a rival in authority. The Duchess of Gloster is tempted by her own weak ambition to meddle with the "lime-twigs" that have been set for her. But it is the passionate hatred of Margaret, lending itself to schemes of treachery and bloodshed, that drives on the murder of the "good Duke Humphrey." With the accomplices of Margaret the retribution is instant and terrible. The banished Suffolk falls, not by the hand of the law, but by some mysterious agency which appears to have armed against him a power mightier than the law, which seizes upon its victim with an obdurate ferocity, and hurries him to death in the name of a wild and irregular justice. To the second great conspirator against the Protector the retribution is even more fearful-the death, not of violence but of mental torture, far more terrible than any bodily pain. The "Look, look, comb down his hair!" of Beaufort, speaks of sufferings far higher than those of the proud Suffolk, when the pirate had denounced him as "Pole, puddle, kennel, sink, and dirt!" and he saw the prophecy of the "cunning wizard" about to be accomplished. The justice which followed the other conspirator against Humphrey had not yet unsheathed its sword. His punishment was postponed till the battle-day of Wakefield.

The scenes of the first four acts of The First Part of the Contention' may appear to a superficial observation to be very slightly linked with the after-scenes of the great contest of the Roses. But it was the object of the poet to show the beginnings of faction, continued onward in the same form from the previous drama. The Protectorship was essentially a government of weakness, through the jealousies which it engendered and the intrigues by which it was surrounded. But the removal of the Protector left the government more weak; subjected as it then was to the capricious guidance of the imbecility of Henry and the violence of Margaret. Of such a rule popular commotions are the natural fruit. The author of The Contention,' with a depth of political wisdom which Shakspere invariably displays, has exhibited the insurrection of Cade, not as a revolt for specific objects, such as the removal of public oppressors or the redress of popular wrongs, but as a movement of the most brutal ignorance, instigated by a coarse ruffian, upon promises which could be realised in no condition of society, and for ends which proposed only such peace and security as would result from the overthrow of all rule and order. "You shall have seven halfpenny loaves for a penny, and the threehooped pot shall have ten hoops, and it shall be felony to drink small beer," is the proper prologue to "Henceforward all things

shall be in common, and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass." The same political sagacity has given us the inconstancy, as well as the violence, of the multitude. Nor are these remarkable scenes an episode only in this great dramatic history. Cade perishes, but York is in arms. The civil war is founded upon the popular tumult.

The civil war is begun. The Yorkists are in the field. The poet has delineated the character of their leader with a nice discrimination, and certainly without any of the coarseness of partisanship. He conveys to us that York is ambitious and courageous, but somewhat weak, and, to a great extent, a puppet in the hands of others. In the early scene in the Temple-garden his ambition is rashly discovered, in a war of words, commenced in accident and terminated in fruitless passion. That ambition first contents itself "to be restored to my blood." And when Henry grants this wish the submission of the half-rebel is almost grovelling :

"Thy humble servant vows obedience,

And humble service, till the point of death."

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The full development of his ambition is the result of his estimation of the character of Henry, and his sense of the advantage which he derives from the factions which grow out of an imbecile government. But he is still only a dissembler, exciting his fancies with some shadowy visions of a crown, lending himself to the dark intrigues of his natural and avowed enemies, and calling up the terrible agency of popular violence, reckless of any consequences so that confusion be produced:

"From Ireland then comes York again

To reap the harvest which that coystrill sow'd."

The schemes of York are successful, and he is at length in arms; but he still dissembles. When Buckingham demands" the reason of these arms," and addresses him as a 66 subject, as I am," his wounded pride has vent in the original play in a few words. But Shakspere, in his additions to the sketch, has marked the inflated weakness of York's character by putting in his mouth words of “sound and fury" which he is afraid to speak aloud :

“O, I could hew up rocks, and fight with them,

I am so angry at these abject terms;

And now, like Ajax Telamonius,

On sheep or oxen could I spend my fury!

I am far better born than is the king;

More like a king, more kingly in my thoughts:
But I must make fair weather yet a while,
Till Henry be more weak, and I more strong."

Passion, however, precipitates that decided movement which prudence would have avoided; and the battle of St. Alban's is the result.

The poet has now fairly opened

"The purple testament of bleeding war.'

Smothered dislikes are now to become scorching hatreds; and the domestic affections, bruised and wounded, are to be the stimulants of the most savage revenge. Shakspere has, with wonderful knowledge of human nature, made the atrocities of Clifford spring from the very depths of his filial love. The original conception is found in The Contention ;' but its elaboration in The Second Part of Henry VI.' is perhaps unsurpassed in beauty of expression by any passage of our matchless poet :

"Wast thou ordain'd, dear father,

To lose thy youth in peace, and to achieve
The silver livery of advised age,

And in thy reverence, and thy chair-days, thus

To die in ruffian battle? Even at this sight

My heart is turn'd to stone: and while 't is mine

It shall be stony."

With this preparation the savage ferocity of Clifford, in the murder of Rutland, is rendered less revolting :

"Thy father slew my father, therefore die."

This is the key to his cold-blooded participation in the butchery of York:

"There's for my oath, there 's for my father's death."

And what a real exhibition is this of the foulest crimes perpetrated under gentle impulses, where ill-regulated love and hate keep together as twin-sisters! But this is chivalry. Here, even the kindly affections have an aspect of intense selfishness s; and “fierce wars and faithful loves" spring from the same want of the principle of self-control, and the same ignorance of the duties of a large and comprehensive charity. The partisanship of chivalry, displaying itself in bold adventure and desperate courage, looks to be something high and glorious. But it is the same blind emanation of self-love as the factious partisanship of modern politics, in which the leader and the serf are equally indifferent to the justice of the quarrel, and equally regardless of the ends by which victory is to be achieved. Shakspere has given us every light and shadow of the partisanship of chivalry in his delineation of the various characters in these two wonderful dramas. Apart and isolated from

all active agency in the quarrel stands out the remarkable creation of Henry. The poet, with his instinctive judgment, has given the king a much higher character than the chroniclers assign to him. Their relations leave little doubt upon our minds that his imbecility was very nearly allied to utter incapacity; and that the thin partition between weakness and idiocy was sometimes wholly removed. But Shakspere has never painted Henry under this aspect: he has shown us a king with virtues unsuited to the age in which he lived; with talents unfitted for the station in which he moved; contemplative amidst friends and foes hurried along by a distempered energy; peaceful under circumstances that could have no issue but in appeals to arms; just in thought, but powerless to assert even his own sense of right amidst the contests of injustice which hemmed him in. The entire conception of the character of Henry, in connexion with the circumstances to which it was subjected, is to be found in the Parliament-scene of 'The Third Part of Henry VI.' This scene is copied from The Contention,' with scarcely the addition or alteration of a word. We may boldly affirm that none but Shakspere could have depicted with such marvellous truth the weakness, based upon a hatred of strife—the vacillation, not of imbecile cunning, but of clear-sighted candourthe assertion of power through the influence of habit, but of a power trembling even at its own authority-the glimmerings of courage utterly extinguished by the threats of "armed men," and proposing compromise even worse than war. We request our readers to peruse this scene in 'The Second Part of the Contention,' and endeavour to recollect if any poet besides Shakspere ever presented such a reality in the exhibition of a mind whose principles have no coherency and no self-reliance; one moment threatening and exhorting his followers to revenge, the next imploring them to be patient; now urging his rival to peace, and now threatening war; turning from the assertion of his title to acknowledge its weakness; and terminating his display of "words, frowns and threats" with

"Let me but reign in quiet while I live."

It was weakness such as this which inevitably raised up the fiery partisans that the poet has so wonderfully depicted; the bloody Clifford the "she-wolf of France"-the dissembling York-the haughty Warwick-the voluptuous Edward-and, last and most terrible of all, he that best explains his own character, "I am myself alone."

One by one the partisans that are thus marshalled by the poet in the Parliament-scene of London are swept away by the steady progress of that justice which rides over their violence and their subtlety. The hollow truce is broken. Margaret is ready to assail York in his castle; York is prepared for the field, having learned from the precocious sophist Richard how "an oath is of no moment." Now are let loose all the "dogs of war.' The savage Clifford strikes down the innocent Rutland; the more savage Margaret dips her napkin in his blood. York perishes under the prolonged retribution that awaited the ambition that dallied with murder and rebellion. Clifford, to whom nothing is so odious as “harmful pity,” falls in the field of Towton, where the son was arrayed against the father, and the father against the son; and the king, more "woe-begone" than the unwilling victims of ambition, moralises upon the "happy life" of the "homely swain." The great actors of the tragedy are changed. Edward and Richard have become the leaders of the Yorkists, with Warwick, "the kingmaker," to rest upon. Henry has fled to Scotland; Margaret to France. Then is unfolded another leaf of that Sibylline book. Edward is on the throne, careless of everything but self-gratification; despising his supporters, offending even his brothers. Warwick takes arms against him; Clarence deserts to Warwick; Richard alone remains faithful, sneering at his brother, and laughing in the concealment of his own motives for fidelity. Edward is a fugitive, and finally a captive; but Richard redeems him, and Clarence again cleaves to him. The second revolution is accomplished. The "king-maker" yields his "body to the earth" in the field of Barnet; Margaret and her son become captives in the plains near Tewksbury. Then comes the terrible hour to the unhappy queen -that hour which she foresaw not when she gave the "bloody napkin" to the wretched York-that hour whose intensity of suffering reached its climax of expression in "You have no children.” But Richard is fled

"To make a bloody supper in the Tower."

The three that stab the defenceless Edward equally desire another murder; but one is to do the work. It is accomplished.

And here then, according to the authorities that we have so long followed in England, rested the history of The Contention of the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster,' as far as the original author carried that history. It was to conclude with deeds of violence, as fearful and as atrocious as any we have yet witnessed. VOL. VII.

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