Shakespere

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877 Excerpt: ... carry him forward without faltering. He is not cruel, but shrinks from no deed that is needful to his purpose because the deed is cruel. His faculties are strong and well-knit. There is no finer contrast in Shakspere's historical plays than that between the figures of the formidable king of deeds, and the romantic king of hectic feelings and brilliant words. Coincidences have heen pointed out between Richard II. and Daniel's Civil Wars, 2nd edition, 1595: if either borrowed from the other, the borrower was probably Daniel. 13. King John departs farther from the facts of history than any other of Shakspere's historical plays. He here follows for the most part not Holinshed, but an old play in two parts, which appeared in 1591, entitled The Troublesome Raigne of King John of England. He follows it, however, not in the close way in which he had previously worked when writing 2 and 3 Henry VI.; the main incidents are the same, but Shakspere elevates and almost recreates the characters; for the most eloquent and poetical passages no original is to be found in the old play. The character of the king grows more darkly treacherous in Shakspere's hands: barely a hint of the earlier author suggested the scene, so powerful and so subtle, in which John insinuates to Hubert his murderous desires; the boyish innocence of Arthur, and the pathos of his life, become real and living as they are dealt with by. the imagination of Shakspere; Constance is no longer a fierce and ambitious virago, but a passionate sorrowing mother; Faulconbridge is ennobled by a manly tenderness and a purer patriotism. Shakspere depicts, with true English spirit, the ambition, the political greed, the faithlessness, the sophistry of the court of Rome; but he wholly omits a ribald scene of the old...