This is a chapter from the book Shakespeare Characters: Chiefly Those Subordinate by Charles Cowden Clarke who was one of the outstanding literary critics of his time. The book was originally published in 1863 by Smith-Elder and Co. of
SHAKESPEARE-CHARACTERS
CHIEFLY THOSE SUBORDINATE
Chapter XVIII.
RICHARD III.
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SHAKESPEARE derived his authority for the dramatic history of Richard III. from the life of that monarch written by Sir Thomas More; a biography well calculated for theatrical purposes; scarcely so for the sacred purposes of truthful history; for that in the person and character of the crookbacked tyrant," the engine of party misrepresentation was urged to its greatest high-pressure power, few who have looked into the histories of the Tudor succession will be hardy enough to deny. It is neither my cue nor my inclination at this period to enter the dark labyrinth of the controversy respecting that signally bold usurpation, and to debate the plausibility of a single individual's attaining the power within the short lapse of a few months---of a few weeks, in
deed, to compass the death of his own brother; of three noblemen, councillors of the successor to the crown; of the successor himself, with his brother; and lastly, of his own wife: but I would simply observe, that to give credence to all that was written to blacken the memory of Richard for the purpose of confirming Richmond in the succession, the reader
may afterwards, with like child-like faith, transfer his belief to the veritable history of King Bluebeard, or of any other
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royal ogre. It is a remarkable fact, as Walpole has asserted in his" Historic Doubts," that there is no proof at all of so dire an atrocity having been committed, as the murder of the young king and his brother in the Tower. Not their prison, as is generally supposed, from our associations with that building, from the uses to which it has since his time been appointed: but their residence, as was usual in that period, for the purposes of security as well as state; where they had their guards and their retinue, and where difficulty of accomplishing their assassination, by reason of all these combined circumstances, and without its transpiring by one vent or another, (the more especially as Brackenbury, the Governor of the Tower, and Tyrrel, the reputed murderer, were both
living in the time of Henry VII., when confession and proof of the deed would have advanced the interests of all parties both its perpetrators and the deposer of the York dynasty;) the circumstance, I say, of there being no tangible clue to so
extraordinary a series of treasons, treachery, and murder, should lea.d us to receive all history connected with the biography of its leading characters cautiously and sceptically. I do not mean to convey the idea that Richard III. was an estimable character, still less an immaculate one; but that all the accounts that have come down to us concerning him were written by political and temporising adversaries, even descending to the distortion of his body and limbs. Whereas, the celebrated Countess of Desmond, who survived to an extraordinary age, more than a hundred years, stated that she danced with him at the coronation of his. brother, Edward IV., and that, with the exception of the king, he was the handsomest man at court, Edward being celebrated for his personal accomplishments. Now, making allowance, under the circumstances, for some partiality on the part of the Countess to ward's a man of Richard's rank and station-- says nothing of
his acknowledged courtly tongue, we can’t suppose him to
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have been the monster of deformity that he has been depicted by his enemies. However, as already said, it is not my intention to enter upon that dark problem-the fate of the young princes, and the guilt or innocence of their uncle; much upon this point will be found to interest the reader, after going through Sir Thomas More's beautifully-written, but Lancastrian life of the Protector, and our popular histories, which are grounded upon it, by turning to Walpole's special pleading in his" Historic Doubts," also to that agreeable little piece of antiquarian gossip, William Hutton of Birmingham's "History of the Battle of Bosworth;" and lastly, to the" Life of Richard," by Caroline Halsted, a work distinguished by assiduous and careful research, with impartiality of judgment.
My business is with Shakespeare's Richard, a delineation of wonderful energy, vigour, and intellectual ascendency. But no ordinary reader need be reminded that the" Richard III." of Shakespeare and the" Richard II!." of the actors have very little in common,-so little, indeed, that Mrs Inchbald, in her" British Theatre," has computed the number of lines in the actz"11g copy that have been retained from the original drama, to consist of no more than three hundred and thirty-one entire lines-scarcely one act out of the five; the remainder is a hash of scenes, speeches, scraps, broken lines from other plays; the dying speech of Richard, for instance, being the curse uttered by Northumberland in the 2d Part of
"Henry IV.," upon hearing the news of his son, Hotspur's, death; and, to crown all, Cibber, who concocted this prodigy of a medley, with amusing conceit foisted his own bombast into the company of Shakespeare's magniloquence, and "with its darkness dared affront his light." Some worthy atonement, however, has been made in our own time to the poet's insulted memory, by producing, in their original form, plays which, for nearly a century, had kept possession of the stage, bearing his name, (as cheats inscribe great craftsmen's names
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upon worthless goods,) but so mutilated, deformed,-even totally changed and re-written, as scarcely to be recognised. The reformation alluded to is in the case of the" Tempest," and 1/ King Lear," of which the former acting versions were two signal examples of the disgusting morality and dramatic taste of the Frenchified era of Charles II., and the age succeeding it. The experiment, however, was made some years ago by: Mr Macready, of performing this play according to the text of Shakespeare; and the same attempt was made at Saddlers \IV ells, when under the direction of Mrs Warner and Mr Phelps. In answer to the question I put to the lady as to the spirit in which it was received by their audience, she said, “Certainly with respect and that they were much impressed by those terrible scenes in which Margaret of Anjou appears."
Let not English playgoers profess a veneration for the genius of Shakespeare while they allow Colley Cibber's tiger cat version of “Richard III." to keep possession of their stage, and to have the poet's name affixed as being the author of it.
THE Richard of our poet is a thorough man of the world, bold, practical, direct, and prompt. He is gratuitously as well as politically cruel. Expediency with him is law; it were even his religion, if such a word could be combined with
such a being. He will pause at no obstacle to achieve a
purpose; and at no result, however revolting, does he ever relent. The wonderful elasticity of his genius carries him over all barriers. "At one slight bound, high overleaps all bound" or limit to his desire. The whole of his career, to its close-and most especially at the dose-excites our admiration from the wonderful energy and skill with which he uses his resources. In our astonishment, we almost lose sight of the former tyrant; and-so innate is the love and reverence
of power, with resolution, in the humankind-we contem
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plate him solely as a brave man who has been over-mastered and crushed by numbers.
The leading characteristics of Richard's mind are, scorn,
sarcasm, and an overweening contempt. It appears as if contempt for his victims - rather than active hatred and cruelty-were the motive for murdering them. Upon our first meeting him, in the play bearing his name, he sounds the keynote to his whole character-that of contempt-in the celebrated apostrophe to his own person :
" I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deform'd, unfinish'd, 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."
His ambitious nature, his bounding, elastic intellect, but, above all, his want of faith in goodness, conspire to produce this tendency to despise and degrade every surrounding being and object, even (as just quoted) his own person.
He is never sincere and truly in earnest but when he is about to commit a murder.
"Then, since the heavens have shap’d my body so,
Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it."
This is his introduction to the reader; and in his last scene he indulges the bitterness of his soul in a sneer at those visions which, but a few moments since, have so appalled him; and he recklessly attacks the very power whose influence he had just before been compelled to acknowledge. He then says :
" Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls; Conscierice is but a word that cowards use, Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe."
It is to be observed, moreover, that the first feeling every
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victim excites in him is that of "contempt." The instant they leave him, his first ejaculation-even in the throb of triumph at the success obtained by his own intellect-is always one of contempt for his dupe.
Upon Lady Anne's quitting him after that keen encounter of their wits; when he succeeds in wooing and winning her at the very time that she is attending the funeral of her husband, whom he himself had killed, he breaks forth into that demoniacal sarcasm :
"Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?
Was ever woman in this humour won?
1'11 have her j but I'll not keep her long.
What, I that kill'd her husband, and his father,
To take her in her heart's extremest hate j
With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
The bleeding witness of her hatred by j
Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me j And I no friends to back my suit withal,
But the plain devil and dissembling looks;
And yet, to win her-all the world to nothing 1 "
After his scene with the court of Edward, in the 1st Act, he says, in all the boldness of a contemptuous supremacy :
" I do the wrong; and first begin to brawl.
The secret mischief that I set abroach,
I lay unto the grievous charge of others. Clarence,-whom I indeed have cast in darkness, I do beweep to many simple gulls j
Namely, to
And tell them 'tis the queen and her allies
That stir the king against the duke my brother."
And the scene itself where Clarence is being conducted by Brackenbury and his guard to the Tower; and his making the "simple Clarence," as he sneeringly calls him, believe that he has been doomed to prison through the machinations of the queen and her family, is another instance of the contempt
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resulting from his sense of intellectual superiority over all others that come in collision with him. His insolent and vigorous supremacy in the following dialogue displays the master-poet. After feigning his surprise at the act-which he himself had ordained and compassed-he breaks forth in a tone of indignant remonstrance :
"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 tempers him to this 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 deliver'd?
We are not safe, Clarence; we are not safe.
"C/ar. By Heav'n, I think there is no man secure,
But the queen's kindred, and night-walking heralds
That trudge betwixt the king and Mistress Shore. - !II
"Brack. I 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.
"C/o. Even so! an please your worship, Brackenbury, You may partake of anything we say:
We speak no treason, man. We say the king
Is wise and virtuous; and his noble queen
Well-struck in years, fair, and not jealous.
We say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,
A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing-pleasing tongue; And the queen's kindred are made gentlefolks.
How say you, sir? Can you deny all this?
"Brack. With this, my lord, myself have naught to do. "C/o. Naught to do with
fellow,
He that doth naught with her,-excepting one,
Were best to do it secretly, alone.
"Brack. What one, my lord?
" C/o. Her husband, knave;- Wouldst thou betray me f"
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Shakespeare-Characters.
This turning of the tables upon the king's officer, and making him the defendant, where he had been the plaintiff, is a specimen 'of Richard's suddenly available talent. When the party have gone out, he says, with a diabolical jeer:
" Go, tread the path that thou shalt ne' er return, Simple, plain Clarence !-I do love thee so, That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven, If heaven will take the present at our hands."
This should be the very triumph of insolence and contempt, with calculating cruelty.
Again, when Queen Elizabeth leaves him, after his arguments have won her sanction to his addressing her daughter, his contempt again breaks forth:
"Relenting fool, and shallow, changing woman!"
Even upon slight and casual occasions the same tone occurs, and thus the harmony of the character is maintained. His muttered sneer, upon receiving his mother's benediction:
"And make me die a good old man; .
That is the butt-end of a mother's blessing."
Again, his lightly and carelessly sending the Bishop of Ely for strawberries from the prelate's garden in Holborn, in the midst of their conversation. Here we have an act of insolence with contempt.
And, lastly, his cruelty and ingratitude towards his jackal, Buckingham, who wrought hard to help him to his bad eminence; who had performed for him the ninety-nine timeserving villainies, but cannot do the hundredth-that of murdering the children in the Tower. All these examples, I think, warrant our pronouncing the master-key in Richard's mind to be "contempt," and which adds a venom to his cruelty. And thus, again, the position so often maintained in behalf of Shakespeare's genius-that, let us only lafold of a clue in
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anyone of his characters, and pursue it to the end, we shall find all to be clear, harmonious, and consistent. In the character of Richard, I am not sure that the poet does not mean to convey that his cruelty towards his species, for the purpose of achieving the end of his ambition, is not the result of the
great leading characteristic of his mind-that of " contempt."
In all this complication of high intellectual qualities in the character and conduct of Richard, Shakespeare makes manifest his own instinctive and powerful sagacity in selecting, and in his style of fashioning such a being for the hero of a great dramatic poem. A mere human tiger, roused into action only by the smell of blood, would have been but a subject for a third-rate poet, and who would have made a regular Sawney Beane of the character. But Shakespeare has invested his Richard with a halo of accomplishment-he is infinitely superior to the persons by whom he is surrounded. Speaking of his own genius, he says, and with a just appreciation:
"Our aiery buildeth in the cedar's top,
And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun."
With these qualities he has conjoined a wanton hardness of heart; a politic, and, upon occasion, eve1.1 a. n'bald cruelty; and a total defiance and scorn of all faith in a principle of goodness. He is as perfect an incarnation of evil as that Satanic conception of the great epic poet.
Among the subordinate agents in the play appears the little
court and in troublous times, and yet manifesting all the caution-Consistent, nevertheless, with a sprightly nature which such times inspire. He is first introduced with his mother and grandam. Their anxiety and dread-the sad
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consequences of experienced age, and such an age of turbulence as they lived in-are beautifully contrasted with his gay young prattle :
"Duch. I long with all my heart to see the prince:
I hope he is much grown since last I saw him.
"Qu. Eliz:{. But I hear no: they say my son of
Hath almost overta' en him in his growth.
"
"Duck Why, my good cousin? it is good to grow. "
My uncle Rivers talk'd how I did grow
More than my brother: 'Ay,' quoth my uncle Gloster,
, Small herbs have grace; great weeds do grow apace.' And since, methinks, I would not grow so fast,
Because sweet flowers are slow, and weeds make haste.
. . . . . . Now, by my troth, if I had been remember'd,
I could have given my uncle's grace a flout,
To touch his growth nearer than he touch'd mine.
"Duch. How, my young
That he could gnaw a crust at two hours old;
'Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth.
Grandam, this would have been a biting jest.
"Ditch. I prithee, pretty York, who told thee this? "
"Duch. His nurse! why, she was dead ere thou wast born. It
He had heard his mother say it. She rebuked him for being It too shrewd," saying to the others, "Pitchers have ears." Here is a touch of caution thrown in, the natural birth of surrounding plots and machinations.
In Shakespeare's abundance of individualising various characters of similar semblance, he has placed in juxtaposition with little York the young son of Clarence, whose innocent simplicity is no less natural than the other's innocent shrewd
ness. The sweet credulity which can perce, no guile beneath
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kindly demonstration, and the boyish quickness which instinctively discerns evil, without power to ward off its sinister approach, are equally touching exemplifications of childhood nature, How the pure, bright honesty of childish feeling shows in those few words of Clarence's young son, when, after describing his uncle Gloster's caresses, and his grandam drops a hint of Richard's deceit, the boy exclaims, "Think you my uncle did dissemble, grandam?" she replies, (( Ay, boy." And he answers, with the confidence of a clear young spirit, "I cannot think it." This comes with bright effect against the sharpwitted precocity of little
The latter's pert and sly taunts to his uncle Gloster, in the presence of the- young king, are better known from their introduction on the stage; but they are most naturally managed, and as skilfully contrasted with the sweet, gentle sketch of his brother, the little king, whose premature thought has taken the character of pensive care and unnaturally early wisdom.
Shakespeare not unfrequently makes his children talk beyond their years, and at times almost greatly; nevertheless they still wear the childlike air and manner,-SO completely did he invest himself for the time in the spiritual garment of each character as he summoned it to the scene, The questions the little king puts to his uncle Gloster respecting Julius Caesar, who he had been informed was builder of the Tower, and his precocious reflection upon the character of that great Roman, strictly harmonise with his forced maturity of mind, and yet the manner of his speech is youthful. He says :
" That Julius Caesar was a famous man: With what his valour did enrich his wit, His wit set down to make his valour live: Death makes no conquest of this conqueror; For now he lives in fame though not in life"
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Although here is sound philosophy, and that it is somewhat precocious in reflection, yet how perfectly is the language in which it is expressed that of a superior-minded child.
The description of these two innocent children,-" Fairest flowers, no sooner blown than blasted,"-as they lay victims about to be sacrificed, forms an exquisite picture, and such a one as Shakespeare, in the opulence of his mind, loved to put into the mouth of a subordinate character. It is uttered by Tyrrel, the agent of Gloster's cruelty;
The tyrannous and bloody act is done,
The most arch deed of piteous massacre
That ever yet this land was guilty of.
Dighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn
To do this piece of ruthless butchery,
Albeit they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs, Melting with tenderness and mild compassion,
Wept like to children in their death's sad story.
'Oh, thus,' quoth Dighton, 'lay the gentle babes,'" Thus, thus,' quoth Forrest, 'girdling one another Within their alabaster innocent arms;
Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,
Which in their summer beauty kiss’s each other?
A book of prayers on their pillow lay;
Which once,' quoth Forrest, 'almost chang'd my mind; But, oh, the devil '-there the villain stopp'd ;
When DigMon thus told on :-' We smother'd
The most replenished sweet work of nature,
That from the prime creation e'er she fram'do' "
The two murderers employed by Gloster to despatch Clarence, are drawn with a terribly bold and masterly hand. They are not only designed with a marked difference from any other of Shakespeare's murderers, (such, for instance, as those just quoted, and those in "Macbeth," who are gentlemen of fallen fortunes,) but these have such perfect individuality as to be unlike, and quite distinct from each other. Throughout
the scene you recogise the one ruffian for his companion,
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though no otherwise designated than as, "1st Murderer and 2d Murderer," being third or fourth class characters in the play. From the preliminary short interview with Gloster, where the 1st Murderer alone speaks, and assures the duke,
" My lord, we will not stand to prate;
Talkers are no good doers :-be assur'd,
We go to use our hands, and not our tongues;"
down to the scene where they perpetrate the deed, the first man displays the bold, ruthless, callous villain, dashed with a
spice of ferocious humour; and the other is a vacillating creature, whom circumstances, and not predisposition, have made what he is. Here is a short portion of dialogue-not familiarly knowm but full of pithy meaning, illustrative of the poet's discrimination, as well as distinction of character, even in the least important persons on the scene; and who yet are of "similar mark and likelihood." The 2d Murderer says :
"What, shall we stab him as he sleeps?
" 1st
wakes.
"2d
until the great judgment-day.
t< 1St
" 2d
a kind of remorse in me. .
" 1st Muy. What! art thou afraid?
" 2d Muy. Not to kill him, having a warnmt for it; but
to be damned for killing him, from the which no warrant can
defend me.
" 1st
" 2d M
" 1st Muy. I'll back to the Duke of Gloster, and tell
him so.
"2d
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1st Mm: How dost thou feel thyself now?
2d M1tr. 'Faith, some certain dregs of conscience are yet
within me.
"1st
"2d
" 1st M
reward, thy conscience flies out.
"2d Mt/r. 'Tis no matter; let it go : there's few or none
will entertain it.
1st
2d M1tr. I'll not meddle with it; it is a dangerous thing,
it makes a malt a coward; a man cannot steal, but it accuseth him; a man cannot swear, but it checks him; 'tis a blushing shame-faced spirit, that mutinies in a man's bosom; it fills a
man full of obstacles; it made me once restore a purse of gold, that by clza1tCe I fo2t1zd; it beggars any man that keeps it; it is turned out of all towns and cities for a dangerous thing; and every man that means to live well, endeavours to trust to himself, and live without it.
"1st
me not to kill the duke.
2d
he would insinuate with thee, but to make thee sigh.
1st
After they have killed Clarence, the 2d Murderer, true to his first infirmity of purpose, says:
"A bloody deed, and desp'rately despatch'd! How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands Of this most grievous guilty murder done I"
The women in this play serve as means to exhibit the power of Richard in swaying to his purposes persons the most averse from him and his interests. They cannot withstand his will when once he sets resolutely, to work to show them what that will is, and to exercise his force of intellect in
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influencing and bending their minds to his. Lady Anne is won from the very side of her murdered husband's murdered father's coffin to accept the suit of him who was the murderer of both; and Edward's widowed queen, in the fi1:idst of her lament for her two princely boys, is lured into consent that her daughter shall wed with the man who untimely stopped their breath to usurp their crown and birthright, when he deigns to use his subtle tongue in persuasion. And if all this appear dramatic high-colouring, be it borne in mind that there is historic repute in confirmation of it.
The only one who confronts him with dauntless unsubmission equal to his own is Queen Margaret. She has lost all
has nothing more to concede, therefore she is beyond his attempts to subdue. Her sum of wrongs invests her with a martyred majesty which seems to place her above earthly royalty. She steps forward and stands before him like an accusing spirit, to arraign him for the blood he has spilt, for the anguish he has caused. She comes face to face with him, like an impersonation of woe for the murdered husband and son his hand had slain, and seems a living pre-embodiment of those ghastly spectres which subsequently haunt his remorsebroken slumbers. The effect of Queen Margaret's appearance, despair-crowned and breathing curses, in the earlier
scenes of the play-is that of a human ghost foreboding the aftercoming of those shadowy apparitions of his victims that surround Richard's tented bed on Bosworth field of battle, which was to be his death-bed.
The character of Buckingham is here drawn with skilful and consistent delineation. He is a weak man, morally and mentally; and, like many weak men, he instinctively clings for support to a powerful intellect like that of Richard, while flattering himself that he assists and guides it by his own aid and counsel. Buckingham is lavish in protestation-always the resource of the weak, conscious of their own lack of
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strength in earnest meaning. He is duped by Richard's pretence of submitting to his advice and direction,-a certain mark of weakness in one unable to perceive Richard's superior intelligence. He is fluent and sophistical,-a sure token of feeble wisdom and lack of sound argument. He is vain of his powers of oratory, and has immense conceit of his gift at dissimulation,-an infallible proof of wanting sense, both in morals and understanding. He thus vaunts his ability to deceive :
Tut I can counterfeit the deep tragedian; Speak and look back, and pry on every side, Tremble and start at wagging of a straw, Intending deep suspicion; ghastly looks Are at my service, like enforc'ed smiles; And both are ready in their offices,
At any time to grace my stratagems."
Such a boast as this made to Richard-that master in the art of dissembling I The effect is almost ludicrous of the man's blindness of self-conceit. Accordingly, Richard, with his humour of shrewd policy, does not fail to take inward-laughing advantage of it, and uses tube vaunter as a convenient tool.
It is Buckingham who suggests the hypocritical. device of Richard's causing himself to be found by the civic train when' they come to offer the crown, engaged in pious-seeming occupation :
" Look you, get a prayer-book in your hand,
And stand between two churchmen, good my lord; For on that ground I'll make a holy descant: And be not easily won to our requests;
Play the maid's part, still answer nay, and take it."
He is evidently vain of his slyness and cleverness in trickery, and he proceeds to play out the got-up/. scene of farcical " nolo coronari" between Richard and himself before the lord
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mayor, aldermen, and citizens, with all the relish of a weak-minded and weak-moraled man. Riichard makes him his cat's-paw so long as it suits his purpose; but the instant he perceives that the weak-souled creature is even weak enough to have conscience-qualms after so much weakness of paltering with right, he flings him by with the sneer "High-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect."
He does not choose that the blind fool he has hitherto known so subserviently hoodwinked and linked to his purposes, should now presume to scan them, much less to demur and shrink from their fulfilment. From first to last, Buckingham's career with Richard contains an impressive lesson on weakness enmeshed by unscrupulous strength, when involved in the net by its own folly and vanity.
Some of Shakespeare's most insignificant scenes abound with notable axioms and aphoristic wisdom. For example, in that short and apparently unimportant one in this play, where some citizens meet in the street and talk, gossip-wise, about the ill-ordering of government from the factious state of parties, the king's death, and the extreme youth of his successor, the Prince of Wales, one of the citizens says, with the grave prudential tone of mercantile foresight :
"When clouds are seen, wise men put on their cloaks; When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand ; When the sun sets, who doth not look for night ? Untimely storms make men expect a dearth.
All may be well, but if God sort it so,
'Tis more than we deserve, or I expect.
" 2d Cit. Truly, the hearts of men are full of fear ; You cannot reason almost with a man
That looks not heavily and full of dread.
"3d Cit. Before the days of change, still is it so. By a divine instinct men's minds mistrust
Ensuing danger; as by proof we see
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The water swell before a boist'rous storm :But leave it all to God."
The serene piety and resignation of this little scene, coming in contrast with the treason and cruelty with which the whole argument of the drama is fraught, is conceived in the full spirit of Shakespeare's prevailing philosophy.
He is also accustomed to introduce a character as a sort of chorus, to doetail the progress of events to his audience, as the choruses of the ancient tragedy were appointed to do. So in this; he has a short scene in the 3d Act, headed: "A Street-Enter a Scrivener,"
who says :
" Here is the indictment of the good Lord Hastings j
Which in a set hand fairly is engross'd,
That it may be to-day read o'er in Paul's
And mark how well the sequel hangs together.
Eleven hours I have spent to write it over,
For yesternight by Catesby was it sent to me.
The precedent was full as long a doing; ,
And yet within these five hours
Untainted, unexamined, free, at liberty.
Here's a good world the while I-Who is so gross
That cannot see this palpable device?
Yet who so bold, but says he sees it not ?
Bad is the world, and all will come to naught,
When such ill dealing must be seen in thought."
This slight passing scene appears to me accurately suggestive of the smothered feeling of indignation that boils in men's minds under a tyrannical dynasty; and, indeed, so well is this under-current of opinion depicted in the subordinate characters in Shakespeare's historical plays, that they ought in nowise to be omitted in the representation, since they form part of the perfect whole designed by the great master. He, no doubt, intended that the minds of the
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audience, while dazzled by the glare of romance and preeminence which surrounded the chief actors in life's drama, should at the same time be presented with the counterbalancing reflection of the ill effects produced upon the mass of the people during the transit of such fiery meteors.
End of Page 471
End of Chapter on Richard III