superiority to the times of the Red and White Rose, as to say that a period of peace, order, justice, and mercy, has invariably prevailed? Have there been no murders, no massacres, no disorders, no factions, since the multitude has acquired power? To a common understanding, the evils which existed during the times of Richard the Second and Henry the Sixth, appear to have existed under different names long before they were born, under different names existed long after they slept peaceably in their graves, under different names exist at the present time, and under different names may continue to exist long after the tomb shall have imposed silence upon our loquacity. They existed during the time of Pericles. They existed during the time of Cicero. They existed during the time of the Medici. They existed during the time of Burke. In all these there were bold bad men, who, under the mask of liberty, and with the pretence of bringing a happy millenium upon the earth, where sin, and sorrow, and suffering, and poverty, and toil, should never be known, made use of the poor, unreflecting, hard-toiling millions as a ladder, by which they might obtain the objects of their own selfish ambition,—a crown, a staff of office, or a name. The people were not passive even in the time of the Roses. They were divided into parties as at other times; and were ready to sacrifice the last drop of their blood for the cause of him whom they favoured, but who never troubled himself about their sufferings and sorrows.

ages

Can we say that this evil is now extinct? No, surely no. Europe is yet heaving with a convulsion which announced too plainly to all thinking minds what a terrible subterranean fire is burning under the superficial crust of modern civilization. A mighty spirit is abroad. In most countries "the people is a blind monster that is flattered by bad men, who fondly hope to lead it as they desire. We have not yet recovered from the astonishment that the sight of this mighty phenomenon caused. East and west, north and south, were enveloped in the flames of that great conflagration. The most insane principles were proclaimed, and

as insanely believed. Nation was arrayed against nation, class against class, the poor against the rich, the idle against the industrious, uncivilized against civilized man. A deluge of barbarism inundated the world. Murder, anarchy, rapine were roused from their lairs, and they stalked abroad in the light of day. The blood of the poor was poured out like water in the streets and on the field of battle. Man seemed to have changed his nature. The world seemed peopled with demons. And for what? That a few talkative men might gratify their vanity, hatred, and ambition, for a day. Such sights as we have lately seen, may well disgust those who are most desirous to improve the condition of their fellow-men, and are the most ardent in the cause of human improvement. The war of the Roses scarcely exhibited a more frightful picture than has been witnessed during the last few years. Cruelties were committed in the old times by individuals; but now the cruelties were committed by multitudes. And yet it is still the fashion to exult in the present high state of civilization and freedom; and to regard our ancestors as feudal slaves, living in the dark ages. In one respect, at least, our modern revolutionists resemble the old ones. They now no sooner obtain power than their power departs from their grasp. Like Tantalus they are permitted to see the fruit, they may touch it with their lips, but it is then withdrawn for ever. Like Frankenstein they create, but cannot guide their monster. They no sooner reach the giddy eminence that they had so long desired to attain, than the same hand which raised them up pulls them down. They stand exposed to all the blasts of popular discontent; the sword of Damocles hangs suspended over their heads; they find, with Bolingbroke, how unstable is the habitation that is built upon the vulgar breast; that the favourites of the people, no more than the favourites of kings, are exempt from misfortune, and that when they fall they fall like Lucifer, never again to rise. Amid all this noise and tumults, a few solitary thinkers in their silent studies, may, as we know there were during the

wars of the Roses, be maturing works which will bequeath happiness and instruction to good men long after their authors shall have been in their graves, and long after the loud sounding nothings of the age shall have been forgotten. The natural philosopher is still busy at his labours undisturbed by the storm that is raging around. The chemist is in his laboratory. The physician is at the couch of suffering. The geologist is on the mountains. The astronomer is in his observatory. The philanthropist is penetrating into the squalid dens of misery. The clergyman is at the bed of death. We learn from Shakspeare that during all the bloody times which he describes, and we know from our own eyes, during the last four years, that the external world was still beautiful, though man appeared so hideous. Day gradually darkened into night, the night gradually disappeared at the dawn, the sun still rose with all his splendour, the flowers spread out their many-coloured beauties with the light of day, while the gutters ran with blood, while the robes of royalty were trampled under foot, while laws were violated, while governments were subverted, while innocence and childhood were no protection, in the old time from the tyranny of kings, and in ours from the tyranny of mobs. In the next play, we see Bolingbroke surrounded with all the paraphernalia of royalty. He has ascended the throne, not without sullying the steps with blood, and not without ineffaceably staining his name. Shakspeare even, if possible, seems to excel himself as he paints the troubles, the remorse, and misery of Henry the Fourth. No where does the great dramatist's genius appear so far to leave all others behind. There had been before great writers of tragedy, and great writers of comedy. But in this play, Shakspeare is supreme in both, and stands forth the great poet of mankind. We have here the noblest and the most affecting tragic scenes that ever dramatist conceived, side by side with the richest comic scenes that ever amused the world. And yet this play has been called an absurd mixture of tragedy and comedy.

And

Shakspeare has been loudly condemned for his barbarity in putting together in the same play two kinds of composition, which are in their nature distinct. It is said that the effect of both the tragic and the comic scenes is lost, that we are not disposed to laugh and weep in the same play, that tragedy and comedy are incongruous, and that, like an acid and an alkali mixed, they neutralize each other. It is said, besides, that this is quite unprecedented in literature; that there is no instance in all ancient literature, of a dramatist combining tragedy and comedy; in the Greek dramas we never find them united.

*

Those who have attentively studied Shakspeare, and are not disposed to be terrified at this great innovation, may be inclined to pause before they set the great dramatist down as an incorrigible barbarian, and may think that he knew as well what he was doing as some of his critics. It is very true that in the Greek plays, we do not generally find tragedy and comedy together. But it is so in real life. And Shakspeare was the dramatist of real life. If we merely go into the next street, shall we not find that great incongruity, that gross barbarity? Shall we not meet in one place a funeral and a marriage, a thoughtless schoolboy, and a grey-haired old man, the laugh of mirth, and the wail of despair, the richly ornamented carriage of the peer, and the travel-stained barefooted mother and children begging for a little bread? In human life itself is there not both joy and sorrow? Is it not both a tragedy and comedy? Is it not well known that when Henry the Fourth was trembling upon the throne, when his brow was furrowed with care, and his conscience troubled with remorse, his son was setting at nought his admonitions, and spending his time with dissolute companions in midnight revels? Were not tragedy and comedy here blended? Why, then, should Shakspeare be censured for painting in such true and graphic

*Not generally for the Alcestes is the only one now extant, where tragedy and comedy are united; but the Satyric drama which closed the trilogy appears always to have been a kind of farce.

colours, the times of Henry the Fourth, as both a tragedy and comedy?

It should seem that this intermixture, so far from decreasing, would increase the effect of both the tragic and comic scenes. The lights and shades in a picture increase the general effect. The brightest metals shine the most brilliantly on a dark ground. And thus the tragic scenes would not appear so tragic, nor the comic scenes so comic, if they did not appear side by side, and thus mutually set off each other. The clouds of misfortune would not seem to lower so blackly on the head of the broken-hearted monarch, if we did not breathe at the same time the genial atmosphere in which Hal is wiling away his time with Falstaff's wit, Pistol's boasting, and Bardolph's red nose.

To see the impropriety of making men always move in that stately heroic style which some great dramatists do, it is only necessary to look into the streets. In the most solemn pageants, there are many ludicrous things. In the merriest company there is not seldom an aching heart. Suppose for a moment that five hundred more years shall have passed, and that the present generation of men shall have long been sleeping with their ancestors. Suppose some great dramatic genius shall have then arisen to delight the world, and desires to show his generation how people lived, and what events happened in the old times of the nineteenth century. He diligently studies all the ancient chronicles of that period. He sadly smiles over the heats and factions which he dimly discerns through long centuries, and attempts, without having the least leaning to one side or the other, to give the men of his generation a picture of the reign of Queen Victoria. What kind of a delineation of our times would it be were he to exclude every character except courtiers, generals, and statesmen, as undignified, to make them speak always in a stately measured style, and carefully blot out the least allusion to the great body of the people because it would be vulgar, and beneath the dignity of tragedy? Would this be a just representation of the times of Queen