henry has yielded to the house of York, and the evil time is growing shorter. The words of the great Duke of York are confirmed by our sense of fact and right:

King did I call thee? nay, thou art not king.

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Give place; by heaven thou shalt rule no more
O'er him whom heaven created for thy ruler.

-DOWDEN, Shakspere-His Mind and Art.

In the last scene of Richard II his despair lends him courage: he beats the keeper, slays two of his assassins, and dies with imprecations in his mouth against Sir Pierce Exton, who "had staggered his royal person." Henry,

when he is seized by the deer-stealers, only reads them a moral lecture on the duty of allegiance and the sanctity of an oath; and when stabbed by Gloucester in the tower, reproaches him with his crimes, but pardons him his own death.-HAZLITT, Characters of Shakespear's Plays.

LADY GREY

She was a poor widow who came trembling before King Edward, and begged him to restore to her children the small estate which, after the death of her husband, had reverted to the enemy. The licentious king, who could not stir her chastity, was so enchanted by her beauty, that he placed the crown on her head. Her history, known to all the world, announces how much misery to both came from this match.-HEINE, Florentine Nights.

THE WARWICKS

The magnificent and exceedingly romantic castle of Warwick, was the seat of the powerful Earls of Warwick, a brave and warlike race, which has played a prominent

part in the history of England. The founder of the family is said to have been the legendary Guy of Warwick, the subduer of the Danish giant Colbrand, who after his warlike exploits retired to what is now called Guy's Cliff,

Where with my hands I hewed a house

Out of a craggy rocke of stone;
And lived like a palmer poore

Within that cave myself alone:

And daylye came to begg my bread
Of Phelis att my castle gate,

Not knowne unto my loved wiffe

Who dayle mourned for her mate, &c.

The legends and ballads relating to Sir Guy must undoubtedly have been told or sung to the boy Shakespeare; and no doubt he had also seen the statue of the old hero at Guy's Cliff. Among the famous Norman Earls of Warwick are the Beauchamps, especially Thomas Beauchamp, the fourth Earl, whom parliament appointed guardian of Richard II; and Richard Beauchamp, the fifth Earl, surnamed the Good (1381-1439), who distinguished himself in the struggle with Owen Glendower, and at the battle of Shrewsbury against the Percies; it was he who negotiated the marriage of Henry V with Catherine of France, and was appointed "tutor" to Henry VI up to his fifteenth year. This Richard Beauchamp was likewise one of the heroes of the Wars of the Roses. He died as Regent of France at Rouen, and his body was brought to Warwick and buried in St. Mary's Church in the Beauchamp Chapel, which had been erected there by him; his tomb, which is said to have cost the extravagant sum of nearly £2,500, is still an object of admiration to persons visiting Warwick. His son Henry was not only made Earl of Warwick, by Henry VI, but subsequently even King of the Isle of Wight, of Jersey and Guernsey. With him the male line of the Beauchamps became extinct in 1445, and the lands and possessions passed, through the female line, into the hands of the Nevilles, the first and mightiest of these

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