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 mat

tress, the Duke of Gloucester, whom he held prisoner in Calais, and had afterward announced that he had died of an attack of apoplexy. 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. 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. 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. 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