Part 24

According to his custom, while borrowing whatever he pleased from Rowley, Shakspeare has added great beauties to his original, and has retained nearly all its errors. {301} Thus, Rowley supposed that it was the Duke of Austria who killed Richard Cœur-de-Lion, and at the same time he makes the Duke of Austria perish by the hand of Faulconbridge, an historical personage whom Matthew Paris mentions under the name of Falcasius de Breaute, the natural son of King Richard, and who, according to Holinshed, slew the Viscount of Limoges, in revenge for the death of his father, who, it is well known, was killed at the siege of Chaluz, a fortress belonging to that nobleman. In order to reconcile Holinshed's version with his own, Rowley has made Limoges the family name of the Duke of Austria, whom he designates as "Limoges, duke of Austria." Shakspeare has copied him exactly in this part of his story. He also attributes the murder of Richard to the Duke of Austria; in his play, also, the Duke of Austria falls by the hand of Faulconbridge; and, as regards the confusion of the two personages, it would appear that Shakspeare was as unscrupulous about it as Rowley, if we may judge from Constance's speech to the Duke of Austria in the first scene of the third act, in which she addresses him as "O Lymoges! O Austria!" The character of Faulconbridge is one of those creations of Shakspeare's genius in which we discover the nature of all times and of all countries. Faulconbridge is the true soldier, the soldier of fortune, personally recognizing no inflexible duty but that which he owes to the chief to whom he has devoted his life, and from whom he has received the rewards of his valor; and yet a stranger to none of those feelings upon which other duties are founded, and even obeying the instincts of natural rectitude whenever they do not come into contradiction with the vow of implicit fidelity and submission to which his existence, and even his conscience, is devoted. He will be humane, generous, and just, whenever this vow does not ordain him to practice inhumanity, injustice, and bad faith; he forms a correct judgment of the things to which he is subject, and is in error only regarding the necessity of subjecting himself to them. {302} He is as skillful as he is brave, and does not alienate his judgment while renouncing its guidance: he is a man of powerful nature, whom circumstances, and the necessity of employing his activity in some way or other, have reduced to a moral inferiority, from which a calmer disposition, and profounder reflections upon the true destination of man, would most probably have preserved him. But, with the fault of not having sought the objects of his fidelity and devotion in a sufficiently lofty sphere, Faulconbridge possesses the eminent merit of unchangeable fidelity and devotion, two singularly lofty virtues, both as regards the feeling from which they emanate and the great actions of which they may be the source. His language is, like his conduct, the result of a mixture of good sense and ardor of imagination, which frequently involves his reason in a jumble of words very natural to men of Faulconbridge's profession and character; being incessantly exposed to the shock of the most violent scenes and actions, they can not find in ordinary language the means of conveying the impressions which compose the habit of their life.

The general style of the play is less firm and decided in color than that of several other tragedies by the same poet; the contexture of the work is also rather vague and feeble, but this is the result of the absence of one leading idea, which should continually direct all the parts of the drama toward the same centre. The only idea of this kind which can be discerned in "King John" is the hatred of foreign dominion gaining the victory over the hatred of tyrannical usurpation. In order for this idea to be salient, and constantly to occupy the mind of the spectator, it would be necessary for it to be reproduced in every direction, and for every thing to contribute to give conspicuity to the misfortune of a conflict between the two feelings. {303} But this plan, which would be rather vast for a dramatic work, was, moreover, irreconcilable with the reserve which Shakspeare had imposed upon himself with regard to the character of the king; and thus a great part of the play is passed in discussions of but little interest, and in the remainder the events are not well arranged; the lords change sides too lightly, first on account of the death of Arthur, and afterward from motives of personal alarm, which does not present their return to the cause of England under a sufficiently honorable point of view. The poisoning of King John, moreover, is not prepared with that care which Shakspeare usually bestows upon the foundation and justification of the slightest circumstances in his dramas; and there is nothing to indicate the motive which could have led the monk to commit so desperate an action, as at that moment John was reconciled to Rome. The tradition from which Shakspeare has borrowed this apocryphal anecdote ascribes the monk's conduct to a desire to revenge an offensive epithet which the king had used regarding him. We can not tell what could have induced Shakspeare to adopt this story, which he has turned to so little account; perhaps he desired to mingle with John's last moments something of infernal suffering, without having recourse to remorse, which, in fact, would not have been in more accordance with the real character of this contemptible prince than with the modified delineation of it which the poet has supplied.

{304}

[Transcriber's note: Guizot presents a history of Richard II in "A Popular History of England, From the Earliest Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria", Volume I, Chapter XII. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/61647/pg61647-images.html#Page_335. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_monarchs.]

King Richard II.

(1597.)

In proportion as Shakspeare advances toward the more modern times of the history of his country, the chronicles upon which he relies for information coincide more exactly with historical truth; and already, in "The Life and Death of King Richard III.," the details furnished him by Holinshed differ only in a slight degree from the historical data which have been handed down to us as authentic. With the exception of the queen, who is a pure invention of the poet's imagination, and passing over the chronological disorder occasioned by Shakspeare's negligence in keeping events at a proper distance from each other, the facts contained in this tragedy differ in no respect from historical narratives of the same period, except with regard to the kind of death which Richard suffered. Holinshed, who copied other chroniclers, supplied Shakspeare with the story which he has followed; but the most probable opinion, and that which is in most accordance with the care taken publicly to expose Richard's body after his death, is, that he was left to die of hunger. This attention to evade, at least, the material appearances of crime, while caring little to avoid suspicion, was beginning to be introduced into the ferocious politics of these times; and Richard himself had stifled, beneath a mattress, the Duke of Gloucester, whom he held prisoner in Calais, and had afterward announced that he had died of an attack of apoplexy. {305} Besides Shakspeare's tendency to follow implicitly the historical guide whom he had once adopted, this version allowed him to preserve to the character of Bolingbroke that interest with which he has invested it, both in this drama and in the two parts of "King Henry IV." The choice between different versions of the same story, is, moreover, the least contested and the least contestable privilege of dramatic authors.

The tragedy of "Richard II." is then, generally speaking, sufficiently conformable to history; and the manner in which the poet has described the deposition of Richard, and the accession to the throne of Henry of Lancaster, appears singularly in accordance with what Hume says on the subject: "Henry IV. became king, nobody could tell how or wherefore." But it would be necessary to be like Hume, entirely unacquainted with the sight of revolutions, to be puzzled to say how and why the Duke of Lancaster, after having acted for some time in the name of the king, whom he kept prisoner, finally established himself without difficulty in his place. Shakspeare did not think it necessary to explain this; Richard left Flint Castle with the title of king, in the retinue of Bolingbroke; and we next see him signing his own deposition. The poet does not in any way indicate to us what has passed; but in order not to guess how the fall of Richard was accomplished it would be necessary for us to have very ill understood the picture presented to us of his first degradation; and the conversation of the gardener with his servants completes the description by revealing to us its effects upon public opinion. {306} It was a characteristic of Shakspeare's art to make us present at every part of the event; and he always transports us to the scene in which he strikes his most decisive blows, while at a distance from our view the action pursues its course, and contents itself with meeting us again when it has reached its consummation.

Although this tragedy is entitled "The Life and Death of King Richard II.," it only comprises the last two years of that prince's reign, and contains only a single event, namely, his downfall--the catastrophe toward which every circumstance tends from the very outset of the play. This event has been considered under different aspects, and a rather singular anecdote has revealed to us the existence of another tragedy on the same subject, anterior, as it would appear, to Shakspeare's drama, and treated in an altogether different point of view. Some of the partisans of the Earl of Essex, on the day preceding his extravagant enterprise, procured the performance of a tragedy in which, as in Shakspeare's drama, Richard II. was deposed and put to death on the stage. The actors having represented to them that the play was entirely out of fashion, and would not attract a sufficient audience to cover the expense of the performance, Sir Gilly Merrick, one of the confederates, gave them forty shillings above the receipts. This fact was mentioned at the trial of Sir Gilly, and served to procure his condemnation.

The conspiracy of the Earl of Essex occurred in 1601, and Shakspeare's tragedy appeared, it is believed, in the year 1597. Notwithstanding this precedence, no one will be disposed to suspect that one of Shakspeare's plays could have figured in a factious enterprise against Elizabeth. Besides, the drama in question seems to have been known by the name of "Henry IV.," and not by that of "Richard II.;" and there is reason to believe that the history of Henry IV. was its true subject, and Richard's death only an incident. {307} But in order to remove every kind of doubt, it is sufficient to read Shakspeare's tragedy; the doctrine of divine right is incessantly presented in it, accompanied by that interest which is excited by the aspect of the misfortunes of fallen greatness. If the poet has not given to the usurper that odious physiognomy which produces hatred and the dramatic passions, it is sufficient to read history to understand the cause of this.

This vagueness of the moral aspect under which men and things present themselves, and which does not allow the feelings to attach themselves vigorously to any one object, because they can rest upon nothing with satisfaction, is not a fact peculiar to Richard II. and his destiny, in the history of these disastrous times. Parties ever at conflict with each other for the supreme power, vanquished by turns, and always deserving their defeat, without any one of them having ever deserved victory, do not present a very dramatic spectacle, nor one very well calculated to elevate our feelings and faculties to that degree of exaltation which is one of the noblest objects of art. Pity is, in such a case, often wanting to indignation, and esteem almost always to pity. We have no difficulty in finding out the crimes of the strongest, but we look with anxiety for the virtues of the weakest; and the same effect is produced when the circumstances are changed: follies, depredations, injustice, and violence have led to Richard's downfall, and have even rendered it necessary; and they detach us from him by the two-fold reason that we behold him working out his own ruin, and that we find it impossible to save him. It would, however, be easy to discover at least as many crimes in the party which triumphs over his degradation. {308} Shakspeare might, with little trouble, have amassed against the rebels those treasures of indignation which would animate all hearts in favor of the legitimate sovereign; but one of the principal characteristics of Shakspeare's genius is a truthfulness, I may say a fidelity of observation, which reproduces nature as it is and time as it actually occurs. History supplied him neither with heroes superior to their fortune, nor with innocent victims, nor with instances of heroic devotion or of imposing passion; he merely found the very strength of his characters employed in the service of those interests which degrade them--perfidy considered as a means of conduct, treason almost justified by the dominant principle of personal interest, and desertion almost rendered legitimate by the consideration of the risk that would be run by remaining faithful; and all this he has described. It is, in truth, the Duke of York, a personage of whose incapacity and nullity we are informed by history, whom Shakspeare has selected to represent this ever-ardent devotedness to the man who governs, this facility in transferring his obedience from rightful to actual power, and vice versa, merely allowing himself, for his honor, to shed a few solitary tears on behalf of the monarch whom he has abandoned. To any one who has not witnessed the sport of fortune with empires, this personage would be only comic; but to any one who has beheld such changes, does he not possess alarming truthfulness?

Surrounded by characters of this kind, whence could Shakspeare derive that pathetic element which he would have loved to infuse into the spectacle of fallen greatness? He who had given old Lear, in his misery, so many noble and faithful friends, could not find one for Richard; the king had fallen, stripped and naked, into the hands of the poet, as he fell from his throne; and in himself alone the poet has been obliged to seek all his resources; the character of Richard II. is, therefore, one of the profoundest conceptions of Shakspeare.

{309}

The commentators have had a great discussion as to whether it was from the court of James or of Elizabeth that Shakspeare derived the maxims which he so frequently professes in favor of divine right and absolute power. Shakspeare derived them ordinarily from his personages themselves; and it was sufficient for him here to have to describe a king already seated on the throne. Richard never imagined that he ever was, or could be, any thing but a king; his royalty was, in his eyes, a part of his nature, one of the constituent elements of his being, which he brought into the world with him at his birth, subject to no conditions but his life; as he had nothing to do to retain it, it was no more in his power to cease to be worthy of it than to cease to be invested with it; and hence arose his ignorance of his duties to his subjects and to his own safety, and his indolent confidence in the midst of danger. Although this confidence abandons him for a moment at every new reverse, it returns immediately, doubling its force in proportion as he requires more of it to take the place of other props, which successively crumble away. When he has arrived at last at a point at which it is no longer possible for him to hope, the king becomes astonished, looks around, and inquires if he is really himself. Another kind of courage then springs up within him--the courage imparted by such a misfortune that the man who experiences it becomes excited by the surprise into which he is thrown by his own position; it becomes to him an object of such lively attention, that he dares to contemplate it in all its bearings, were it only for the purpose of understanding it; and by this contemplation he escapes from despair, and sometimes rises to truth, the discovery of which always calms a man to a certain degree. {310} But this calmness is barren, and this courage inactive; it sustains the mind, but it is fatal to action; all the actions of Richard are, therefore, deplorably feeble: even his reflections upon his actual condition reveal a consciousness of his own nullity, which descends, at certain moments, almost to baseness; and who could raise a man who, on ceasing to be a king, has lost, in his own opinion, the distinctive quality of his being, the dignity of his nature? He believed himself precious in the sight of God, sustained by His arm, and armed with His power; when fallen from the mysterious rank which he had once occupied, he knows no place for himself upon earth: when stripped of the power which he believed his right, he does not suppose that any strength can remain to him: he, therefore, makes no resistance; to do so would be to try something which he believes impossible: in order to arouse his energy, some sudden and pressing danger must, as it were, provoke, without his knowledge, faculties which he disavows; when his life is attacked, he defends himself, and dies with courage; but in order always to have possessed courage, he needed to know what a man is worth.

We must not expect to find in "Richard II.," any more than in the majority of Shakspeare's historical dramas, a particular character of style. Its diction is not greatly elaborated; though frequently energetic, it is frequently also so vague as to leave the reason to decide as it pleases upon the meaning of the expressions, which can be determined by no rule of syntax.

{311}

This play is written entirely in verse, a great part of which is in rhyme. The author appears to have made some changes in it after the first edition, which was published in 1597. The scene of Richard's trial, in particular, is entirely wanting in this edition, and occurs for the first time in that published in 1608.

{312}

[Transcriber's note: Guizot presents a history of Henry IV in "A Popular History of England, From the Earliest Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria", Volume I, Chapter XII. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/61647/pg61647-images.html#Page_335. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_monarchs.]

First And Second Parts

Of King Henry IV.

(1597-1598.)

The commentators have given to these two plays the title of comedies, and, in fact, although their subject belongs to tragedy, their intention is comic. In Shakspeare's tragedies, the comic sometimes arises spontaneously from the position of the personages introduced to assist the tragic action; here not only does a part of the action absolutely turn upon the comic personages, but most of those whose rank, the interest in which they are concerned, and the dangers to which they expose themselves, might raise them to the dignity of tragic personages, are presented under the aspect which belongs to comedy, namely, under the weak or whimsical features of their nature. The almost puerile impetuosity of the fiery Hotspur, the brutal originality of his good sense, and his soldier-like ill temper with all who endeavor to detain his thoughts for a moment beyond the circle of the interests to which his life is devoted, give rise to some extremely piquant scenes. The Welshman, Glendower, boastful and vainglorious, as loquacious as he is brave, who makes head against Hotspur whenever he threatens or contradicts him, but who yields and retires whenever a pleasantry alarms his self-love with the fear of ridicule, is a truly comic conception. {313} Even the three or four words which Douglas utters are also characterized by a tinge of braggadocio. Neither of these three courages is expressed in the same way; but all yield to that of Hotspur, the comic hue of whose character does not detract in the slightest degree from the interest which he inspires. We become attached to him as to Alceste in the "Misanthrope"--to a great character who is the victim of a quality which the impetuosity of his temper and the preoccupation of his own ideas have turned into a defect. We see the brave Hotspur accepting the enterprise proposed to him before he knows its nature, as he feels certain of success as soon as he is struck with the idea of action; we see him successively losing all the supporters upon whom he had reckoned, abandoned or betrayed by those who have involved him in danger, and urged onward, as it were, by a sort of fatality toward the abyss which he does not perceive until the moment when he finds it impossible to draw back; and he falls regretting nothing but his glory. This is doubtless a tragical catastrophe, and the substance of the first part of the drama, the subject of which is the first step of Henry V. toward glory, required one of this kind; but the picture of the vagaries of the prince's youth, nevertheless, forms the most important part of the work, the principal character in which is Falstaff. Falstaff is one of the most celebrated personages of English comedy, and perhaps no drama can present a gayer one. The description of the follies of a youth so disorderly as that of Henry V., at a time when manners were so coarse and rude, would be a very melancholy picture, if, in the midst of its uncouth debauchery, habits and pretensions of a higher order did not effect a contrast, and perform a part all the more amusing because it is so out of place. {314} It would have been very moral, undoubtedly, to cast the ridicule of this impropriety upon the prince who thus degrades himself; but, even if Shakspeare had not been the poet of the court of England, neither probability nor art would have permitted him to debase such a personage as Henry V. He is careful, on the contrary, always to preserve to him the dignity of his character and the superiority of his position; and Falstaff, who is destined to amuse us, is admitted into the play only for the diversion of the prince.