counterparts of one another. In the first action the central character is Lear-imperious, suspicious, passionate in the second, Gloucester-voluptuous, unsuspecting, easy-going. By the side of Lear stand Goneril and Regan-hypocritical, ungrateful, cruel: by that of Gloucester, Edmund-hypocritical, ungrateful, but not cruel, only void of moral sense; of a higher intellectual type. Lear's other daughter is Cordelia, honest, grateful, tender, as Gloucester's son Edgar is honest, grateful, chivalrous. The only other important characters are themselves opposites. Kent represents the honest servant conscience, spurned by his master; Oswald, the sneaking favourer of his mistress's vices. Cornwall depicts violence linked to a violent wife; Albany, passive goodness linked to active iniquity.

In the first story Lear, entirely by his own fault, is taken in by his two elder daughters, so that he heaps on them undeserved riches and power, while he banishes his true daughter Cordelia. Thus he drives away tenderness while he places himself unreservedly in the hands of cruelty. In the second story a hypocritical son, in whom envy has been excited by his father's illjudged speeches, abuses the confidence of that father to the ruin of his honest brother. So that Lear has favoured Goneril and Regan and ill used Cordelia, exactly as Gloucester has banished Edgar and taken Edmund to his heart. In the second step, Lear's impolitic action puts him in the power of Goneril and Regan, who abuse their trust, precisely as Gloucester's

ill-judging confidence in Edmund is the cause of his own betrayal. Furthermore, the conduct of Goneril and Regan results in Lear's losing his mental vision; that of Edmund in Gloucester's losing his natural eyes.

Again, in his misery Lear is tended by his injured daughter Cordelia; Gloucester by his injured son Edgar. Kent disguises himself as a servant; Edgar as a madman. Lastly, in the third plot, the place of Gloucester, who has acted as link between the two stories, is taken by Edmund, whose story henceforth becomes one with that of Goneril and Regan. It is his introduction into the court circle which breeds the rivalry between Goneril and Regan that results in their destruction.

Such a series of unnatural crimes requires a holocaust to expiate it. Guilty and guiltless are alike dragged down to the grave. As in Hamlet, destruction falls alike on him who has committed a sin and her who has made a mistake. Edgar and Albany, like Horatio and Fortinbras, alone survive, sadder but wiser men, to undertake the task of reorganising and calming a distracted world.

M

RICHARD II

PART I

IN dramatising English history, Shakespeare made the assumption that the general outline of events was known to his audience; but as we live in days separated from the incidents with which he dealt by a far larger gap than his were, we shall do well to consider briefly the circumstances which preceded the opening of the play.

The reign of Richard II had from its very commencement been a time of trouble. The usual causes of disaffection were present in unusual profusion. The discontent of the peasantry was shown by the revolt of Wat the Tyler; the turbulence of the nobles by numerous outrages and quarrels; and the whole was complicated by the addiction of the king to favourites, and by his indulgence in an extravagance unprecedented since the days of Edward II. In these troubles the leading part was played by the king's uncle, Thomas Duke of Gloucester; Henry of Bolingbroke, the son of

John of Gaunt; the Earl of Arundel; and Thomas Mowbray, afterwards Duke of Norfolk. These noblemen acted together in 1388 against the king's favourites, and put themselves forward as the opponents of the king's policy of peace with France. At this date they were completely successful, but nine years later Richard had his revenge. With considerable cunning he made friends with John of Gaunt, secured the neutrality of Bolingbroke, and winning the active co-operation of Mowbray, carried out a coup d'état against Arundel and Gloucester. Arundel was tried and executed, but when the person of Thomas of Gloucester, who had been committed to gaol at Calais, was called for, it was announced that he had died in prison. Popular belief of course settled that he had been murdered, and divided the guilt between the king and Mowbray, who was governor of the town and castle of Calais. At the time, however, not a finger was stirred, and so completely had Richard destroyed the opposition that he induced the Shrewsbury Parliament to make him virtually absolute. It was at this date that the events on which Shakespeare based his play occurred. The old associates Mowbray and Bolingbroke quarrelled, and Bolingbroke accused Mowbray of treason. The crisis was exceedingly serious, for Mowbray was the keeper of the secret of Gloucester's death, while Bolingbroke was known to be a man of great ability and ambition, whose hopes of succession to the crown had been balked by the proclamation as heir of Roger Mortimer, the grandson

of the Duke of Clarence. As no one knew the details of the quarrel between Bolingbroke and Mowbray-for there had been no witnesses of its occurrence-Bolingbroke was ordered to lay the matter before Parliament. This was done, and in February 1398 the two dukes met in Richard's presence. Here Shakespeare's play opens.

In Act i. Scene 1 we find King Richard and his uncle John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, in friendly but serious conversation. It seems that the duke has been surety for the appearance of his son Henry of Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, who has appealed or solemnly accused of treachery another nobleman, Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, and that he has brought him with him to the court. The very first speech of Richard, as is so often the case with Shakespeare's heroes, is designed to give us the key to his character. It is dignified and courteous, friendly but not familiar, the speech of a man who knew what was fitting both to himself and to others, but it is not that of a strong man. There is an air of complaint about the word "boisterous," and a confession. of unbusiness-like habits in the phrase "which then our leisure would not let us hear," that at once betrays the inherent weakness of his character. It is clear too that he is uneasy, and that both he and Gaunt feel that in dealing with Hereford they have to do with a man of stronger character than themselves.

“Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him,

If he appeal the duke on ancient malice;