Shakspeare and His Times

The only words which escape Desdemona are

"To-night, my lord?"

Othello's answer is,

"With all my heart."

He has heard the sound of the trumpet, and all other thoughts are already far away. Desdemona, the tender, loving girl, so resolute when in the presence of her father—Desdemona, who has scarcely entered into the bonds of wedlock, casts down her eyes, and follows timidly after her husband, without uttering one word, without directing to him one significant look, without framing any reproach in her heart.

Othello's narrative has been rapturously applauded—as was most natural; but the united impression of the three scenes must obtain, we think, an admiration of an entirely different kind. Imagine a man who has lived for a long time in rooms lighted only by wax-candles, chandeliers, or colored glasses—who has only breathed in the faint, suffocating atmosphere of drawing-rooms, who has seen only the cascades at the opera, calico mountains, and garlands of artificial flowers: imagine such a man suddenly transported, one magnificent July morning, to a region where he could breathe the purest air, under the tranquil and graceful chestnut-trees which fringe the waters of Interlachen, and within view of the majestic glaciers of the Oberland, and you will have a pretty accurate idea of the moral position of one accustomed to the dramatic representations which formerly occupied our stage, when he unexpectedly finds himself witnessing these so simple, grand, and natural beauties.

A second point with respect to which the involuntary feeling of the French public has found itself at issue with Shakspeare's admirers is the character of Iago. This character, which is the concealed agent producing the catastrophe of the piece, is greatly celebrated in England and elsewhere; all the critics, without exception, English, German, or French, are unwearying in their eulogies upon it. When acted, it appeared to us that this character was generally disapproved, and that in a very marked way, which kept on increasing with every act: so much so that, had it not been played with great firmness and determination, it would certainly have received some decided rebuff. Why was this?

It was rather curious, at the end of every act, to hear each spectator give the reason of his repugnance, the cause of his aversion. One thought Iago too immoral; another, on the contrary, thought he was not a sufficiently accomplished hypocrite; he should not boast so offensively of his wickedness, said a third censor; while a fourth was revolted at seeing him perpetrate his crimes with so much pleasantry. And so on.

In our judgment, the part was disapproved because it is in itself bad; because it is, we do not say inconsistent, (for what is more natural to man than inconsistency?), but incoherent; because the parts of which it is composed do not naturally associate; and because, in regard to it, we are uncertain which idea to adopt. Such, at least, is our mode of viewing it. Let Shakspeare's devotees anathematize us, if they feel disposed.

What really is Iago? Is he the Evil Spirit, or at least his representative on earth? Is Othello right when he looks down to his feet to see whether they are not cloven? Is he a being who can do evil from the mere love of it, and who deliberately breathes a poisonous atmosphere into the union of Othello and Desdemona solely because Desdemona is a being of angelic purity, and Othello is a loyal, brave, and generous man.

If so, why ascribe to Iago any human and interested motives? Why are we pointed to his low cupidity, the resentment which he feels for an injury done to his honor, his envy of a position more elevated than his own? Why must we see him plundering poor Roderigo, as Scapin or Sbrigani jiggle the purse out of the pocket of some imbecile? The introduction of these passions destroy every thing that is fantastic in the part. The devil has neither humor nor honor; he has neither rancor, nor rage, nor covetousness; he is a disinterested person; he does evil because it is evil, and because he is the Evil One.

Iago, on the other hand, is, as he himself boasts, the type of an egotist—a man who is perfected in the art of self-love—a being who can arrange his desires in hierarchical subordination, according to the degree of their importance, and then so plan his actions as that they shall invariably turn out to his infinite satisfaction, whatever may be the consequences to other people, without scrupulosity, without remorse, and also without allowing himself to be diverted from his aim by any temptation of an inferior order.

Why, then, does he pursue, at the same time, three or four different ends, which are to him of very unequal importance? Why does he undertake successively twenty different projects which he abandons one after the other? Why especially does he, on every occasion, lavish his villainy with a hundred times greater prodigality than is called for by the circumstances? Jonathan Wild the Great, notorious in the lists of rascality, was much more expert when he said, "Be chary with your crimes; they are far too good things to be squandered away in pure waste."

Moreover, how are we to reconcile the different ideas which are given us of this character? He is first represented to us as an intrepid, intelligent soldier, worthy of all the confidence of Othello and the Senate, who might judiciously have been promoted to a high rank; and then he is exhibited before us as a sharper of the first quality, and as a miserable ruffian.

He has a profound contempt for the human race, and, in the human race, he has a profound contempt for women; he shrugs his shoulders at the bare suggestion of the possibility of female honor. His own wife, especially, is an insupportable burden to him. His only aim in the world is fortune—his enjoyments are palpable and material—and yet we are required to see, in the mere suspicion of an old intrigue between his wife and Othello, a force powerfully acting upon and moving his soul!

He is presented as the most artful villain that ever existed, and yet all his projects are so ill-contrived, so clumsy, so destitute of foresight, that not one of them succeeds—neither was it possible that they could be successful.

He is presented as an impostor of fearful penetration, capable of impenetrable dissimulation; and yet the traps that he sets are so palpable that, although he has to do with an idiot, in comparison with whom any pig-headed imbecile would be a marvel of perspicacity, every one possessed of the smallest relic of sense would not allow himself to be decoyed by them for the space of two minutes.

This, forsooth, is his scheme! Desdemona has espoused Othello; she has chosen him, as he is, out of a thousand others more worthy of her; she has left all for him; to all appearance she loves him; Iago himself does not doubt it; hardly have they received the nuptial benediction before they are separated; Othello sets out with Cassio—observe, with Cassio; Desdemona also departs for Cyprus; by accident the two parties, who had left Venice at different times, arrive in Cyprus the same day, within half an hour of one another. To the knowledge and in the sight of all, Othello included, Cassio, the companion of his voyage, has not been able to speak to Desdemona more than ten minutes on the public road. And yet on the afternoon of this same day, in the midst of the first transports of a union which has been for so long a time retarded, Iago takes upon himself to persuade the amorous Othello that Desdemona, the gentle Desdemona, has betrayed him, before even she has belonged to him—that she has delivered up her heart and her person—to whom?—to Cassio, who has been able neither to see her nor to converse with her. And Iago speaks of his passion as a thing already ancient, and yet—and yet as a thing posterior to her marriage with Othello; for he represents Cassio as exclaiming,

"Cursed fate, that gave thee to the Moor!"

and Iago speaks of Cassio's intrigue with innumerable details and interminable explanations.

Which is the greatest simpleton, the man who conceives such a project, or the man who allows himself to be entrapped by it?

Will it be said that he succeeded? He succeeded according to the representation of the author; but what will common sense say of the matter?

The author is himself successful: but why? Because, such is the intensity and vivacity of his original conception, that the most revolting improbabilities, the most inconceivable absurdities, pass by unperceived; because no one is so ungracious, no one has time to notice the stratagems of the drama. It is, however, another thing to offer these absurdities to be admired as merits.

And yet that is not without truth: from that moment when the first insinuation escapes the lips of Iago, and reaches the ears of the Moor—from the utterance of those fatal words, "Ay, well said, whisper; with as little a web as this will I ensnare as great a fly as Cassio"—to that awful moment when the curtain falls on the corpses of the two lovers, the spectator is in a state of breathless expectation. You might hear the flight of a gnat across the room, and those are ill-judged spirits whose zeal compels them to interrupt by their applause the anxiety which is momentarily increasing.

In that first word all has been said, all has been determined. Farewell forever to Desdemona! Farewell to Othello! Desdemona only appears henceforth as the innocent bird struggling feebly in the grasp of a vulture, but of a vulture who is himself furiously struggling under the grasp of another vulture, and who avenges himself by his treatment of his unhappy victim for the frightful tortures which he is suffering in his own person.

The spectator looks upon this picture, not with that restless curiosity which passes alternately from fear to hope, but, if we may say so—and we do it fully sensible that there are important differences—with something of that inexpressible anguish which absorbs us when, in a court of justice, we are watching the vain efforts of a criminal who is being hurried along to a fatal and inevitable condemnation.

Othello has never thought, has never had occasion to think, how strange, how incomprehensible is the sentiment which he has inspired in Desdemona; now for the first time he thinks of it:

One irregular taste, Iago suggests to him, indicates other irregularities. Beyond a doubt she is lost—"she's gone."

This first suspicion, to use Schlegel's energetic language, is "a drop of poison in his veins, and sets his whole blood in the wildest ferment." The savage is again uppermost. The civilized portion of his nature, which has never met him in this region, which has only subdued him on the field of battle, is powerless to hold him in check. The struggle goes on for some moments; for some moments does Othello, the warrior, the statesman, the lord of others and of himself, attempt to treat his own love as a sportive flame, his jealousy as a folly.

But his efforts are vain; his defiance is fruitless; at the first onslaught he sees his mighty courage fail, at the first shock of battle he knows himself to be vanquished; he turns a last fond look toward that which has so long charmed him; he remembers dreamily the courser and the trumpet, the assault and the victory:

After this cry, all the struggle within him ceases. In proportion as jealousy spreads its ravages in this spirit which is already wrecked, we can watch the reappearance under all the most hideous forms of the semi-brutish nature; we may see its growth; we may hear its roar; a creature not to be controlled by reason, deaf to the accents of truth, insensible to utterances of tenderness, unapproachable by moral evidence, which, in the wildness of its fury, passes from one extreme to another, now delighting, with savage joy, in its own detailed recital, in terms of the most revolting barbarity, of the outrage which it contemplates, crying out,

"O, blood, Iago, blood!"

And then, in conclusion, falling, without knowing how or why, from rage down to despair.

Humanity has altogether forsaken him, except it be in his frequently returning fits of emotion, pity, or regret; but these are always provoked by the remembrance of Desdemona's charms—by ideas which are connected with sensual enjoyments; and perhaps, also, it may yet lurk in certain glimmerings of a rough equity, such as may be found under the Bedouin's tent or in a bandit's cavern: "For she had eyes and chose me." And when Iago proposes to him to "strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath contaminated," he replies, "Good, good; the justice of it pleases; very good."

There is, however, no trace of the sentiments which he ought to have imbibed by his connection with civilized and polite society; no respect for himself or for others, no remembrance of kindnesses; he gives directions for a base act of assassination—that of Cassio; he strikes Desdemona brutally, in presence of the messengers of the Senate and of his own officers, in public, and in his own private interviews with her; he treats her as the most abandoned of women, heaping upon her the bitterest sarcasms and the most degrading epithets.

The sight of an heroic soul thus debased by its ferocity down to the level of the mere animal would almost of necessity contaminate the dignity of art, had not the poet brought it into constant contrast with the graceful, pure, and truly celestial figure of Desdemona. Never has any artist portrayed with greater delicacy that astonishment which is felt by an innocent soul when, for the first time, the overflow of its warm affection is repulsed by a hard word or a severe look—its timid efforts to turn the repulse into wanton playfulness, to renew a tender and free exchange of sentiment and thought, to exercise for some moments that pleasant and transient ascendency which shall afford the young spouse many bright recollections in days yet to come.

In proportion as this new character of Othello develops itself, we may see (so to speak)—through that transparent poetry of which Shakspeare alone possesses the secret—the mild countenance of Desdemona gradually lose its serenity. The first idea that presents itself to her mind is, that Othello's roughness—that roughness for which she had prepared herself long before—has somewhat too soon made its appearance. But her heart is immediately resigned—she has an excuse ready at hand:

And when Othello strikes her in public, she is content only to weep and to say, "I have not deserved this."

But when Othello bursts out into rage against her, when he loads her with outrageous reproaches, when he reviles her as a shameless prostitute, her voice fails her, the blood which rushes to her face stifles all utterance; she sinks rather under the confusion of hearing such language than because it is Othello who addresses her: some feeble sighs, some useless protests, are her only defense; she has seen her fate written in the terrific looks of her husband. She lowers her head, and directs Emilia to spread upon her couch her wedding-dress, in which she desires to be enshrouded; she offers her breast to the knife as a "stainless sacrifice" (another of Schlegel's happy expressions), as a lamb which has been accustomed only to bound and frolic in its native meadows, and which walks to the altar without knowing why, and licks the hand which is conducting it thither.

This it is precisely which explains the inexpressible charm and painful interest of this scene, which we have already alluded to; a scene which, placed entirely apart from this, would transgress the proper limits of a work of art.

Othello, when he has taken leave of the messengers of the Senate, says, with a rugged, severe tone of voice, to Desdemona, "Get you to bed on the instant; I will be returned forthwith; look it be done." Her reply is, "I will, my lord." This is the sentence of death, and she knows it; but not even a thought of disobedience enters her mind; she does not dream of securing the least assistance: Othello has spoken.

The scene in which she undresses herself, before retiring to her bed, is then most truly for her that respite of a quarter of an hour which is granted to criminals before they are conducted to punishment. In vain does she attempt to suggest a different mood to Emilia, or to practice deception upon herself by turning her thoughts to any trifling subjects that may arise: the inmost conviction of her soul rises in rebellion against every word. And, for the agitated spectator, this scene is of a similar character; he counts the minutes, he clings to the least thing, he asks impatiently why there is still no other knot to untie, no other clasp to unloose; his wishes would almost urge him to take hold on Desdemona's robe and save her from impending fate.

Tragic poets, behold your master! learn a lesson from him, if you can!

The scene in which the Moor kills Desdemona surprised the public; but their surprise was not of long duration, and was soon changed into fullest approval. Accustomed as they were to see this scene lengthened out in Rossini's opera—to watch the imposing attitudes of Madame Pasta, or the efforts of Madame Malibran, to save her life, the brevity of the English original at first astonished them. But, at the same time, the dialogue, so concise, so rapid, moving so directly to the mark—those ambiguous, and, at the same time, distracted words which Othello mutters in suppressed tones of voice; that inexorable determination which he has made, and which he executes with agitated haste, with bursting heart and teeth closely set, hardly daring to look upon his victim, but without even a momentary wavering—Desdemona's entreaties, short, tender, timid: so much so, that they only show her concern for life; her replies, in which all the bold confidence of innocence declares itself, when Othello alludes to her handkerchief, which had been found on Cassio:

"He found it there!"

and, when Othello declares to her that Cassio has confessed his crime:

"He will not say so."

Words of simple sublimity, which Mademoiselle Mars renders with an accent of corresponding simplicity and sublimity; those cries from without which hasten the fatal stroke, and, as it were, nerve the arm of Othello—all this was most deeply felt, applauded as far as the emotion which it caused would allow, and—if we may say so without suggesting any comparison that would be invidious—the tragic scene appeared as superior to the lyric scene as the tragedy of Othello itself is superior to the libretto which is sold for thirty sous at the entrance of the Opéra Bouffon.

Immediately after this scene an incident follows which, we are perfectly aware, has been much applauded by all critics, which is greatly celebrated in all modern poetical criticism, which is even strongly commended by philosophers as an inimitable touch of nature.

Emilia enters the chamber, and Desdemona in her last moments yet finds enough strength left to accuse herself of her own death, and to exculpate Othello:

"Nobody: I myself: Farewell!
Commend me to my kind lord: Oh, farewell!"

We must give our testimony that there was no effect whatever produced by these words, and we will freely confess that we should always doubt whether there ought to be any.

Let the critics fulminate against us, let them, if they will, launch their thunder-bolts against us; but it has always appeared to us that this short passage betrays a theatrical artifice, and that here it is the poet who speaks to us through the mouth of his character. It has always appeared to us that this last expiring utterance of Desdemona involves an idea far too complicated, far too refined—a prevision, a precaution, which harmonize neither with her position, nor even with her character.

Since the day of her marriage, Desdemona has regarded herself as Othello's property—as a thing of which Othello is the absolute master, to use or abuse at his pleasure—as a slave whom he may beat or kill, according as his fancy may lead him; how then came she to think all at once that Othello could run any risk so far as she was concerned, or that it was necessary to place him under shelter from a criminal prosecution? Let her kiss Othello's hand when dying; this is quite in keeping with her character—but for her to give her evidence in his favor, by anticipating the proceedings in a court of justice, is not.

Whether we are right or wrong is yet to be seen; this, however, is of little importance. For the fact we can vouch—we repeat it—that these words made little or no impression.

On the other hand, we can hardly say enough in praise of the last scene—a scene about which the critics say little, but which is, in our humble opinion, one of the most admirable in the whole piece, and which produced an impression worthy of its transcendent beauty.

Hardly has Desdemona breathed out her last sigh, scarcely has the blind fury of Othello satiated himself, when the scene changes, his reason returns, the light of truth bursts upon him like a flood, and encounters him on all sides. Not by the explanations of Emilia is he undeceived, nor even by the confessions of Iago. Half an hour previously he would not have listened to any thing of the kind, but now he anticipates it all.

Even as he had attempted at first to summon his good sense and firmness to his assistance, against the first assaults of jealousy, so now he attempts to summon his frenzy and blind infatuation to his assistance, against the clamorous reproaches of his reason. He cries out with affected brutality, when speaking of Desdemona:

"She's, like a liar, gone to burning hell,
'Twas I that killed her."

He calls with vaunting impetuosity upon Iago,

"Honest, honest Iago!"

to afford him shelter and protection; he constrains himself to recount once more the baseness which he has always before spoken of in accents of wild fury; but now his language is involuntarily changed:

Vain efforts! he is at length compelled to contemplate himself as he really is. Deprived of a being of spotless goodness, whom he adored, he now sees himself as others see him, the object not only of horror, but also of derision and contempt. Such epithets as calumniator, murderer assassin, are too gentle for him—he is an infuriated mad man, an enraged wild beast, a bull goaded by the gad-fly, or which has thrown itself, with determination to trample under its feet and to gore with its horns, upon a piece of red cloth which a malicious hand has placed before its eyes. He is in exactly the same position as Ajax, in Sophocles, at the moment when he recovers his senses, after his unhappy mania has departed.

Such words as

are showered down upon Othello from all sides. At first he holds down his head, abandoned to his self-recriminations—he is disarmed like a child.

But immediately he adds, and this relieves him,

And then,

Then he falls upon the body of Desdemona, uttering wild, inarticulate cries, which it is impossible to hear without a shudder of grief and sympathy.

However, this paroxysm of humiliation and despair only lasts for a moment. Othello soon recovers his self-possession. In proportion as reason regains its empire in him, he, in his turn, regains his accustomed ascendency over all the circumstances that surround him. Two or three stern and significant words show that he has determined in his own soul what course he shall pursue. He seizes another sword, and none of those present will dare now to deprive him of it. In the presence of Cassio, he excuses himself with nobleness and simplicity; he contemplates with a look of indifference, in which there is a mixture of disdain, the preparations made to secure his person; and when, at last, Ludovico advances toward him, and, in an already half-intimidated tone, orders him to be in readiness to take his departure to Venice, under a strong escort, in order to appear before the Senate, he interrupts him with the words,

"Soft you; a word or two before you go."

See here, again, the mighty power of the poet; how much he can indicate by a single stroke. Ludovico shall depart alone, such is Othello's determination; Othello is not to go at all, such is his wish; no one is to dispose of him but himself; he will not hear one remark on this point. He then proceeds, in a strain of dignified sadness:

This said, and after having provided, as far as is possible for him, for his good name, he returns to self-revenge—he turns, with all the lofty pride of his indignant spirit, against that miserable body which he is about to chastise as a rebellious slave, as a ferocious animal which has dared to trample upon its master, and has thereby abandoned him to dishonor; and, seeking for words expressive of the direst insult, which recall at once what he was, and the works of his life, and what he has always most bitterly despised, he says,

We have dilated on the effect produced by this faithful and, we may say, literal translation of "Othello," because this effect seemed to us to augur very favorably for the French theatre. The piece was better played than any of the master-pieces of our dramatic writers is at this time; it has been better judged than any other piece, so far as we know, ever has been; for it has been judged sincerely, without prejudice, without any spirit of partisanship, and each scene has been estimated according to its true value.

If the public will resolutely maintain this freedom of mind, if they will continue henceforth, on every renewed attempt, to applaud only what seems to them to be good, to condemn that which strikes them as bad, to take up an attitude of indifference to things which are in themselves indifferent, it will, by these means, do much for art, and still more for its own gratification. It will save us the annoyance of an inundation of those imitations of the romantic school of the drama which already threaten to supersede the imitations of the classical school. After we have tried, for a hundred years, under a thousand different names, endless variations on the "Andromaque," the "Mérope," and the "Zaïre"—variations, however, which are devoid of all the beauties which belong to the originals—we shall be preserved from the misfortune of experiencing, under a thousand other names, and perhaps during another hundred years, mere repetitions of "Macbeth," "Othello," or "William Tell," minus the real beauties of "Macbeth," "Othello," and "William Tell."

The beautiful can never be the result of imitation: what is really imitated are the defects, the exterior forms, the mannerism of great poets; and when the public, in its unreflecting enthusiasm for great poets, allows itself to applaud even their faults, or merely their mannerism, it is sure to have very soon more than enough of these.

Let those who are attached to the romantic school be well assured that this school will not establish itself among us by means of reversed reproductions of old works of art in a thin, transparent disguise, nor by counterfeits foisted upon us under the pretense of being borrowed. Let them traduce the beautiful productions of foreign literature, line by line; their work will not be thrown away; but, in Heaven's name, let them not produce these as novelties, and present them before us as fruits which are indigenous to their soil. They would not even have the excuse of their colleagues—originality must always be original. And let not the public allow themselves to be duped—never let them applaud a modern author merely because he can dress himself up in the plumage of a great master.

And let the friends of the classic school be well assured, in their turn, that their only chance of safety is in being able to rival the romantic school. It is now already dead—it has been slain by the copyists; imitations at second and third hand have filled us with an insurmountable disgust. It will revive—of this there can be no doubt; but its revival must be under a new and transformed appearance, released from the shackles by which it has been unreasonably entangled, free in its movements, prepared to enter upon a new career.

This service must be rendered to it by the existing romantic school.

That will be a happy time when we shall be able to see these two schools flourishing in the presence of each other, in a reasonable degree of independence, governed, each for itself, by the laws appropriate to its true nature, and distributing with lavish hand the beauties which are their own native growths.

But it will be said, Do you then believe that the classic school has an actual existence—that it is not a mistake, a folly, as has been so often declared? Assuredly, we believe this. Do you think that the romantic school has its laws, and that it does not consist in the abnegation of all laws? Far from it. You do not regard as laws of the classic school those rules about which so much noise has been made? Not at all.

Explain yourself, then. Where is the line of demarkation between the two schools to be drawn? What is your idea of the classic, what of the romantic school? What are those laws of which you speak?

These are questions which we would very gladly answer; but time presses, and the amount of space which can be allotted to us in a review of this kind is already more than exhausted. We must, then, of necessity delay our answer till another opportunity. Moreover, the adherents of the romantic school have now a favorable breeze; and as besides, they do not lack expertness to find pretexts, the occasion will not long be wanting to us.

Historical Dramas.

Shakspeare did not write his historical dramas in chronological order, and with the intention of reproducing upon the stage the great events and characters of the history of England, as they had been successively developed in fact. He had no idea of working on so general and systematic a plan. He composed his plays just according as some particular circumstance either suggested the idea, or inspired the whim, or imposed the necessity of composing them, never troubling himself about the chronology of the subjects, or about the uniform whole which certain works might form. He has introduced upon the stage nearly all the history of England from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, from John Lackland to Henry VIII.; beginning with King Henry VI. and the fifteenth century, then ascending to King John and the thirteenth century, and finally ending with Henry VIII. and the sixteenth century, after having several times transposed the order of both centuries and kings. The following is the dramatic chronology of his six historical dramas, according to his most learned commentators, and among others, Mr. Malone:

1. The First Part of King Henry VI. (1422-1461), composed in 1569.

2. The Second Part of King Henry VI., composed in 1591.

3. The Third Part of King Henry VI., composed in 1591.

4. King John (1199-1216), composed in 1596.

5. King Richard II. (1377-1399), composed in 1597.

6. King Richard III. (1483-1485), composed in 1597.

7. The First Part of King Henry IV. (1399-1413), composed in 1598.

8. The Second Part of King Henry IV., composed in 1598.

9. King Henry V. (1413-1422), composed in 1599.

10. King Henry VIII. (1509-1547), composed in 1601.

But, after having indicated with precision the chronological order of the composition of Shakspeare's historical dramas, we must, in order properly to appreciate their character and dramatic connection, replace them in the true order of events. This I have done in the notices which I have written on these dramas; and thus alone can we really behold the genius of Shakspeare unfolding and giving new life to the history of his country.

[Transcriber's note: Guizot presents a history of John Lackland in "A Popular History of England, From the Earliest Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria", Volume I, Chapter VIII. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/61647/61647-h/61647-h.htm#Page_182. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_monarchs.]

King John.

(1596.)

In choosing the reign of John Lackland as the subject of a tragedy, Shakspeare imposed upon himself the necessity of not scrupulously respecting history. A reign in which, as Hume says, "England was baffled and affronted in every enterprise," could not be represented in its true colors before an English public and an English court; and the only recollection of King John to which the nation could attach any value—I refer to Magna Charta—was not a topic likely to interest, in any great degree, such a queen as Elizabeth. Shakspeare's play accordingly presents only a summary of the last years of this disgraceful reign; and the skill of the poet is employed to conceal the character of his principal personage without disfiguring it, and to dissemble the color of events without altogether changing it. The only fact concerning which Shakspeare has distinctly adopted a resolution to substitute invention for truth is the relation of King John to France; and assuredly, all the illusions of national vanity were necessary to enable Shakspeare to describe, and the English to witness, Philip Augustus succumbing beneath the ascendency of John Lackland. Such a picture might indeed have been presented to John himself when—living in total inactivity at Rouen, while Philip was regaining all his possessions in France—he vauntingly said, "Let the French go on; I will retake in a day what it has cost them years to acquire." All that which, in Shakspeare's play, is relative to the war with France, seems to have been invented in justification of this gasconade of the most cowardly and insolent of princes.

In the rest of the drama, the action itself, and the indication of facts which it was impossible to dissemble, are sufficient to give us a glimpse of a character into the inmost recesses of which the poet did not venture to penetrate, and into which he could not have penetrated without disgust. But such a personage, and so constrained a manner of description, were not capable of producing a great dramatic effect; and Shakspeare has therefore concentrated the interest of his drama upon the fate of young Arthur, and has devolved upon Faulconbridge that original and brilliant part in which we feel that he takes delight, and which he never refuses to introduce into any of his works.

Shakspeare has presented the young Duke of Bretagne to us at that age at which it first became necessary to assert his rights after the death of King Richard—that is, at about twelve years old. We know that at the period to which Shakspeare's tragedy refers Arthur was about twenty-five or twenty-six, and that he was already married, and an object of interest from his amiable and brilliant qualities, when he was taken prisoner by his uncle; but the poet felt how much more interesting the exhibition of weakness in conflict with cruelty became when exemplified in a child. And besides, if Arthur had not been a child, it would not have been allowable to put forward his mother in his place; and, by suppressing Constance, Shakspeare would, perhaps, have deprived us of the most pathetic picture that he ever drew of maternal love—one of the feelings of which he evinced the profoundest appreciation.

But, at the same time that he rendered the fact more touching, he lessened the horror which it inspires by diminishing the atrocity of the crime. The most generally received opinion is, that Hubert de Bourg, who had promised to put Arthur to death only that he might save him, had, in fact, deceived the cruelty of his uncle by false reports and a pretended burial; but that John, on being informed of the truth, first withdrew Arthur from the Castle of Falaise, in which he was confined under Hubert's guardianship, and transferred him to the Castle of Rouen, whither he proceeded at night, and by water, had his nephew conveyed into his boat, stabbed him with his own hand, tied a stone to his body, and threw him into the river. Such an image would naturally be rejected by a true poet. Independently of the necessity of absolving his principal personage of so odious a crime, Shakspeare perceived how much more dramatic and conformable to the general nature of man the cowardly remorse of John, when he perceived the danger in which he was plunged by the report of his nephew's death, would be, than this excess of brutal ferocity; and certainly, the fine scene between John and Hubert, after the withdrawal of the lords, is amply sufficient to justify his choice. Besides, the picture which Shakspeare presents had too strong a hold upon his imagination, and had acquired too much reality in his eyes, for him not to be conscious that, after the incomparable scene in which Arthur obtains his safety from Hubert, it would be impossible to endure the idea of any human being laying hands on this poor child, and forcing him again to undergo the agony from which he has just escaped.

The poet also knew that the sight of Arthur's death, although less cruel, would be intolerable if accompanied, in the minds of the spectators, by the anguish which the thought of Constance would add to it; and he is, therefore, careful to inform us of the death of the mother before making us witness the death of the child; just as if, when his genius had conceived, to a certain degree, the painfulness of any particular feeling or passion, his tender heart became alarmed at it, and sought to modify it for its own sake. Whatever misfortune Shakspeare may depict, he almost invariably leads us to anticipate a still greater misfortune, before which his mind recoils, and which he spares us the unhappiness of beholding.

The character of the bastard Faulconbridge was suggested to Shakspeare by a drama of Rowley's, entitled "The Troublesome Reign of King John," which appeared in 1591, that is, five years before Shakspeare's play, which was composed, it is believed, in 1596. Rowley's play was reprinted in 1611, with Shakspeare's name attached to it—rather a common trick of the booksellers and publishers of that time. This circumstance, and the extent to which Shakspeare has borrowed from this work, has led several critics to believe that he had had a hand in it, and that "The Life and Death of King John" was only a recast of the first work; but it does not appear that this supposition has any foundation in fact.

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. 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. 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. 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.