Shakspeare makes it appear as though Richard I. had been killed by Austria. In this he follows the old play. There are several other glaring errors of the same kind in all the historical plays. Now, are we to suppose that Shakspeare, who describes the reign of King John with such life-like spirit and vigour, was not acquainted with the manner in which Richard met his death? This should seem singular. And it appears much more probable that in these errors which no school-boy could now commit, he complied with the popular notions derived from the old plays, because his audience at the theatre, after hearing from them that such an event happened in such a manner, and that such an occurrence took place at such a time, would not have liked to have seen them differently represented.

Both monarchs summon the town to surrender. The citizens are willing to submit to the King of England; but either John or Arthur must by a great victory prove which of them has the better right. A battle is fought. Both sides claim the victory. The town still evades. Faulconbridge proposes that the English and French should unite to curb the insolence of the citizens, and afterwards fight for the English crown. The citizens in alarm propose that the lady Blanche, the niece of John, should marry the Dauphin, and after this bond of peace is settled they will readily open their gates.

The picture of Blanche is very poetical. And the way in which the Duke of Austria and the King of France, after all their high sounding promises, abandon the cause of Arthur and his mother for their own selfish interests, is admirably depicted. The third act commences with the rage of Constance in the French king's tent. The monarchs enter; she upbraids them with their baseness, and in the midst of this, Pandulph, the legate of Rome, comes, and asks King John why he treats the church so shamefully, and why he does not permit Langton, whom the pope has appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, to enjoy that dignity? John replies with a proud invective against the pope.

He says, that no name is to him so contemptible and ridiculous, and that no Italian priest shall have toll in his dominions.

This scene between John and the legate, when the play was first acted, must have been enthusiastically applauded. Europe was still heaving from the effects of that mighty convulsion which had rent asunder the chains that had held the minds of men in bondage, which had dissolved the union of States that seemed inseparably united, which had disturbed all the old associations of men, which had made them despise the lessons of the nurse, the precepts learned at the fireside, and a long prescription of many generations, which had broken even the dearest family ties, and the most closely cemented friendships, till fathers found themselves opposed to their sons, brothers to brothers, friends to friends. It is difficult for us now, in this age of cold acquiescence, to conceive how the sentiments which Shakspeare makes King John utter, must have made the hearts of Englishmen throb immediately after the defeat of the Armada. Some writers, indeed, have blamed Shakspeare for putting into King John's mouth sentiments which he really could not have held, which were inconsistent with the spirit of the age, and for thus availing himself of an opportunity to catch the applause of his audience by showing his dislike to Rome. Such a censure as this, in times so lukewarm on religious subjects as the present, may be easily passed. But it must be remembered that Shakspeare was an Englishman, the noblest Englishman that ever existed, that he was writing during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, at the very time when that great conflict between Oromasdas and Arimanes, between freedom and slavery, between light and darkness, was proceeding: it must be remembered that he was writing immediately after the time when the independence of his his country had been assailed; when that great Princess, who had so manfully defied the mightiest powers in the world, and had hurled back scorn for scorn, and insult for insult, had been excommunicated, and her life

endangered from the plots of pious assassins. Such things as these had made the blood of Englishmen boil in their veins. On every side there was the crust of ashes beneath which the lava was not yet cool. When these circumstances are considered, and when it is remembered how other dramatists have pandered to the passions, tastes, and prejudices of the people, how every thing holy and good "in the heavens above, in the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth," has been ridiculed and blasphemed; there, perhaps, never was a man who is less deserving of such reproaches than Shakspeare. There never was a man whose writings are so purely free from the temporary prejudices of the multitude. If Shakspeare had wished to make his plays an engine with which he could assail the Roman Catholic religion, he might surely have done so with perfect ease in the drama of Henry the Eighth without his attacks being at all out of place. But it will be seen that he does not avail himself of this opportunity. It will be seen that, while, as was to be expected from his great and comprehensive mind, he is on the side of the Reformation, he always treats the great men of the Church of Rome with respect, that he deals out nothing but the most even-handed justice, that he neither swerves to the right nor to the left, and that, with a greatness of mind to which posterity has never yet done justice, he never uses his pen for the support of any faction, religious or political.

It would, of course, be absurd to suppose that King John used the very words which he utters in the play. It is possible that they may be rather more pointed against the pope than John's own answer would have been; for it was not the pope only that John hated, but also the bishops, monks, and all ecclesiastics. He was continually inventing reasons for despoiling them of their wealth; he used every means in his power to harass and oppress them; and he went so far in showing his contempt for them as to lie under the reproach of Atheism. The English people from a very early age by no means looked with complacency on the inter

ference of a foreign power in their internal government; they were islanders both by situation and feeling, and continually murmured that their hard-earned gold should, without return, be sent out of their dominions to maintain the majesty of Rome.

The legate excommunicates the King of England, and the league which had just been formed between him and the French king is immediately dissolved. Arthur is taken prisoner, and carried over to England. The scenes which follow between Hubert and John, and Hubert and Arthur, are very fine, and show a wonderful knowledge of human nature. John wishes Hubert to murder the young prince, and yet he dares not openly declare his wishes; "he would not play false, and yet would wrongly win." And never was the innocence of childhood more exquisitely contrasted with guilt and infamy than when Hubert goes to put out the eyes of the young prince. Few people can surely read that scene without tears. When Hubert, at last, relents, when he tells Arthur that he will not put out his eyes, and swears to protect him, this winning picture of childhood, simplicity, innocence, and virtue is complete. The misery of Constance for the loss of her son is extremely pathetic, and her grief is in fine contrast to the cold indifference of the pope's legate; she says that he talks to her in this manner because he never had a son.

Shakspeare, in this play, brings Arthur to England, and follows the old drama in describing his death. It is unknown how the prince died. The historians disagree; some saying that he died from grief in prison ; others that he killed himself in attempting to escape; and others that he died by the king's own hand. It seems probable that he was not the first, and he was certainly not the last by many hundreds, whose dying groans were hushed in the waters of the Seine.

King John's character is admirably drawn, and agrees with all the traits that the historians have left us of this monarch: weak and vain, proud and mean, false and bloody, a boaster and a coward; in the whole range

of English monarchs, there is, perhaps, no man that had so many vices and so few redeeming qualities. In the fifth act, he lays his crown at the feet of Pandulph. The Dauphin meets the English nobles at St. Edmundsbury, and they swear mutual fidelity. They fight with King John's army. The English learning that the Dauphin after he has once made them serve his purposes intends to put them to death, again leave his standard. The play ends with the death of King John at Swinstead Abbey.

Shakspeare, in representing John as poisoned by a monk, follows an old story related by Fox on the authority of Caxton. This monk, it appears, believing that the death of the king would be a great blesssing to the nation, procured a toad from which he extracted the venom which he put into the king's wine. He then asked King John to drink a draught that would please all England, and drank some of the wine himself; the king followed his example, and both the monk and king soon afterwards died. But this is not the story of King John's death that is now believed. Our historians generally represent him as dying of a fever at Newark, whither he had retired after losing all his carriages, baggage, treasures, and regalia, by an inundation of the sea on the coast of Lincolnshire.

John was a bad king. And yet it must be remembered that it is to his weaknesses and not to the commanding talents of other monarchs that we owe that sacred birthright of Englishmen, the Great Charter. Had he been a great monarch, had he gratified the martial spirit of the nation, and had victory played round his banners, that constitution which we consider the oldest and best in the world, that constitution of which all other free institutions are imitations, and which is in such strange contrast to others, more perfect in theory but less perfect in practice, might have never had the foundation stone laid, over which, in spite of wars, faction, and misery, such a noble edifice has gradually been raised. England may then be thankful even to King John, cruel, base, and foolish as he was.