his loyalty are undermined and destroyed "by false and meta. physical aid." The former needs no prompter; it is his resistless passions, and his love of evil for its own sake, as it were, which make him wade through a series of crimes to the attainment of his ambitious object. If he is ever gay and cheerful, it is at the prospect of some diabolical deed to be done, or at the joy of its accomplishment when it is done. Not so with Macbeth; he is full of dread at the idea of murdering his sovereign, and he is torn with remorse of conscience when the crime is perpetrated. In Richard there is nothing of the man, he is a fiend, with no tie binding him to his fellow-creatures; he has no connection with others," he is himself alone." On the contrary, Macbeth is not entirely destitute of the common feelings of humanity; there is some sympthy and pity in his composition; he is fond-even over-fond-of his wife; he has some regard for his friends, and for his own good name, and considers the loss of these as making him sick of life. Of course he becomes more hardened the deeper he rushes into wickedness, "direness is thus made familiar to his slaughterous thoughts," and at length he even anticipates his wife in the boldness and bloodiness of his undertakings, whereas she, for lack of the same spring of action, is "troubled with thick-coming fancies," she is sick-walks in her sleep goes mad-dies. Macbeth will not think of his crimes, he drives away from his thoughts their consequences, and when fully accomplished in guilt, he banishes remorse for the past (he could not do it at first) by plotting future mischiefs. This is not the principle of Richard's cruelty and other vices, it seems rather to belong to a devil than to arise from any frailty of human nature. Macbeth is urged on (or is willing to fancy that he is) by necessity; Richard's very pastime, his food, his everything, is blood and slaughter. Moreover, we may regard Richard as a man of the world, a villain entirely regardless of everything but his own ends, and the means necessary for their accomplishment. Not so Macbeth; the rude condition of society, the superstitions of the period at which he lived, the scenery and customs of the country, all give a certain degree of wildness and grandeur to his character. Strange events surround him, and he is not insensible to them, they fill him with fear and wonder; and he is at a loss which to believe most, the world of reality or that of fancy, the visible or the invisible. His eyes see things unused to mortal sight, his ears hear unearthly music, all is tumult and horror within and without his soul. In thought he is absent and perplexed; in action he is present and desperate; his intentions recoil upon himself, and in spite of him they are undone his passions and his destiny are both against him; his ambition has taken him to the brink, and there irresistible might dashes him down and destroys him. But Richard is not such as this; his is a character of pure will and passion; not for a moment does he forget himself; there is no conflict of opposing sentiments in his breast. Macbeth lives in a waking dream. Does Richard see terrible visions? he does, but it is in his sleep, and when he awakes he shakes them off as unworthy of him.

In thus powerfully delineating the character of Richard, Shakspeare

has-perhaps intentionally, that it may stand in a stronger reliefthrown all his other personages into the shade; they are before us, indeed, but reflected only, as it were, from his mirror, and become more or less important as they are acted on by him. There is one exception to this in the person of Queen Margaret; she stands apart from the agency of the tyrant, dimly seen in the darkest recesses of the picture, and thence she pours forth, in unison with the deep tone of the tragedy, the most dreadful curses and imprecations on all who have thwarted her; so wildly and prophetically does she utter them, that they involve the whole scene in tenfold gloom and horror. Richard is the soul, or rather the demon of the whole tragedy; but in the background, the widowed and childless queen stands forth as the fury of the past, and invokes a curse on the future and too truly is her curse accomplished; one after another her enemies fall before her, and the fall of each, drawing down one another with it, is a grateful cordial to her revengeful heart.

KING RICHARD III.

ACT I

SCENE I.-London. A Street.

Enter GLOSTER.

Glo. Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;1
And all the clouds that lower'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings;
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds,2
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 shap'd for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass ;-
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;—
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,1
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable

(1) This sun of York. At the battle of Mortimer's Cross, which Edward IV. gained over the Lancastrians, three suns, it is said, appeared in the sky: in memory of which he adopted a Sun as his cognizance.

(2) Barbed steeds, i. e. steeds adorned with military trappings.

(3) He capers. There is some doubt here as to the antecedent: from the position of the words it must be War which capers; Dr. Johnson thinks so, remarking that if it is York who is intended, the antecedent is so far off, that it is nearly forgotten.

(4) Dissembling nature here means deceitful, fraudful nature, who has given me a deformed body but a brave soul.

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 see 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,1
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 just2
As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,
About a prophecy, which says that G

Of Edward's heirs the murtherer shall be.

Dive, thoughts, down to my soul! here Clarence comes.
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 should be new christen'd 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 toys3 as these,
Have mov'd his highness to commit me now.

Glo. Why, this it is when men are rul'd by women:

(1) Inductions dangerous. This means preparations for mischief and danger. (2) Be as true and just, i. e. if he keep his word.

(3) Toys, i. e. idle and whimsical freaks of fancy.