man has given us, under this name, only an abstraction produced by the understanding from its historical knowledge,—an intellectual conception embodied by the fancy. His Caraffa is not a Jesuit, but all the Jesuits in one-an impersonated generalization of the order, not the portrait of any particular individual; and of the order, not as composed of men, but of the disciples of Loyola. With this explanation all the acts ascribed to Angelo are sufficiently intelligible. He serves no king, but the King of kings; or rather the idol of his mind, misnamed from Deity, as embodied

in the papal supremacy. This service he pursues through good and evil, and by means in the adoption of which, though evil, his conscience perceives no impropriety. To him the blameless life of Anne Boleyn is no reason why she should not die branded like an adulteress, for her heresy is a germinating seed which includes all crime. All sins are in that one-adultery, murder, nought is wanting but desire or meet occasion, and the loose heart gives way.' Touching the king, each lustful thought, each murtherous deed, is a new link of the chain to trammel him.' To let slip the tyrant's 'fierce passions, ruthless as the dogs of war,' is the way to compel him ultimately to become a suppliant to the church,-at any rate, 'to brand the heretic cause with shame.' Caraffa makes no scruple of converting the confessional into a political engine. Thus, he induces Lady Rochford, as an expiatory service to the church, to 'scatter hints and seeds of hate in the king's path,' and obtains from her the paper, in Lady Wingfield's hand, afterwards produced on the trial of the queen. But he practises principally with the boy, Mark Smeaton, a singer at the royal chapel, and the queen's musician, whose dulcet voice and skilful handling the sweet lute had been famed through Italy.' He persuades him that his minstrelsy may entitle him to peculiar favours from his royal mistress, and takes upon him, as a father to the orphan-youth, to warn him against the bewitching manners of the queen. Having thus brought the impossible within the scope of thought,' he afterwards impresses upon his fancy the likelihood of the queen's returning the passion generated by himself in the heart of the poor boy. He engages him, by representing that the desire of the king is only to procure a divorce, to confess a criminal intercourse with the queen, by which the king's purpose will be accomplished. He makes him believe that she, being in consequence reduced in rank and character, may probably return his affection, upon learning that he perpetrated the perjury to give the king another way of effecting his purpose than by her death. He succeeds, and his success conducts to the execution both of the guiltless mistress and the perjured servant. This object the saintly Angelo pursues in a manner the most remorseless, without any compunction; the

end

end that he insanely proposes is the glory of God, and he hopes for his reward—in heaven!

There are, however, two instances of natural touches in this character, which we feel pleasure in pointing out. The one is where Caraffa describes the tilt at Greenwich, and his having felt the recollections of his former rank in life throng in upon him.

I stood

Within the tilt-yard, not to take delight

Carnal, unpriestly, in the worldly pageant:

Though, Heaven forgive me! when the trumpets blew,
And the lists fell, and knights as brave, and full

Of valour as their steeds of fire, wheel'd forth,

And mov'd, in troops or single, orderly

As youths and maidens in a village dance;

Or shot, like swooping hawks, in straight career,
The old Caraffa rose within my breast-

Struggled my soul with haughty recollections

Of when I rode through the outpoured streets of Rome,
Enamouring all the youth of Italy

With envy of my noble horsemanship.

But I rebuked myself, and thought how Heaven

Had taught me loftier mastery, to rein

And curb, with salutary governance,

The unmanaged souls of men.'

The other is where he soliloquizes before receiving Mark Smeaton's signature to the suborned evidence prepared for production at the trial. He would fain excuse his conduct himself by the following reflections :

What if the space of some few mortal lives

Be somewhat shrunk; some eyes untimely closed
On this world's sun; will not ten thousand souls
Live through eternity's unfathomed years,
And a whole nation walk in moral light?
"Tis but the wise relentlessness of heaven.

Doth the dread earthquake feel remorse, that makes
A populous city one vast tomb, where guilt
And innocence lie side by side? Does Pity
Pale the blue cheek of Pestilence, that blasts
Whole nations? Doth the sweeping deluge pause,
And hold suspended its vast weight of waters,
To give the righteous time to fly the ruin?
The best, the wisest, holiest saints and pontiffs
Have sent fierce war, with undiscerning vengeance,
To waste the heretic's land; for though just Heaven
Turn from the field of carnage—from the city
Made desolate, far rather it beholds them
Than the fierce tossings of the infernal pit,

And hell made rich with everlasting souls.'

And

And when the poor lad is led out to execution, he vows to say masses all his life for the welfare of the soul of his victim.

So on to death, poor youth,

--Not abandoned, nor unwept by him

Whose aid thou scornest now; but thou shalt own
There, where all motives and all hearts are known.'

Such is the character of this conscientious fanatic; such are all the natural pauses that it permits to interfere with his design, which is, to lift the throne of Peter o'er the carnal lords of earth.' He is, as he is made to say, an earthquake-a pestilence—a deluge -that distinguishes not, but goes on in its work of desolation without respect to persons, in the performance of the will and the decree of heaven. Mr. Milman is justified by history in representing such to be the principle of the order of which Angelo describes himself to have been a nameless limb, although he is rather an impersonation of its spirit; but surely no individual of the order ever bent each corporal agent' thus into terrible conformity with the rigid ideal; even Loyola himself had, probably,— Aquaviva certainly had,-other elements in his composition, common to him and his fellow men. The character is not natural-it is intellectual. It is an embodiment, by the understanding, of a conception of its own, derived from historical knowledge of the constitution of this order and of the principles of its founder-or rather of his more politic successors. It is not an individual, but

a species-not a person, but an abstraction.

Dr. Johnson would, probably, have approved both the conception and execution of this character; at least he praises Shakspeare's characters, upon the ground of their being species, not individuals. Johnson could not, from some strange peculiarity in the constitution of his great mind, perceive the individual traits induced upon the general nature presented by the poet. All the persons of the play of Henry the Eighth are, in a remarkable degree, individuals: this constitutes its greatest charm; though, most likely, it was the thing that occasioned the contemptuous criticism thereon pronounced by our great critic. The meek sorrows,' says he, and virtuous distress of Katherine have furnished some scenes, which may be justly numbered among the greatest efforts of tragedy. But the genius of Shakspeare comes in and goes out with Katherine. Every other part may be easily conceived and easily written.' We cannot subscribe to this verdict. In our opinion, the genius of Shakspeare is equally exhibited in Cardinal Wolsey; nor is it hidden in Buckingham, notwithstanding the brevity of the part. The speeches of the Duke, as he is led out to execution, are among the most touching in Shakspeare. It must be confessed, that the play is irregular in construction, and the subject deficient in unity; yet great judg

ment

ment is manifested in its conduct. It was once thought, by those who decided mechanically, according to the unities, that the plays of Shakspeare were deficient in this quality;-that the developement of his plots was carelessly contrived, and the denouement defective. But we believe that now as much is allowed to him on the score of art as was always allowed on that of genius-and justly. It would be extraordinary were it otherwise; for the earliest rules of art were derived from the preceding works of original genius; and what should make the work of an original genius of England, in this respect, less worthy than one of Greece, requires explanation. A perfect work of art is one accurately formed upon the model of a previous production of transcendent genius.

How skilful is the opening of the play of Henry the Eighth'! We early perceive that the Cardinal is the subject of jealousy in the court. Wolsey enters;-he exchanges disdainful looks with his enemy, but no words, as if it were superfluous for him to speak whose frown was dangerous and might kill; and unbefitting the man who wrote 'Ego et Rex meus.' He has all the pride, without the power of sovereignty. But such pride is not for a subject. Accordingly, almost immediately afterwards, we have reason to suspect, that this pillared firmament is rottenness-this earth's base built on stubble.' The arrest of Buckingham, however, assures us of his possession of power, which is further confirmed when, notwithstanding the charges brought by Queen Katherine against himself, he is still enabled to carry his point against the Duke, triumphs over his enemy, and retains the countenance of the King. The introduction of Queen Katherine in this scene is managed with much art. The examination of the Duke's surveyor is about to commence, but the business is put aside on account of the dignity and importance of the personage entering. We naturally expect that the charges against Wolsey will go hard with him; and we partake his triumph when, notwithstanding the difficulty of his situation, he is successful in his own plans. His ruin, after all, is the effect of inadvertence, and the result of accident. It is at an entertainment given by him that the King first sees Ann Bullen, and the part, though brief, which she plays in this scene, can never be too much admired. All she says

is comprised in three half-lines; yet we have a full conception of her manners at once: Was he mad, Sir?'-' You are a merry gamester, my lord Sands.'-'You cannot show me.' In Anne Boleyn' we remark, that the Queen finds it requisite, after talking for two or three pages, to inform her own brother's wife that her lips are laughter-loving.' The Ann Bullen of Shakspeare is not under this necessity-we see the laugh upon her lips. These instances would almost make us doubt the tradition that he never blotted a line. If we are to judge from our modern dramatists,

he

he would have to blot many lines to condense the quintessence of a character in about a dozen words. Or they proceed differently. They arrive, perhaps, at the idea by a tedious process of verbosity; and in one or other line out of twenty, the substance of all may be discoverable. His words were consequent upon his ideas. Poetical diction, in his time, had not been formed by precedent, and poetry had but few common-places. He, therefore, could not go versing on in the accustomed phraseology, until he started a thought to redeem the surrounding verbiage. He had not to sound on his perilous way ;'-he knew the depths and shallows instinctively, without indulging in a length of line.'

There is only another scene in which Ann appears-that with the old lady; and it is conducted with exquisite judgment. We will not quote what must be so well known, and within the reach of every Englishman. But we may mention-her pity for the sad estate of the Queen, from whom the King is about to separateher reflections upon the loss of pomp-the conclusion to which these lead her, and of which her own fate was, ere long, to be another illustration

-and the maidenly way in which she receives the first favours from the King, by the hands of the Lord Chamberlain

• Would I had no being

If this salute my blood a jot; it faints me,

To think what follows.'

Shakspeare knew that there was much to redeem in the character of Ann Bullen; he, therefore, very wisely, introduced her but seldom, and in the happiest lights.

Our space will not permit us to trace a comparison between the trial scenes of Queen Katherine in Shakspeare's piece, and Queen Anne in Mr. Milman's. The author, probably, intended no rivalship with Shakspeare; and it is but justice to him to say, that his afflicted princess is produced with much skill and effect. The sorrows of the two ladies are of different kinds: those of Katherine are of a broken heart; but in Anne Boleyn they are the adjuncts of a public execution. There is more poetry in the former; but there is much grandeur in the latter-in the firmness with which the Queen meets her fate-the christian forgiveness that she extends towards her enemies-her well-wishes for the King and her anxiety for the success of the Protestant cause.

Of the King it is difficult to speak. He was an instrument, in

the