the end of the drama) hangs over the heads of Lady Grey and her family, because they had allowed themselves to be persuaded to assume a place in history, to which neither she nor her lineage possessed any right or qualification.

Accordingly, in all three parts we have a reflection of the same law, of the same conception of history, which again is but a modification of the fundamental theme of the whole trilogy; all the parts gather round one central point and arrange themselves into one great whole. At the end of the trilogy Richard, afterwards the Third, comes conspicuously into the foreground. He, the terribly consistent villain, wholly ignorant of pity, love, and fear, an outcast of nature, and born to be an executioner, he it is who, in reality, alone remains in the possession of full and vigorous strength as the dregs of the antidote to the poisoned age- and introduces the last act of the great tragedy.

Let us again take a survey of the whole trilogy, the construction of which I have endeavoured to sketch. We have history represented in its degeneration into civil war, which is the consequence of the original disturbance of its course and of the general demoralisation which increases with it. This is the theme upon which the whole trily is based, and which exhibits the two sides of life according to Shakspeare's conception. The three parts then show the principal stages in the development of such a state of things. History, when so degenerate, first of all casts out those that are good and noble but who are nevertheless not wholly unaffected by the spirit of their age, and at the same time shows that the great and pure are not understood and that they cannot keep themselves entirely pure. This is exhibited in the First Part by the events belonging to it (and hence, because appropriate here only, Shakspeare introduces Talbot's death into this first part in violation of the laws of chronology). History then continues falling into a wild state of chaos, where right and wrong flow into one another and can no longer be distinguished, and consequently where the bad and the good, or, to speak more correctly, the bad and those that are less bad are drawn into the general vortex. This is the second stage

VOL. II.

T

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. 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.

But

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