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GILES OVERREACH, and lastly in OROONOKO; but we still like to look back to his first performance of this part, both because it first assured his admirers of his future success, and because we bore our feeble but, at that time, not useless testimony to the merits of this very original actor, on which the town was considerably divided for no other reason than because they WERE original.

The manner in which Shakespeare's plays have been generally altered or rather mangled by modern mechanists, is a disgrace to the English stage. The patch-work Richard III which is acted under the sanction of his name, and which was manufactured by Cibber, is a striking example of this remark.

The play itself is undoubtedly a very powerful effusion of Shakespeare's genius. The ground-work of the character of Richard, that mixture of intellectual vigour with moral depravity, in which Shakespeare delighted to show his strength--gave full scope as well as temptation to the exercise of his imagination. The character of his hero is almost everywhere predominant, and marks its lurid track throughout. The original play is, however, too long for representation, and there are some few scenes which might be better spared than preserved, and by omitting which it would remain a complete whole. The only rule, indeed, for altering Shakespeare is to retrench certain passages which may be considered either as superfluous or obsolete, but not to add or transpose anything. The arrangement and development of the story, and the mutual contrast and combination of the dramatis personae, are in general as finely managed as the development of the characters or the expression of the passions.

This rule has not been adhered to in the present instance. Some of the most important and striking passages in the principal character have been omitted, to make room for idle and misplaced extracts from other plays; the only intention of which seems to have been to make the character of Richard as odious and disgusting as possible. It is apparently for no other purpose than to make Gloucester stab King Henry on the stage, that the fine abrupt introduction of the character in the opening of the play is lost in the tedious whining morality of the uxorious king (taken from another play);--we say TEDIOUS, because it interrupts the business of the scene, and loses its beauty and effect by having no intelligible connexion with the previous character of the mild, well-meaning monarch. The passages which the unfortunate Henry has to recite are beautiful and pathetic in themselves, but they have nothing to do with the world that Richard has to 'bustle in'. In the same spirit of vulgar caricature is the scene between Richard and Lady Anne (when his wife) interpolated without any authority, merely to gratify this favourite propensity to disgust and loathing. With the same perverse consistency, Richard, after his last fatal struggle, is raised up by some galvanic process, to utter the imprecation, without any motive but pure malignity, which Shakespeare has so properly put into the mouth of Northumberland on hearing of Percy's death. To make room for these worse than needless additions, many of the most striking passages in the real play have been omitted by the foppery and ignorance of the prompt-book critics. We do not mean to insist merely on passages which are fine as poetry and to the reader, such as Clarence's dream, &c., but on those which are important to the understanding of the character, and peculiarly adapted for stage- effect. We will give the following as instances among several others. The first is the scene where Richard enters abruptly to the queen and her friends to defend himself:

Gloucester. They do me wrong, and I will not endure it.

Who are they that complain unto the king, That I forsooth am stern, and love them not? By holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly, That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours: Because I cannot flatter and look fair, Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog, Duck with French nods, and apish courtesy, I must be held a rancorous enemy. Cannot a plain man live, and think no harm, But thus his simple truth must be abus'd With silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?

Gray. To whom in all this presence speaks your grace?

Gloucester. To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace;

When have I injur'd thee, when done thee wrong? Or thee? or thee? or any of your faction? A plague upon you all!

Nothing can be more characteristic than the turbulent pretensions to meekness and simplicity in this address. Again, the versatility and adroitness of Richard is admirably described in the following ironical conversation with Brakenbury:

Brakenbury. I beseech your graces both to pardon me.

His majesty hath straitly given in charge, That no man shall have private conference, Of what degree soever, with your brother.

Gloucester. E'en so, and please your worship, Brakenbury,

You may partake of anything we say: We speak no treason, man--we say the king Is wise and virtuous, and his noble queen Well strook in years, fair, and not jealous. We say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot, A cherry lip,
A bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue; That the queen's kindred are made gentlefolks. How say you, sir? Can you deny all this?

Brakenbury. With this, my lord, myself have nought to do.

Gloucester. What, fellow, naught to do with mistress Shore?

I tell you, sir, he that doth naught with her, Excepting one, were best to do it secretly alone.

Brakenbury. What one, my lord?

Gloucester. Her husband, knave--would'st thou betray me?

The feigned reconciliation of Gloucester with the queen's kinsmen is also a masterpiece. One of the finest strokes in the play, and which serves to show as much as anything the deep, plausible manners of Richard, is the unsuspecting security of Hastings, at the very time when the former is plotting his death, and when that very appearance of cordiality and good-humour on which Hastings builds his confidence arises from Richard's consciousness of having betrayed him to his ruin. This, with the whole character of Hastings, is omitted.

Perhaps the two most beautiful passages in the original play are the farewell apostrophe of the queen to the Tower, where the children are shut up from her, and Tyrrel's description of their death. We will finish our quotations with them.

Queen. Stay, yet look back with me unto the Tower;

Pity, you ancient stones, those tender babes, Whom envy hath immured within your walls; Rough cradle for such little pretty ones, Rude, rugged nurse, old sullen play-fellow, For tender princes! The other passage is the account of their death by Tyrrel:

Dighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn

To do this piece of ruthless butchery, Albeit they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs,-- Wept like to children in their death's sad story: O thus! quoth Dighton, lay the gentle babes; Thus, thus, quoth Forrest, girdling one another Within their innocent alabaster arms; Their lips were four red roses on a stalk, And in that summer beauty kissed each other; A book of prayers on their pillow lay, Which once, quoth Forrest, almost changed my mind: But oh the devil!--there the villain stopped; When Dighton thus told on--we smothered The most replenished sweet work of nature, That from the prime creation ere she framed.

These are some of those wonderful bursts of feeling, done to the life, to the very height of fancy and nature, which our Shakespeare alone could give. We do not insist on the repetition of these last passages as proper for the stage: we should indeed be loath to trust them in the mouth of almost any actor: but we should wish them to be retained in preference at least to the fantoccini exhibition of the young princes, Edward and York, bandying childish wit with their uncle.

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