the full touch of our sympathies. Thus, when Eleanor coarsely provokes her, she retorts in a strain of still coarser railing; and the bandying of taunts and slurs between them, each not caring what she says, so her speech bites the other, is about equally damaging to them both; a storm of mutual abuse, in which there is neither modesty nor wit. It is true, she meets with very sore trials of patience, but these can hardly be said to open any springs of sweetness or beauty within her. When she finds that her heart's dear cause is sacrificed to the schemes of politicians; when it turns out that the King of France and the Archduke of Austria are driving their own ends in her name, and only pretending pity for her and conscience of right, to cover their selfish projects, the heart-wringing disappointment inflames her into outbursts of sarcastic bitterness and scorn; her speech is stinging and spiteful, and sounds quite as much of the intemperate scold as of the sorrowing and disconsolate mother. The impression of her behaviour in these points is well described by Gervinus: "What a variety of feeling is expressed in those twenty lines where she inquires anxiously after the truth of that which shocks her to hear! How her grief, so long as she is alone, restrains itself in calmer anguish in the vestibule of despair! how it first bursts forth in the presence of others in powerless revenge, rising to a curse which brings no blessing to herself! and how atoningly behind all this unwomanly rage lies the foil of maternal love! We should be moved with too violent a pity for this love, if it did not weaken our interest by its want of moderation; we should turn away from the violence of the woman, if the strength of her maternal affection did not irresistibly enchain us."

As Shakespeare used the allowable license of art in stretching the life of Constance beyond its actual date, that he might enrich his work with the eloquence of a mother's love; so he took a like freedom in making Arthur younger than the facts prescribed, that he might in larger measure

pour in the sweetness of childish innocence and wit. Both of these departures from strict historic order are highly judicious; at least they are amply redeemed by the dramatic wealth which comes in fitly through them. And in the case of Arthur there is the further gain, that the sparing of his eyes is owing to his potency of tongue and the piercing touch of gentleness; whereas in the history he is indebted for this to his strength of arm. The Arthur of the play is an artless, gentle, natural-hearted, but highspirited, eloquent boy, in whom we have the voice of nature pleading for nature's rights, unrestrained by pride of character or place; who at first braves his uncle, because set on to do so by his mother; and afterwards fears him, yet knows not why, because his heart is too full of "the holiness of youth" to conceive how any thing so treacherous and unnatural can be, as that which he fears. And he not only has a most tender and loving disposition, such as cruelty itself can hardly resist, but is also persuasive and wise far beyond his years; though his power of thought and magic of speech are so managed as rather to aid the impression of his childish age. Observe, too, how in the scene with Hubert his very terror operates in him a sort of preternatural illumination, and inspires him to a course of innocent and unconscious cunning, the perfect art of perfect artlessness. Of the scene in question Hazlitt justly says, "If anything ever were penned, heart-piercing, mixing the extremes of terror and pity, of that which shocks and that which soothes the mind, it is this scene." Yet even here the tender pathos of the loving and lovely boy is marred with some "quirks of wit," such as I can hardly believe the Poet would have allowed in his best days. In Arthur's dying speech,-"O me! my uncle's spirit is in these stones," our impression against John is most artfully heightened; all his foregoing inhumanity being, as it were, gathered and concentrated into an echo. Shakespeare has several times thrown the witchery of his genius into pictures of nursery life, bringing children upon the scene, and delighting us

with their innocent archness and sweet-witted prattle; as in the case of Mamillius in The Winter's Tale, and of Lady Macduff and her son; but Arthur is his most powerful and charming piece in that line. That his great, simple, manly heart loved to play with childhood, is indeed evident enough. Nor is it the least of his claims to our reverence, as an organ of Nature's bland and benignant wisdom.

The reign of King John furnished no characters fully answering the conditions of high dramatic interest. To meet this want, therefore, there was need of one or more representative characters, persons in whom should be centred and consolidated various elements of national character, which were in fact dispersed through many individuals; or a boiling down of the diffused old John Bull into an ideal specimen. And such is Falconbridge, with his fiery flood of Norman vigour bounding through his veins, his irrepressible dance of animal spirits, his athletic and frolicsome wit, his big, brave, manly heart, his biting sword, and his tongue equally biting; his soul proof-armoured against all fear save that of doing what were wrong or mean.

The Troublesome Reign supplied the name, and also a slight hint towards the character:

"Next them a bastard of the King deceas'd,

A hardy wild-head, rough and venturous.”

But the delineation is thoroughly Shakespearian, is crammed brimful of the Poet's most peculiar mental life; so that the man is as different as can well be conceived from any thing ever dreamed of in the older play. And, what is specially worth the noting, Shakespeare clearly embodies in him his own sentiment of nationality, pours his hearty, full-souled English spirit into him and through him; so that the character is, at least in the political sense, truly representative of the author; - all this, however, without the slightest tincture of egotism or self-obtrusion; the pure nationality of the man, extricated from all personal and partisan mixtures. So, to Falconbridge, both head and heart, the King,

as before remarked, is truly the Impersonation of the State, and he surrounds the throne with all those nobilities of thought, and all those ideas of majesty and reverence, which are wanting in John himself. He thus regards the crown just as the wearer ought to regard it. Withal he is fully alive to the wrong-headedness and moral baseness of the King; but the office is to him so sacred as the palladium of national unity and life, that he will allow neither himself nor others in his presence to speak disrespectfully of the man.

Falconbridge is strangely reckless of appearances. But his heart is evidently much better than his tongue: from his speech you might suppose gain to be his God of gods; but a far truer language, which he uses without knowing it, tells you that gain is to him just no god at all: he talks as if he cared for nothing but self-interest, while his works proclaim a spirit framed of disinterestedness; his action thus quietly giving the lie to his words; this too in such sort as establishes the more firmly his inward truth. His course in this behalf springs partly from an impulse of antagonism to the prevailing spirit about him, where he sees great swollen pretences to virtue without a particle of the thing itself. What he most of all abominates is the pursuit of selfish and sinister ends under the garb of religion; piety on the tongue with covetousness in the heart fills him with intense disgust; and his repugnance is so strong, that it sets him spontaneously upon assuming a garb of selfishness to cover his real conscientiousness of mind and purpose. So too, secretly, he is as generous as the Sun, but his generosity puts on an affectation of rudeness or something worse he will storm at you, to bluff you off from seeing the kindness he is doing you. Of the same stripe is his hatred of cruelty and meanness: while these things are rife about him, he never gets angry or makes any quarrel with them; on the contrary, he laughs and breaks sinewy jests over them, as if he thought them witty and smart: upon witnessing the heartless and unprincipled bargaining of the

Kings, he passes it off jocosely as a freak of the "mad world," and verbally frames for himself a plan that "smacks somewhat of the policy"; then, instead of acting out what he thus seems to relish as a capital thing, he goes on to shame down, as far as may be, all such baseness by an example of straightforward nobleness and magnanimity. Then too, with all his laughing roughness of speech and iron sternness of act, so blunt, bold, and downright, he is nevertheless full of humane and gentle feeling. With what burning eloquence of indignation does he denounce the supposed murder of Arthur! though he has no thought of abetting his claims to the throne against the present occupant. He abhors the deed as a crime: but to his keen, honest eye it is also a stupendous blunder; and he deplores it as such, because its huge offensiveness to England's heart is what makes it a blunder, and because he is himself in full sympathy with the national conscience, which cannot but be shocked at its hideous criminality. So it may be doubted whether he more resents the wickedness or the stupidity of the act. And how much it imperils the State is revealed to him in the hard strain it makes on his own determined allegiance.

The Poet manages with great art that Falconbridge may be held to John throughout the play by ties which he is too clear of head and too upright of heart to think of renouncing. In the first place, he has been highly trusted and honoured by the King, and he cannot be ungrateful. Then again, in his clear-sighted and comprehensive public spirit, the diverse interests that split others into factions, and plunge them into deadly strife, are smoothly reconciled: political regards work even more than personal gratitude, to keep him steadfast to the King; and he is ready with tongue and sword to beat down whatsoever anywhere obstructs a broad and generous nationality. In the intercourse of State functionaries, he, to be sure, pays little heed to the delicacies and refinements of political diplomacy: his plain, frank nature either scorns them or is insensible to