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from her husband's weakness, and the moral distemper of the times.

The dramatic character of Margaret, whether as transpiring at court or in the field, is sustained at the same high pitch throughout. Afflictions do but open in her breast new founts of embitterment : her speech is ever teeming with the sharp answer that engenders wrath; and out of every wound issues the virulence that is sure to provoke another blow. And even in the next play, when she is stripped of arms and instruments, so that her thoughts can no longer be embodied in acts, for this very cause her energies concentrate themselves more and more in words: she talks with the greater power and effect, for that she can do nothing else; and her eloquence, while retaining all its point and fluency, waxes the more formidable, that it is the only organ she has left of her will. So that she still appears the same high-grown, wide-branching tree, rendered leafless indeed, and therefore all the fitter for the blasts of heaven to howl and whistle through.

Much might be said by way of explaining how, in the drama, the union of Henry and Margaret has the effect of making them both more and more what they ought not to be; his doing too little evermore stimulating her activity, and her doing too much as constantly opiating his. And by their endeavoring thus to repair each other's excess, that excess is not only heightened in itself, but rendered on both sides more mischievous in its effects, forasmuch as it practically inverts the relation between them: her energy cannot make up for his imbecility, because in either case the quality does not fit the person. For in seeking to make his place good she only displaces both herself and him, and, of course, the more she does out of her place, the more she undoes her cause. All which shows that in such matters it is often of less consequence what is done, than by whom, and how; for the simple reason that the issue depends not so much on the form of the act, as on the manner in which it is viewed by those to whom it refers. Finally, if any one think that Margaret's ferocity is strained up to a pitch incompatible with her sex, and unnecessary for the occasion; perhaps it will be deemed a sufficient answer, that the spirit of such a war could scarce be dramatically conveyed without the presence of a fury, and that the Furies have always been represented as females.

Warwick and Clifford are appropriate specimens of the old English feudal baronage in the height of its power and splendor; a class of men brave, haughty, turbulent, and rough, accustomed to wield the most despotic authority on their estates, and therefore spurning at legal restraint in their public capacity; and individually able, sometimes, to overawe and browbeat both king and parliament. In the play, however, we see little of their personal traits, these being, for the most part, lost in the common habits and sentiments of their order; not to mention that, in the collision of such steel-clad champions, individual features are apt to be kept out of sight, and all distinctive tones are naturally drowned in the clash of arms. It is mainly what they stand for in the public action, that the drama concerns itself about, not those characteristic issues which are the proper elements of a personal acquaintance. Yet they are somewhat discriminated: Clifford is more fierce and special in his revenge, because more tender and warm in his affections; while Warwick is more free from particular hate, because his mind is more at ease in the magnitude of his power, and the feeling of his consequence. It is said that not less than thirty thousand persons lived daily at the tables of his different castles and manors. Add to this, that his hospitality was boundless, his dispositions magnificent, his manners captivating, his spirit frank, forthright, and undesigning, and it may well be conceived why his "housekeeping won the greatest favour of the commons," insomuch that, though but an earl in style, he could in effect force kings to reign as viceroys under him. Holinshed speaks of him thus: "Full fraught was this nobleman with good qualities right excellent and many, all which a certain natural grace did so far forth recommend, that with high and low he was in singular favor and good liking, so as, unsought-for it seemed, he grew able to command all alone." And his bearing in the play is answerable to the character that history assigns him; though it were to be wished, that in the doings of the king-maker the Poet had given us more taste of the individual man.

The representation of Suffolk in the Second Part might also be cited in disproof of Shakespeare's alleged bias to the Lancastrian side. Ambitious, unprincipled, impatient of every one's pride and purpose but his own, a thoroughpaced scoundrelism is depicted in him without mitigation or remorse. Yet if his dramatic character be compared with the worst that history has alleged concerning him, the portrait will probably appear to have rather the overcoloring of a young author aiming at effect, than the temperance and moderation of conscious strength. Generally, however, the Second Part and the Third are in effect a pretty fair revivification of history, in that they set before us an overgrown nobility, a giant race of iron-bound warriors, who being choked off from foreign conquest, and unused to the arts of peace, their high-strung energies got corrupted into fierce hatreds and revengeful passions; and they had no refuge from the gnawings of pride and ambition, but to struggle and fight at home for that distinction which they had been bred to anticipate by fighting abroad.

In the Second and Third Parts of Henry VI the character of Richard is set forth in the processes of development and formation; whereas in King Richard III we have little else than the working-out of his character as already formed. In Shakespeare's time the prevailing idea of Richard was derived from the History of his Life and Reign, put forth by Sir Thomas More, but supposed to have been partly written by Dr. John Morton, himself a part of the subject, who was afterwards Cardinal, Primate of England, and Lord Chancellor to Henry VII. More's History, as it is commonly called, was adopted by both Hall and Holinshed into their Chronicles. In that noble piece of composition the main features of the subject are digested and drawn together as follows:

"Richard, the third son, was in wit and courage equal with either of them, little of staturé, ill-featured of limbs, crookbacked, his left shoulder much higher than his right, hardfavored of visage; malicious, wrathful, envious, and from afore his birth ever froward. It is reported that he came into the world with the feet forward, and not untoothed; whether men of hatred report above the truth, or else that nature changed her course in his beginning, which in his life many things unnaturally committed. Free he was called of dispense, and somewhat above his power liberal: with large gifts he gat him unsteadfast friendship, for which he was fain to pill and spoil in other places, and gat him steadfast hatred. He was close and secret, a deep dissembler, lowly of countenance, arrogant of heart; outwardly companionable where he inwardly hated, not letting to kiss whom he thought to kill; despiteous and cruel, not for evil will always, but oftener for ambition, and either for the surety or increase of his estate." In another place he is spoken of thus: "His face was small, but such, that at the first aspect a man would judge it to savor and smell of malice, fraud, and deceit. When he stood musing, he would bite and chaw his nether lip; as who said, that his fierce nature in his cruel body always chafed, stirred, and was ever unquiet: besides that, the dagger which he ware he would, when he studied, with his hand pluck up and down in the sheath to the midst, never drawing it fully out." And elsewhere he is noted by the same writer as being inordinately fond of splendid and showy dress, thus evincing an intense craving to be "look'd on in the world;" to fill the eyes of men, and ride in triumph on their tongues.

It is evident that this furnished the matter and form of the Poet's conception; his character of Richard being little other than the historian's descriptive analysis reduced to dramatic life and expression. In accordance with Shakespeare's usual method, at our first meeting with Richard, in the Second Part, act v. sc. 1, is suggested the first principle and prolific germ out of which his action is mainly evolved. He is called "foul stigmatic," because the stigma set on his person is both to others the handiest theme of reproach, and to himself the most annoying; like a huge boil on a man's face, which, because of its unsightliness, is the point that his enemies see most, and, because of its soreness, strike first. And his personal deformity is regarded not only as the proper outshaping and physiognomy of a certain original malignity of soul, but as yielding the prime motive of his malignant dealing, in so far as this dealing proceeds from motive as distinguished from impulse; his shape having grown ugly because his spirit was bad, and his spirit growing worse because of his ugly shape. For his ill-looks invite reproach, and reproach quickens and heightens his malice; and because men hate to look on him, he therefore cares all the more to be looked on; and as his aspect repels admiration, he has no way to win it but by power, that so fear may compel what inclination denies. Thus experience generates in him a most inordinate lust of power; and the circumstantial impossibility of coming at this, save by crime, puts him upon such a course of intellectual training and practice as may enable him to commit crimes, and still avoid the consequences, thus reversing the natural proportion between success and desert.

And his extreme vanity naturally results in a morbid sensitiveness to any signs of neglect or scorn; and these terms being especially offensive and hurtful to himself, he therefore has the greater delight in venting them on others: as taunts and scoffs are a form of power which he feels most keenly, he thence grows to using them as an apt form whereby to make his power felt. For even so bad men naturally covet to be wielding upon others the causes and instruments of their own sufferings. Hence the bitterly sarcastic humor which Richard indulges so freely and with such prodigious effect; as in what he says to the Cliffords, at his first appearance in the play, and

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