of which we have a representation in the Second Part. Having arrived at this climax, history demands that man shall not interfere with its course, and refrain from having any determination of his own, and that he shall leave all action to that man whom it has itself chosen to restore order. It therefore punishes every uncalled-for interference as unauthorised presumption, whereas the submissive spirit is inwardly exalted and glorified through suffering and death. This is the thought which connects the events of the Third Part into an organic unity.

CHAPTER X.

RICHARD III.

THE fifth act of the great tragedy, that is, the play of King Richard III.' will not require a long discussion, for the significance of the piece is clear from our previous disquisition, and the celebrated character of Richard has been discussed, criticised, and examined from so many points of view, that I have but little to add. Hazlitt, also, who, after Coleridge, is one of England's best æsthetic critics, merely analyses the characters, and speaks incidentally of the great actor, Edward Kean. I shall, therefore, leave the reader to collect what is best from the chief commentators and critics.*

But I must here observe that however successful and lifelike, however many-sided and extraordinary a character may be, it cannot of itself constitute a dramatic work of art. Characterisation is but one particular function of dramatic poetry; it is very important, but still not the first and highest object. It stands in the same relation to the entire organism as a portrait to an historical painting. In the latter every figure ought to be a living portrait full of individual reality, but receives its true significance only from its position and from its relation to the other figures; accordingly, the interaction of the several parts among one another, and their cooperation in the action represented, gives the picture its historical character. It is precisely the same with a dramatic composition, because it is so in real life. When viewed in this

My German readers I refer to Rötscher, Vischer and Gervinus, but more especially to W. Oechelhäuser, who (Jahrb. d. D. Shakspeare Gesellschaft, vol. iii.) has recently most thoroughly examined the character of Richard III. from all points, and not merely as he stands n the drama which bears his name, but also as he appears in the two last parts of Henry VI.

'I am

light, 'Richard III.' might seem open to censure. myself alone' is his spell-word, and, like a sudden flash of light, reveals not only the character of Richard himself, but that of the whole drama. As in life so in the play, he in reality stands alone. All the other personages (chiefly women and children, or single subjects) are in no way his equals, and are powerless against the whole royal power which is on his side. The destructive force of his tyrrany, the violence of his unmitigated selfishness and wickedness, accompanied as they are by intellect, wit, and eloquence, have no organic counterpoise. On the one side we have only power and energy, on the other only submission and impotence. The principle of interaction, which is so important in life and in history, retires far into the background; not till the fifth act is the tyrant opposed by a real and worthy adversary in the person of Richmond. Accordingly, the drama is wanting in drastic animation; the action (that which is actually done or which happens) proceeds but slowly compared with others of Shakspeare's plays, and what does happen suffers from an internal uniformity; it is ever but the consequence of the same oppressive tyranny, ever the same victory of the same power, by the same means.

*

However, on the one hand, it must be remembered the nature of tyranny is outward peace, i. e., rigidity and uniformity, the unnatural accumulation of all the weight

*In spite of Oechelhäuser's counter-observations, I must maintain this objection against the economy of the drama, although it is perfectly accounted for by the nature of the subject, and therefore loses in weight. Oechelhäuser (l. c.) has only proved that we have a contrast to the prominent figure of Richard, not only in Margaret and the old Duchess of York, but also in the carefully finished and excellently described characters of Queen Elizabeth, Buckingham and Stanley. I do not at all dispute this, in fact, perfectly agree with his exhaustive and ingenious discussions, especially on the character of Queen Elizabeth. But this is not the point in question; my objection to the want of an appropriate counterpoise to Richard, does not refer to the characters contrasted to him or to their delineation and significance, but to the action and its course. In this respect it can hardly be denied that all of the above-named persons (except Stanley, who, in the battle at the end of the play, goes over to Richmond's side, neither act, nor are capable of accomplishing anything against Richard, because they are not his equals in intellect, power of will, or energy, nor have they the necessary means of opposing him.

in the one scale, want of organic interaction and co-operation in the several parts, and hence the highest stage of decay in the organism of the state; and this was necessarily the consequence of a period like that of the reign of Henry VI. It is the description of the nature of tyranny that forms the historical significance of the whole drama, and here, as everywhere, the truly historical conception coincides with the truly poetical character of the representation. Therefore, on the other hand, it cannct be denied that the poet, by this very artistic defect, has contrived to render the meaning of the whole the more vivid, the clearer and the more forcible. Tyranny is the historico-political phenomenon of selfishness in its worst form, i.e. reckless love of dominion which tramples upon all rights and all laws, as well as upon all human ties; hence it is evil in its highest possible consummation. The individual I arrogates to itself the full dominion over all the powers of the mind, over all worldly possessions, and over the weal and woe in the life of all others; the individual man, with his finite power, presumes not only to direct a whole nation and its fate, but to be its fate himself. This is the meaning of Richard's words, I am myself alone,' the motto of the perfect tyrant, and it at the same time expresses his full, clear consciousness of his own nature. Richard is quite aware that he is a tyrant, he knows it, and wills it; this was required by Shakspeare's view of life, which is far removed from the thought that man is a mere instrument in the hand of a higher power. This is the reason and significance of the reflections which Richard is perpetually making upon himself and his own nature, and which have been censured as unnatural. But such soliloquies essentially belong to the character of a tyrant, according to the conception of modern times; Richard soliloquises in order to gain a clear insight into his own nature, his vocation, his aims, plans and actions, for, in his weird loneliness, he cannot hold communion with others.

In fact, the character of Richard and its development is, so to say, but the exposition of the nature of tyranny; we have a direct representation of its general character in a particular and individual form. The drama, accord

ingly, opens with. Richard announcing his intention to acquire supreme power, and with the account of the means he employs, and the paths he pursues in order to attain his object. But this endeavour does not proceed only from Richard's ambition and love of dominion, but likewise from his demoniacal desire to give forcible evidence of his power over mankind and circumstances, it proceeds from the demoniacal pleasure he finds in proving it. The endeavour arose in the dark depths of the fearful gulf by which he feels himself separated from, and at enmity with all the rest of humanity, owing to his in-born deformity, his in-born disposition and powers, wants and desires, in short, owing to his very nature which he regards as unalterable. And the more readily he succeeds in carrying out his intentions, the broader the gulf becomes, because the greater becomes his contempt for humanity. This contempt and this pleasure explains the peculiar irony, the diabolical humour with which Richard suns himself in his own actions, and which seasons his sarcastic remarks on life and mankind. He attains his object, partly because the historical circumstances themselves are hurrying towards tyranny, partly because he pursues it with penetrating shrewdness, with the craftiest hypocrisy and deception, and with an energy as great as it is reckless, which heaps crime upon crime and is undeterred by any consequences. The impassable gulf between him and the rest of humanity, as it were, makes him an absolute exception, for every one commits crimes only among and upon his equals. Richard's chief means in accomplishing his purpose, is his in-born talent for dissembling, his skill in concealing his endeavours and intentions beneath the mask of an honest, frank, conscientious and God-fearing man, who is indeed not always master of his emotions and passions, yet who always repents their outbursts and consequences. This skill in dissembling, together with its sister-talent sophistry, he makes use of in the most masterly fashion in order to justify himself, and falsely to deceive himself,-in this he is again the type of a true tyrant and consummate villain. For the root of all evil lies in deceiving the sophistic reason, which perverts