TO MY WIFE. One general law guides nature from above, "Bloom, children, bloom, then bear your fruit and die." But the bright orange tree and thou, my love! Bloom in full sweets, and blooming, fructify. Lovely sleep! thou beautiful image of terrible death, Your head is bald-but don't with Fortune quarrel, ALCHEMISTS. Murr. RICHARD THE THIRD, AFTER THE MANNER OF THE ANCIENTS. -In bicipiti somniâsse Parnasso I was engaged, a short time since, in looking over some Cambridge Prize Compositions, among which were imitations, in Greek iambic metre, of speeches from Coriolanus and Henry the Eighth. While considering these ingenious attempts to invest British poetry with the tragic garb of ancient Athens, I was led into a fanciful speculation on the manner in which Eschylus or Sophocles would probably have arranged the materials employed by Shakspeare in the construction of his matchless scenes. This meditation lasted so long, and proceeded so far, as to become rather a dream than a reverie, and it terminated in a kind of illusion, such as Corelli is said to have experienced when the Devil (as he fancied) came before him in the form of a musician, and regaled him with a strain of inconceivable harmony. The spirits that waited on my visionary hour were of a purer class. It seemed to me that the three renowned masters of Grecian tragedy were, by some unknown means, personally assembled, and holding a poetical conference, of which I was permitted to be a hearer. They had tasked themselves, in a fit of sportive rivalry, to produce, each after his own manner, a dramatic poem, founded on the scenes of Shakspeare; and it was agreed that the experiment should be made on Richard the Third. To attempt more than a general outline of these extraordinary prolusions would, I fear, be thought presumptuous, even if my remembrance of them were more perfect. Corelli, I believe, after awaking from his dream, could never recollect one note of all that the fiend had fiddled to him. My mind, though somewhat more tenacious, has preserved few and indistinct traces of its visionary entertainment; and, while endeavouring to recal the phraseology of particular passages that appear at times to float across my memory, I have found myself unconsciously recurring to the old and well-known pages of the Grecian drama. My only aim therefore in the following sketch will be, to convey a general notion of the manner in which, as I imagined, each poet successively applied himself to the subject, drawing from it such materials, and imparting to these such form, colour, and arrangement, as were most agreeable to his own temper of mind and peculiar bent of genius. It will readily be supposed that dramatists of the ancient school would not undertake to present in one fable the variety of incidents and multitude of characters comprehended in an English historical play. Euripides, as I thought, allowed himself the widest range; and, in following his modern master, he must be considered either to have crowded an unreasonable number of events into a short space of time, or to have dispensed in some measure with the unities; I need not say that such freedoms are by no means unprecedented, even in the small portion of Greek tragedy that has descended to modern ages. The drama of Euripides took its name, and derived its chief interest, from Elizabeth, the widow of Edward IV. The scene was laid in London, near the Tower. As usual, the poet ushered in his fable with a long prologue, which was delivered by the Ghost of Henry VI. He began by apostrophising his ancestor Bolingbroke, lamenting the day when that rebellious chief disembarked on the shores of England, and laid the foundation of so many national woes, so many public and private crimes, and such unquenchable hatred and mutual carnage among his kindred and descendants. He touched upon the vicissitudes of the civil war; the death of York, the prowess of his three sons; the murder of Prince Edward at Tewksbury, and the imprisonment and death of Henry himself. Entering more fully into the transactions immediately connected with this drama, he related the marriage of Edward IV. with the widow Elizabeth, and the mischiefs which arose from that alliance; the poet of course not omitting to reflect with his usual severity upon the female sex as the source of all evils. The character and ambitious projects of Richard were then disclosed; the murder of Clarence, Edward's death, and the defenceless situation of his royal progeny were all shortly described; and the Ghost, after presaging further crimes and calamities, withdrew, announcing the approach of Elizabeth. The water swell before a boist'rous storm. In the ensuing scene Richard and Buckingham entered, having just conducted the young king to his sultation followed on the expediency apartments in the Tower. A conof withdrawing Elizabeth and her ingham urged at great length, and son from their sanctuary, and Buckwith added subtlety, the arguments assigned to him by Shakspeare, for violating the sacred retreat, if gentler means should fail. The chorus, like Shakspeare's Cardinal, made a show of opposition, but the design proceeded notwithstanding. As to the character of Richard, it must at once be acknowledged that neither Euripides nor the other Grecian dramatists appeared to conceive, much less to have the power of conveying, any perfect idea of that wonderful creation. Richard, as we see them finally deIndeed, the qualities of veloped in the play that bears his busy scenes of Henry VI, are entirely beyond the scope of Greek tragedy; and to compare a tyrant of the Athenian stage with the "proud, subtle, sly, and bloody," the satirical, testy, superstitious, aristocratic, impetuous, lion-mettled usurper of our historic drama, would be to contrast an ancient monochromatic drawing with the masterpiece of a Venetian colourist. The queen entered, leading in her younger son, and bewailing the death of her husband. A messenger was introduced, and communicated the arrest of Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan, at Pomfret. The queen, alarmed, and bursting into fresh lamentations, determined on taking sanctuary, and was confirmed in her resolution by the sympathising Chorus, which in this scene performed the short and obsequious part assigned by Shak-name, after tracing them through the speare to the Archbishop of York. The manner in which Elizabeth bemoaned her children's danger, the untimely fate of their royal sire, and her own altered and forlorn condition, gave this part of the tragedy a resemblance to the opening of Euripides's Hercules Furens, where Megara, in the absence of the demiGod her husband, whom she supposes lost to her for ever, ineffectuEuripides, as I thought, gave more ally takes refuge, with her children, variety to the character, and threw in Jupiter's temple, from the tyranny into it a larger share of the peculiariof Lycus. ties that distinguish the original, than Euripides found a chorus already either of his competitors. His Ridesigned, in that scene of Shak-chard showed alternately the smooth speare's play where the three Citizens (to whom no other business is allotted) confer upon the aspect of the times, compare their several recollections of former days, and give vent to their common forebodings.t These were precisely the topics embraced in the lyrical strain that followed Elizabeth's departure, and the descant concluded with a slight am plification of these lines :- Before the days of change, still is it so: Rich. III. Act ii. Sc. 4. and almost ironical hypocrisy of Polymestor, the insulting ferocity of Lycus, and the brave, uncompro→ mising violence of Eteocles. T be used towards Elizabeth and the After deciding on the conduct to ingham were joined by Hastings, younger prince, Richard and Buckexulting at the downfal of Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan. In the ensuing scene Richard gave intimation of his ambitious projects, which Bucking ham favoured and Hastings opposed. An altercation followed, and the con |