is ironical. To have justified or apologized for deformity with serious argument, would have been no less ineffectual 'than a serious charge against beauty. The intention of Shakespeare is not to make us admire the monstrous deformity of Richard, but to make us endure it.

But I, that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an am'rous looking-glass;

I that am rudely stampt, and want Love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deform'd, unfinish'd, scnt before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionably,
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them :
Why I (in this weak piping time of peace)
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun,
And descant on mine own deformity:
And, therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

His contempt of external appearance, and the easy manner in which he considers his own defects, impress us strongly with the apprehension of his superior understand

ing. His resolution, too, of not acquiescing tamely in the misfortune of his form, but of making it a motive for him to exert his other abilities, gives us an idea of his possessing great vigour and strength of mind. Not dispirited with his deformity, it moves him to high exertion. Add to this, that our wonder and astonishment are excited at the declaration he makes of an atrocious character; of his total insensibility; and resolution to perpetuate the blackest crimes.

Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the king
In deadly hate, the one against the other:
And if King Edward be as true and just,
As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mew'd

up.

It may be said, perhaps, that the colouring here is by far too strong, and that we cannot suppose characters to exist so full of deliberate guilt, as thus to contemplate a criminal conduct without subterfuge, and without imposing upon themselves. It may be thought that even the Neros and the Domitians, who disgraced human nature,

did not consider themselves so atrociously wicked as they really were: but, transported by lawless passions, deceived themselves, and were barbarous without perceiving their guilt. It is difficult to ascertain what the real state of such perverted characters may be; nor is it a pleasing task to analyze their conceptions*. Yet the view which Shakespeare has given us of Richard's sedate and deliberate guilt, knowing that his conduct was really guilty, is not inconsistent. He only gives a deeper shade to the darkness of his character. With his other enormities and defects, he represents him incapable of feeling, though he may perceive the dif ference between virtue and vice. Moved by unbounded ambition; vain of his intellectual and political talents; conceiving himself, by reason of his deformity, as of a different species from the rest of mankind; and inured from his infancy to the barbarities perpetrated during a desperate civil war ; surely it is not incompatible with his character, to represent him incapable of feeling those pleasant or unpleasant sensations that * Butler.

usually, in other men, accompany the discernment of right and of wrong. I will indeed allow, that the effect would have been as powerful, and the representation would have been better suited to our ideas of human nature, had Richard, both here and in other scenes, given indication of his guilt rather by obscure hints and surmises, than by an open declaration.

II. In the scene between Richard and Lady Anne, the attempt seems as bold, and the situation as difficult, as any in the tra gedy.

It seems, indeed, altogether wild and unnatural, that Richard, deformed and hideous as the poet represents him, should offer himself a suitor to the widow of an excellent young prince whom he had slain, at the very time she is attending the funeral of her husband's father, and while she is expressing the most bitter hatred against the author of her misfortune. But, in attending to the progress of the dialogue, we shall find ourselves more interested in the event, and more astonished at the boldness and

P

ability of Richard, than moved with abhorrence at his shameless effrontery, or offended with the improbability of the si

tuation.

In considering this scene, it is necessary that we keep in view the character of Lady Anne. The outlines of this character: are given us in her own conversation; but we see it more completely finished and filled up, indirectly indeed, but not less distinctly, in the conduct of Richard. She is represented by the poet, of a mind altogether frivolous; incapable of deep affection; guided by no steady principles of virtue, produced or strengthened by reason and reflection; the prey of vanity, which is her ruling passion; susceptible of every feeling and emotion; sincere in their expression while they last; but hardly capable of distinguishing the propriety of one more than another; and so exposed alike to the influence of good and of bad impressions. There are such characters: persons of great sensibility, of great sincerity, of no rational or steady virtue, and consequently of no consistency of conduct. They now amaze