"What, do I fear myself? There's none else by.

RICHARD LOVES RICHARD, THAT IS I AM I.”

Richmond, in exhorting his men before the fight says:

"God and our good cause fight upon our side.” Richard has no such note in exhortation. says:

"Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.”

He

Grant that there can be a man dead to all sympathies and sense of kin, whose only creed is "I am I;" whose actions are absolutely selfish, unrestrained by pity, love, or fear; and Shakespeare's King Richard III. sets forth the tragedy of such a death in life.

H. M.

KING RICHARD THE THIRD.

DRAMATIS PERSONE.

SCENE-ENGLAND.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-London. A Street.

Enter RICHARD, Duke of GLOSTER, solus.
Glo. Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that loured upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruiséd arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged War hath smoothed his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barbéd steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them ;-
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the king
In deadly hate the one against the other:
And if King Edward be as true and just
As I am subtle, false and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mewed
About a prophecy, which says that G
Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.—
Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here Clarence

comes.

up,

Enter CLARENCE, guarded, and BRAKENBURY.

Brother, good day: what means this armed guard That waits upon your grace?

Clar.

His majesty, Tendering my person's safety, hath appointed

This conduct to convey me to the Tower.

Glo. Upon what cause?

Clar.

Because my name is George.
Glo. Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours;
He should, for that, commit your godfathers:
O, belike his majesty hath some intent

That you shall be new-christened in the Tower.
But what's the matter, Clarence? may I know?
Clar. Yea, Richard, when I know; for I protest
As yet I do not: but, as I can learn,
He hearkens after prophecies and dreams;
And from the cross-row plucks the letter G,
And says a wizard told him that by G

His issue disinherited should be ;

And, for my name of George begins with G,
It follows in his thought that I am he.

These, as I learn, and such like toys as these
Have moved his highness to commit me now.

Glo. Why, this it is, when men are ruled by

women.

'Tis not the king that sends you to the Tower;
My Lady Grey his wife, Clarence, 'tis she
That tempts him to this harsh extremity.
Was it not she and that good man of worship,
Anthony Woodville, her brother there,

That made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower,
From whence this present day he is delivered?
We are not safe, Clarence; we are not safe.

Clar. By heaven, I think there's no man is secure
But the queen's kindred and night-walking heralds
That trudge betwixt the king and Mistress Shore.
Heard ye not what an humble suppliant
Lord Hastings was to her for his delivery?
Glo. Humbly complaining to her deity
Got my lord chamberlain his liberty.
F'll tell you what, I think it is our way,
If we will keep in favour with the king,
To be her men and wear her livery:
The jealous o'erworn widow and herself,
Since that our brother dubbed them gentlewomen,
Are mighty gossips in this monarchy.

Brak. Beseech your graces both to pardon me; His majesty hath straitly given in charge That no man shall have private conference, Of what degree soever, with his brother.

Glo. Even so; an't please your worship, Brakenbury,