Siddons-let us consider how much we have to thank them for attaining-and it will strike us that we shall sin far less in being "to their faults a little blind," than we should in withholding from them our cordial acknowledgments for rendering to us so much of what is most delightful in the most delicate beings of the poet's creation. And the greater the variety of powers in the actress, the more should this feeling be deepened in our hearts. Some few weeks ago, for instance, we beheld the same young performer who, the very evening before, had shaken us with the passionate indignation, melted and thrilled us with the awfully beautiful despair, of Constance of Bretagne, in that stately historic play, infuse into the part of Rosalind all the tender though lively grace which the poet has made its principal attribute and most exquisite attraction-breathing the soul of elegance, wit, and feeling, through that noble forest pastoral. Reflecting upon this, we said to ourselves, Truly there is something in female genius and female energy-something worthy of Shakespeare-worthy to be cherished with the holiest of all sacred feelings, that of affectionate veneration.

As the historical play of King John,' produced by Mr. Macready with so much care and magnificence, has occupied so large a place among the performances of the present season, we shall, in pursuance of the course we have indicated, devote one or two following papers to the characters of the three royal ladies in that richly various drama, Constance of Bretagne, Elinor of Guienne, and Blanch of Castilenot quite forgetting the Lady Faulconbridge, "whose fault was not her folly." In the course of this, as of all our subsequent examinations, while freely acknowledging such indications as we may derive, either from Hazlitt's Characters,' or from Mrs. Jameson's work, we shall point out with equal freedom those instances in which it shall appear to us that either the deceased or the living critic has formed an erroneous or imperfect conception of their common subject.

In her elaborate consideration of the character of The Lady Constance, Mrs. Jameson falls somewhat into the error which has constantly, more or less, been committed in treating of Shakespeare's historical plays-that of failing to consider, not only the composition of each drama on the whole, but the conception and developement of every character in it, primarily and independently with relation to dramatic art, and without any regard whatever to real or alleged departures from the literal or even the substantial truth of history. Unless this point of view be steadily maintained by the critic in forming his dramatic judgment, his opinions will, at every moment, be liable to fall into inconsistency and injustice. A very little reflection should have sufficed to shew any commentator the preposterousness of dragging Shakespeare, the dramatist-the dramatist transcendently and exclusively-to the bar of historical criticisma kind of procedure which, in the following observations, we shall studiously avoid.

The subject of the piece before us, then, is not so much 'The Life and Death of King John,' as it is the

triumph of right, and justice, and feeling, and beauty, and poetry, for all time, in the universal heart of mankind, over the very meanness, selfishness, and crime, which oppress and crush them for the hour. Whatever doubts might exist at the historic period in question, as to the validity of young Arthur's title to the crown of England, any such doubtful title would have been little to the purpose of the dramatist; and accordingly we find, in the play, that Arthur's claim and John's usurpation are regarded by all parties as clear and indisputable. In the very opening of the piece,

Your strong possession, much more than your right,
Or else it must go wrong with you and me,

says John's mother, Queen Elinor, assuredly his warmest and staunchest partisan. This clearness of Arthur's title cannot be overlooked for a moment, without essentially perverting and weakening the interest which the poet has attached to the position as well as character of the widowed mother, Constance of Bretagne. Nor is it Shakespeare's fault if the reader or spectator fail to be forcibly reminded of this fact, at numerous intervals throughout the play. Among the most remarkable of these instances are the passages to that effect in those ruminating speeches of Faulconbridge (the most intelligent as well as devoted and spirited of John's adherents) which form, as it were, the chorus of the tragedy. Thus, when moralising on the peace patched up between the two kings by the marriage of Blanch to the Dauphin, he speaks of the French monarch as one

whose armour conscience buckled on,
Whom zeal and charity brought to the field,
As God's own soldier;

and adds that this "commodity," this self-interest, against which the speaker is railing,

Hath drawn him from his own determin'd aid,
From a resolv'd and honourable war,

To a most base and vile-concluded peace.

Again, at the close of the fourth act, over the dead body of Arthur, addressing Hubert, he says

Go, bear him in thine arms.

How easy dost thou take all England up!
From forth this morsel of dead royalty,

The life, the right, and truth, of all this realm
Is fled to heaven.

It is in tracing the course of the retribution upon John, political and personal, as a usurper and a murderer, brought upon him by those unscrupulous means which he had taken to prevent it, that the interest of the concluding act resides, and the satisfaction which it affords to the feelings of the auditor.

So far, then, from representing either Arthur or his mother as ambitious, the poet, in legitimate pursuit of his dramatic object, has studiously excluded from view every historical circumstance that could countenance the smallest impression of that nature. He has not only reduced the prince's age to such tender years as would hardly admit of his harbouring a political sentiment; but, in direct opposition to the recorded facts, represents the boy as one of a peculiarly mild and quiet temper, devoid of all princely airs and all appetite for command-simple-hearted, meek, and affectionate. He weeps at the violent scene produced by his mother's meeting with Queen Elinor, and exclaims,

Good my mother, peace!

I would that I were low laid in my grave;

I am not worth this coil that's made for me.

Again, to his mother's violent grief at hearing of the accommodation between the two kings, he says,

I do beseech you, madam, be content.

And again, in "his innocent prate" to his keeper
Hubert,

So I were out of prison, and kept sheep,
I should be merry as the day is long, &c.

C

Is it not plain that this very inoffensiveness is designed by the dramatist to place in the stronger light the clearness of Arthur's title, as the exclusive reason for his uncle's hostility, at the same time that it deepens so wonderfully the pathos of the scene wherein he pleads for the preservation of his eyes? Another element of this pathos is, the exceeding beauty which the poet has ascribed to the princely boy, which is made to affect the hearts of all who approach him, even the rudest of his uncle's creatures, and gives to this only orphan child the crowning endearment to his widowed mother's heart.

That mother herself, it is most important to observe and to bear in mind, whatever she was in history, is not represented by the poet as courting power for its own sake. Had he so represented her, it would have defeated one of those fine contrasts of character in which Shakespeare so much delighted—that between Constance and Elinor, which is perfect in every way. The whole conduct and language of Constance in the piece, shew that her excessive fondness for her son, and that alone, makes her so eagerly desire the restitution of his lawful inheritance. She longs to see this one sole, and beautiful, and gracious object of her maternal idolatry, placed on the pedestal of grandeur which is his birthright, that she may idolize it more fondly still

Thou and thine usurp

The domination, royalties and rights
Of this oppressed boy.

Such is her defiance to Elinor. Still more strikingly unfolded is the entire subordination, in the breast of Constance, of all ambitious view, to the concentrated feelings of the doting mother, in the well-known address to Arthur, when her sworn friends have betrayed her:

If thou, that bidst me be content, wert grim,
Ugly and slanderous to thy mother's womb,

I would not care, I then would be content;