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believe therefore, from this accuracy, that Shrewsbury had lent a local interest in the mind of Shakspere to the dramatic conception of the death-scene of the gallant Percy. Insurrection was not crushed at Shrewsbury; but the course of its action does not lie in the native district of the poet. Yet his Falstaff has an especial affection for these familiar scenes, and perhaps through him the poet described some of the "old familiar faces." Shallow and Silence assuredly they were his good neighbours. We think there was a tear in his eye when he wrote, "And is old Double dead?" Mouldy, and Shadow, and Wart, and Feeble-were they not the representatives of the valiant men of Stratford, upon whom the Corporation annually expended large sums for harness? After the treacherous putting down of rebellion at Gualtree Forest, Falstaff casts a longing look towards the fair seat of " Master Robert Shallow, Esquire." "My lord, I beseech you give me leave to go through Gloucestershire." We are not now far out of the range of Shakspere's youthful journeys around Stratford. Shallow will make the poor carter answer it in his wages "about the sack he lost the other day at Hinckley Fair." "William Visor of Wincot," that arrant knave who, according to honest and charitable Davy, "should have some countenance at his friend's request," was he a neighbour of Christopher Sly's "fat ale-wife of Wincot ;" and did they dwell together in the Wincot of the parish of Aston-Clifford, or the Wilmecote of the parish of Aston-Cantlow? The chroniclers are silent upon this point; and they tell us nothing of the history of " Clement Perkes of the Hill." The chroniclers deal with less happy and less useful sojourners on the earth. Even "goodman Puff of Barson," one of "the greatest men in the realm," has no fame beyond the immortality which Master Silence has bestowed upon him.

The four great historical dramas which exhibit the fall of Richard II., the triumph of Bolingbroke, the inquietudes of Henry IV., the wild career of his son ending in a reign of chivalrous daring and victory, were undoubtedly written after the four other plays of which the great theme was the war of the Roses. The local associations which might have influenced the young poet in the choice of the latter subject would be concentrated, in a great degree, upon Warwick Castle. The hero of these wars was unquestionably Richard Neville. It was a Beauchamp who fought at Agincourt in that goodly company who were to be remembered "to the ending of the world,”

"Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester."

He ordained in his will that in his chapel at Warwick "three masses every day should be sung as long as the world might endure." The masses have long since ceased; but his tomb still stands, and he has a memorial that will last longer than his tomb. The chronicler passes over his fame at Agincourt, but the dramatist records it. Did the poet's familiarity with those noble towers in which the Beauchamp had lived suggest this honour to his memory? But here, at any rate, was the stronghold of the Neville. Here, when the land was at peace in the dead sleep of weak government, which was to be succeeded by

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fearful action, the great Earl dwelt with more than a monarch's pomp, having his own officer-at-arms called Warwick herald, with hundreds of friends and dependants bearing about his badge of the ragged staff; for whose boundless hospitality there was daily provision made as for the wants of an army; whose manors and castles and houses were to be numbered in almost every county; and who not only had pre-eminence over every Earl in the land, but, as Great Captain of the Sea, received to his own use the King's tonnage and poundage. When William Shakspere looked upon this castle in his youth, a peaceful Earl dwelt within it, the brother of the proud Leicester-the son of the ambitious Northumberland who had suffered death in the attempt to make Lady Jane Grey queen, but whose heir had been restored in blood by Mary. Warwick Castle, in the reign of Elizabeth, was peaceful as the river which glided by it, the most beautiful of fortress palaces. No prisoners lingered in its donjon keep; the beacon blazed not upon its battlements, the warder looked not anxiously out to see if all was quiet on the road from Kenilworth; the drawbridge was let down for the curious stranger, and he might refresh himself in the buttery without suspicion. Here, then, might the young poet gather from the old servants of the house some of the traditions of a century previous, when the followers of the great Earl were ever in fortress or in camp, and for a while there seemed to be no king in England, but the name of Warwick was greater than that of king. Here, in the quiet woods and launds of this castle, or stretched

on the bank of his own Avon beneath its high walls, might he have imagined, without the authority of any chronicler, that scene in the Temple Gardens which was to connect the story of the wars in France with the coming events in England. In this scene the Earl of Warwick first plucks the "white rose with Plantagenet ;" and it is Warwick who prophesies what is to come :

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In the connected plays which form the Three Parts of Henry VI., the Earl of Warwick, with some violation of chronological accuracy, is constantly brought forward in a prominent situation. When the "brave peers of England" unite in denouncing the marriage of Henry with Margaret of Anjou, the Earl of Salisbury says to his bold heir:

"Warwick, my son, the comfort of my age,

Thy deeds, thy plainness, and thy housekeeping,
Hath won the greatest favour of the Commons." †

In a subsequent scene, Beaufort calls him "ambitious Warwick." A scene or two onward, and Warwick, after privately acknowledging the title of Richard Duke of York, exclaims

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It is he, the "blunt-witted lord," that defies Suffolk, and sets the men of Bury upon him to demand his banishment. It is he who stands by the bed of the dying Beaufort, judging that

"So bad a death argues a monstrous life."

All this is skilfully managed by the dramatist, to keep Warwick constantly before the eyes of his audience, before he is embarked in the great contest for the crown. The poet has given Warwick an early importance, which the chroniclers of the age do not assign to him. He is dramatically correct in so doing; but, at the same time, his judgment might in some degree have been governed by the strength of local associations. Once embarked in the great quarrel, Warwick is the presiding genius of the scene:

“Now, by my father's badge, old Nevil's crest,

The rampant bear chain'd to the ragged staff,

This day I'll wear aloft my burgonet,

As on a mountain-top the cedar shows

That keeps his leaves in spite of any storm.'

After three or

The sword is first unsheathed in that battle-field of St. Albans. four years of forced quiet it is again drawn. The "she-wolf of France" plunges her fangs into the blood of York at Wakefield, after Warwick has won the great battle of Northampton. The crown is achieved by the son of York at the field of Towton, where

"Warwick rages like a chafed bull.”

The poet necessarily hurries over events which occupy a large space in the narratives of the historian. The rash marriage of Edward provokes the resentment of Warwick, and his power is now devoted to set up the fallen house of Lancaster. Shakspere is then again in his native localities. After the battle of Banbury, according to the chronicler, "the northern men resorted toward Warwick, where the Earl had gathered a great multitude of people.

The King likewise, sore thirsting to recover his loss late sustained, and desirous to be revenged of the death and murders of his lords and friends, marched toward Warwick with a great army. . . . All the King's doings were by espials declared to the Earl of Warwick, which, like a wise and politic captain, intending not to lose so great an advantage to him given, but trusting to bring all his purposes to a final end and determination, by only obtaining this enterprise, in the dead of the night, with an elect company of men of war, as secretly as was possible set on the King's field, killing them that kept the watch, and ere the King was ware (for he thought of nothing less than of that chance that happened), at a place called Wolney (Wolvey), four mile from Warwick, he was taken prisoner, and brought to the Castle of Warwick." The statement that Wolvey is four miles from Warwick is one of many examples of the inaccuracy of the old annalists in matters of distance. It is upon the borders of Leicester

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shire, Coventry lying equidistant between Wolvey and Warwick. Shakspere has dramatized the scene of Edward's capture. Edward escapes from Middleham Castle, and, after a short banishment, lands again with a few followers in England, to place himself again upon the throne, by a movement which has only one parallel in history.* Shakspere describes his countrymen, in the speech which the great Earl delivers for the encouragement of Henry :

"In Warwickshire I have true-hearted friends,

Not mutinous in peace, yet bold in war;

Those will I muster up."

Henry is again seized by the Yorkists. Warwick," the great-grown traitor," is at the head of his native forces. The local knowledge of the poet is now rapidly put forth in the scene upon the walls of Coventry :—

"War. Where is the post that comes from valiant Oxford?

How far hence is thy lord, mine honest fellow?

1 Mess. By this at Dunsmore, marching thitherward.
War. How far off is our brother Montague?

Where is the post that came from Montague?

2 Mess. By this at Daintry, with a puissant troop.

Enter Sir JOHN SOMERVILLE.

War. Say, Somerville, what says my loving son?
And, by thy guess, how nigh is Clarence now?
Som. At Southam I did leave him with his forces,
And do expect him here some two hours hence.

[Drum heard.

War. Then Clarence is at hand, I hear his drum.
Som. It is not his, my lord; here Southam lies;
The drum your honour hears marcheth from Warwick."

The chronicler tells the great event of the encounter of the two leaders at Coventry, which the poet has so spiritedly dramatized :-" In the mean season King Edward came to Warwick, where he found all the people departed, and from thence with all diligence advanced his power toward Coventry, and in a plain by the city he pitched his field. And the next day after that he came thither his men were set forward and marshalled in array, and he valiantly bade the Earl battle: which, mistrusting that he should be deceived by the Duke of Clarence, as he was indeed, kept himself close within the walls. And yet he had perfect word that the Duke of Clarence came forward toward him with a great army. King Edward, being also thereof informed, raised his camp, and made toward the Duke. And lest that there might be thought some fraud to be cloaked between them, the King set his battles in an order, as though he would fight without any longer delay; the Duke did likewise."‡ Then “a

*The landing of Bonaparte from Elba, and Edward at Ravenspurg, are remarkably similar in their rapidity and their boldness, though very different in their final consequences.

↑ Henry VI., Part III., Act v., Scene 1.

+ Hall.

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