WE have avoided any previous illustration of the history and character of Richard's queen, reserving a short notice for this Act, in which she occupies so interesting a position. Richard was twice married. His first wife, who was called the good Queen Anne, died in 1394. His second wife, the queen of this play, was Isabel, eldest daughter of Charles VI., of France. When Richard espoused her, on the 31st of October, 1396, she was but eight years old. The alliance with France gave the greatest dissatisfaction in England, and was one amongst the many causes of Richard's almost general unpopularity. Froissart mentions Richard's obstinacy in this matter with great naïveté: "It is not pleasant to the realm of England that he should marry with France, and it hath been shewed him that the daughter of France is over young, and that this five or six year she shall not be able to keep him company; thereto he hath answered and saith, that she shall grow right well in age." Isabel was espoused at Paris, by proxy. Froissart says, "as I was informed, it was a goodly sight to see her behaviour: for all that she was but young, right pleasantly she bare the port of a queen." Isabel lived at Windsor, under the care of Lady de Coucy: but this lady was dismissed for her extravagance, and an Englishwoman, Lady Mortimer, succeeded her in the charge. It appears from the Metrical History that Richard was very much attached to her. In his lamentations in Conway Castle he uses these passionate expressions: "My mistress and my consort! accursed be the man, little doth he love us, who thus shamefully separateth us two. I am dying of grief because of it. My fair sister, my lady, and my sole desire. Since I am robbed of the pleasure of beholding thee, such pain and affliction oppresseth my whole heart, that, ofcentimes, I am hard upon despair. Alas! Isabel, rightful daughter of France, you were wont to be my joy, my hope, and my consolation; I now plainly see, that through the great violence of fortune, which hath slain many a man, I must wrongfully be removed from you." When we observe, that Froissart describes the girl of eight years old, as deporting herself right pleasantly as a queen, and read of the lamentations of Richard for their separation, as described by one who witnessed them, we may consider that there was an historical as well as a dramatic propriety in the character which Shakspere has drawn of her. In the garden scene at Langley we have scarcely more elevation of character than might belong to a precocious girl. In one part, however, of the last scene with Richard, we have the majesty of the high-minded woman; "What, is my Richard both in shape and mind Transform'd and weaken'd? Hath Bolingbroke Depos'd thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?' " The poet, however, had an undoubted right to mould his materials to his own purpose. Daniel, in his descriptive Poem of the Civil Wars, which approaches to the accuracy of a chronicle, makes "the young affected queen" a much more prominent personage than Shakspere does. These are her words, as she witnesses the procession of Richard and Bolingbroke in imaginary situation altogether: "And yet, dear lord, though thy ungrateful land I do remain the same, under thy hand; Poor Isabel was sent back to France; and there she became, a second time, the victim of a state alliance, being married to the eldest son of the Duke of Orleans, who was only nine years old. Her younger sister became the wife of our Henry V. The writer of the Metrical History appears to have conceived a violent suspicion of Aumerle and of all his proceedings. He represents him as the treacherous cause of Richard's detention in Ireland; and. in the conspiracy of the Abbot of Westminster and the other lords, he is described as basely becoming privy to their designs, that he might betray them to Henry IV. Shakspere's version of the story is the more dramatic one, which is given by Holinshed. "This Earl of Rutland departing before from Westminster, to see his father the Duke of York, as he sat at dinner had his counterpart of the indenture of the confederacy in his bosom. The father, espying it, would needs see what it was: and though the son humbly denied to shew it, the father being more earnest to see it, by force took it out of his bosom, and, perceiving the contents thereof, in a great rage caused his horses to be saddled out of hand, and spitefully reproving his son of treason, for whom he was become surety and mainpernour for his good bearing in open parliament, he incontinently mounted on horseback to ride towards Windsor to the king, to declare to him the malicious intent of his son and his accomplices. The Earl of Rutland, seeing in what danger he stood, took his horse and rode another way to Windsor, in post, so that he got thither before his father, and when he was alighted at the castle-gate, he caused the gates to be shut, saying, that he must needs deliver the keys to the king. When he came before the king's presence, he kneeled down on his knees, beseeching him of mercy and forgiveness, and declaring the whole matter unto him in order as every thing had passed; obtained pardon; and therewith came his father, and, being let in, delivered the indenture which he had taken from his son, unto the king; who thereby perceiving his son's words to be true, changed his purpose for his going to Oxford, and dispatched messengers forth to signify unto the Earl of Northumberland his high constable, and to the Earl of Westmoreland his high marshal, and to others his assured friends, of all the doubtful danger and perilous jeopardy." The death of Richard the Second, is one of those historical mysteries which, perhaps, will never be cleared up. The story which Shakspere has adopted, of his assassination by Sir Piers of Exton and his followers, was related by Caxton in his addition to Hygden's Polycronicon; was copied by Fabyan, and, of course, found its way into Holinshed. The honest old compiler, however, notices the other stories-that he died either by compulsory famine or by voluntary pining. Caxton borrowed his account, it is supposed, from a French manuscript in the royal library at Paris, written by a partisan of Richard. In his Chronicle, printed two years before the additions to the Polycronicon, Caxton takes no notice of the story of the assassination by Sir Piers of Exton; but says "He was enfamined unto the death by his keeper, yet much people in England, and in other lands, said, that he was alive many year after his death," It is a remarkable confirmation of the belief that Richard did not die by the wounds of a battle-axe, that when his tomb was opened in Westminster Abbey, some years since, his skull was found uninjured. Thomas of Walsingham, who was living at the time of Richard's death, relates that the unhappy captive voluntarily starved himself. His body was removed to the Tower, where it was publicly exhibited. The story of his voluntary starvation is, however, doubtful; that of his violent assassination seems altogether apocryphal. In an important document, whose publication we owe to Sir Henry Ellisthe manifesto of the Percies against Henry the Fourth, issued just before the battle of Shrewsbury -Henry is distinctly charged with having caused Richard to perish from hunger, thirst, and cold, after fifteen days and nights of sufferings unheard of among Christians. Two years afterwards Archbishop Scroop repeats the charge; but he adds, what unquestionably weakens its force, "ut vulgariter dicitur." There is one other story which has formed the subject of a very curious controversy, but which it would be out of place here to detail-that espoused by Mr. Tytler -that Richard escaped, and lived nineteen years in Scotland. The various arguments for and against this incredible tale may be found in a paper, by the late amiable and accomplished Lord Dover, read before the Royal Society of Literature. The conflicting evidence as to the causes of Richard's death in Pomfret Castle is very ably detailed by Mr. Amyot, in the 20th volume of the Archæologia. The prisonscene in Shakspere will, perhaps, more than any accredited relation, continue to influence the popular belief; and yet, on the other hand, we have the beautiful passage in Gray's Bard, to support the less dramatic story : "Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm ; That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening prey. Fill high the sparkling bowl, The rich repast prepare, Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast: Fell thirst and famine scowl A baleful smile upon their baffled guest." The body of Richard was brought to London; and, being publicly exposed, was removed to Langley for interment. Henry V., who appears always to have cherished a generous regard for the memory of the unfortunate king, caused it to be removed in great state to Westminster Abbey. WE scarcely know how to approach this drama, even for the purpose of a simple analysis. We are almost afraid to trust our own admiration, when we turn to the cold criticism by which opinion in this country has been wont to be governed. We have been told, that it cannot "be said much to affect the passions or enlarge the understanding." It may be so. And yet, we think, it might somewhat "affect the passions,--"for "gorgeous tragedy" hath here put on her "scepter'd pall," and if she bring not Terror in her train, Pity. at least, claims the sad story for her own. And yet it may somewhat " enlarge the understanding,"-for though it abound not in those sententious moralities which may fitly adorn "a theme at school," it lays bare more than one human bosom with a most searching anatomy; and, in the moral and intellectual strength and weakness of humanity, which it discloses with as much precision as the scalpel reveals to the student of our physical nature the symptoms of health or disease, may we read the proximate and final causes of this world's success or loss, safety or danger, honour or disgrace, elevation or ruin. And then, moreover, the profound truths which, half-hidden to the careless reader, are to be drawn out from this drama, are contained in such a splendid frame-work of the picturesque and the poetical, that the setting of the jewel almost distracts our attention from the jewel itself. We are here plunged into the midst of the fierce passions and the gorgeous pageantries of the antique time. We not only enter the halls and galleries, where is hung "Armoury of the invincible knights of old," but we see the beaver closed, and the spear in rest :-under those cuirasses are hearts knocking against the steel with almost more than mortal rage: the banners wave, the trumpets soundheralds and marshals are ready to salute the victor- but the absolute king casts down his warder, and the anticipated triumph of one proud champion must end in the unmerited disgrace of both. The transition is easy from the tourney to the battle-field. A nation must bleed that a subject may be avenged. A crown is to be played for, though The luxurious lord, "Tumultuous wars Shall kin with kin, and kind with kind confound." "That every day under his household roof perishes in a dungeon; the crafty usurper sits upon his throne, but it is undermined by the hatreds even of those who placed him on it. Here is, indeed, "a kingdom for a stage." And has the greatest of poets dealt with such a subject, without affecting the passions, or enlarging the understanding? No. No. Away with this. We will trust our own admiration. It is a sincere pleasure to us to introduce our remarks upon the Richard II. by some acute and * Johnson. just observations upon Shakspere's historical plays in general from a French source. The following passage is from the forty-ninth volume of the "Dictionnaire de la Conversation et de la Lecture.” Paris, 1838.) The article bears the signature of Philarète Chasles : "This poet, so often sneered at as a frantic and barbarous writer, is, above all, remarkable for a judgment so high, so firm, so uncompromising, that one is almost tempted to impeach his coldness, and to find in this impassible observer something that may be almost called cruel towards the human race. In the historical pieces of Shakspere, the picturesque, rapid, and vehement genius which has produced them, seems to bow before the superior law of a judgment almost ironical in its clear-sightedness. Sensibility to impressions, the ardent force of imagination, the eloquence of passion-these brilliant gifts of nature, which would seem destined to draw a poet beyond all limits, are subordinated in this extraordinary intelligence to a calm and almost deriding sagacity, which pardons nothing and forgets nothing. Thus, the dramas of which we speak are painful as real history. Eschylus exhibits to us Fate hovering over the world; Calderon opens to us heaven and hell as the last words of the enigma of life; Voltaire renders his drama an instrument for asserting his own peculiar doctrines;-but Shakspere seeks his Fate in the hearts of men, and when he makes us see them so capricious, so bewildered, so irresolute, he teaches us to contemplate, without surprise, the untoward events and sudden changes of fortune. In the purely poetical dramas to which this great poet has given so much verisimilitude, we console ourselves in believing that the evils which he paints are imaginary, and that their truth is but general. But the dramatic chronicles which Shakspere has sketched are altogether real. There we behold irrevocable evilswe see the scenes that the world has seen, and the horrors that it has suffered. The more the details that accompany these events are irresistible in their truth, the more they grieve us. The more the author is impartial, the more he wounds and overpowers us. This employment of his marvellous talent is in reality a profound satire upon what we are, upon what we shall be, upon what we were." It is this wonderful subjection of the poetical power to the higher law of truth-to the poetical truth, which is the highest truth, comprehending and expounding the historical truth-which must furnish the clue to the proper understanding of the drama of Richard II. It appears to us, that when the poet first undertook "to ope The purple testament of bleeding war," to unfold the roll of the causes and consequences of that usurpation of the house of Lancaster which plunged three or four generations of Englishmen in bloodshed and misery-he approached the subject with an inflexibility of purpose as totally removed as it was possible to be from the levity of a partisan. There were to be weighed in one scale the follies, the weaknesses, the crimes of Richard-the injuries of Bolingbroke the insults which the capricious despotism of the king had heaped upon his nobles-the exactions under which the people groaned-the real merits and the popular attributes of him who came to redress and to repair. In the other scale were to be placed, the afflictions of fallen greatness-the revenge and treachery by which the fall was produced-the heart-burnings and suspicions which accompany every great revolution-the struggles for power which ensue when the established and legitimate authority is thrust from its seat.-All these phases, personal and political, of a deposition and an usurpation, Shakspere has exhibited with that marvellous impartiality which the French writer whom we have quoted has well described. The political impartiality is so remarkable that, during the time of Elizabeth, the deposition scene was neither acted nor printed, lest it should give occasion to the enemies of legitimate succession to find examples for the deposing of a monarch. Going forward into the spirit of another age, during the administration of Walpole, the play, in 1738. had an unusual success, principally because it contained many passages which seemed to point to the then supposed corruption of the court; and, on this occasion, a letter published in the "Craftsman," in which many lines of the play were thus applied to the political topics of the times, was the subject of state prosecution. The statesmen of Elizabeth and of George II. were thus equally in fear of the popular tendencies of this history. On the other hand, when Richard, speaking dramatically in his own person, says,— "Not all the water in the rough rude sea terms; The breath of worldly men cannot depose The deputy elected by the Lord,"— Dr. Johnson rejoicingly says,-"Here is the doctrine of indefeasible right expressed in the strongest but our poet did not learn it in the reign of James, to which it is now the practice of all writers whose opinions are regulated by fashion or interest, to impute the original of every tenet which they have been taught to think false or foolish." Again, when the Bishop of Carlisle, in the deposition scene, exclaims, "And shall the figure of God's majesty, His captain, steward, deputy elect, Johnson remarks, "Here is another proof that our author did not learn in King James' court HIS elerated notions of the right of kings. I know not any flatterer of the Stuarts who has expressed this doctrine in much stronger terms." Steevens adds that Shakspere found the speech in Holinshed, and that "the politics of the historian were the politics of the poet." The contrary aspects which this play has thus presented to those who were political partisans is a most remarkable testimony to Shakspere's political impartiality. He appears to us as if he, "apart, sat on a hill retired," elevated far above the temporary opinions of his own age, or of succeeding ages. His business is with universal humanity, and not with a fragment of it. He is, indeed, the poet of a nation in his glowing and genial patriotism, but never the poet of a party. Perhaps, the most eloquent speech in this play is that of Gaunt, beginning "This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle." It is full of such praise of our country as, taken apart from the conclusion, might too much pamper the pride of a proud nation. But the profound impartiality of the master-mind comes in at the close of this splendid description, to shew us that all these glories must be founded upon just government. It is in the same lofty spirit of impartiality which governs the general sentiments of this drama, that Shakspere has conceived the mixed character of Richard. Sir Joshua Reynolds in his admirable Discourses-(a series of compositions which present the example of high criticism upon the art of painting, when the true principles of criticism upon poetry were neglected or misunderstood)—has properly reprobated "the difficulty as well as danger, in an endeavour to concentrate in a single subject those various powers, which, rising from different points, naturally move in different directions." He says, with reference to this subject, “Art has its boundaries, though imagination has none.” Here is the great line of distinction between poetry and painting. Painting must concentrate all its power upon the representation of one action, one expression, in the same person. The range of poetry is as boundless as the diversities of character in the same individual. Sir Joshua Reynolds has, however, properly laughed at those principles of criticism which would even limit the narrow range of pictorial expression to conventional, and therefore hackneyed, forms. He quotes a passage from Du Piles, as an example of the attempt of a false school of criticism to substitute the "pompous and laboured insolence of grandeur" for that dignity which, "seeming to be natural and inherent, draws spontaneous reverence." "If you draw persons of high character and dignity" (says Du Piles), "they ought to be drawn in such an attitude, that the portraits must seem to speak to us of themselves, and, as it were, to say to us, 'Stop, take notice of me, I am that invincible king, surrounded by Majesty :' 'I am that valiant commander who struck terror everywhere:' 'I am that great minister, who knew all the springs of politics:' 'I am that magistrate of consummate wisdom and probity.'" Now, this is absurd enough as regards the painter; but, absurd as it is, in its limited application, it is precisely the same sort of reasoning that the French critics in the time of Voltaire, and the English who caught the infection of their school, applied to the higher range of the art of Shakspere. The criticism of Dr. Johnson, for example, upon the character of Richard II. is, for the most part, a series of such mistakes. He misinterprets Shakspere's delineation of Richard, upon a preconceived theory of his Thus he says, in a note to the second scene in the third Act, where Richard for a moment appears resigned, own. "To bear the tidings of calamity," "It seems to be the design of the poet to raise Richard to esteem in his fall, and, consequently, to |