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Richard III. in Shakesperé s8 plays eonnhaned vit 4 Richard III. in history.

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1 7d Richard III. is the last in the series of plays by which Shakespeare illustrates those darkest times of English history that are known by the name of the civil wars of the Roses. They are, all of them, admirable graphic pictures of those awful times when bloodshed and murder were but common occurrences, when the most heinous passions raged unbridled, when the most horrid deeds were perpetrated in cold blood, without the least scruple or remorse if they but served to forward the egotistical deseigns of the malefactor. In Richard'’ person all the vices which stain that epoch seem to have been embodied, all infirmities of the body as well as of the mind, which generally are found separated, to have met together so as to form a monster in body and mind. It is truly a most horrid picture of wickedness and depravity that Shakespeare gives of Richard. Even his good qualities, his undaunted courage, his superior bravery, his sharp intellect, his irresistible eloquence are but the handmaidens of his wicked deseigns. His one, ruling passion is ambition, the golden circlet of the royal crown is the only thing he appreciates, the only one he covets. He must get it, and he will get it by any means; any obstacle in his way is to be cleared away, any head intervening is to fall, one way or another, by his own hand or by that of others. To him, no law is so holy as not to break it, no tie so sacred as not to tear it; for him, there does not exist such a thing as filial love or fraternal affection, for him love and friendship, piety and faith are but empty names without any meaning. Richard is a devil in human shape, and he has been considered such for centuries. Yet, this appalling pieture of Richard is found more and more to diverge from historical truth, and to be, to a great extent, a fiction of the poet. Closer search of the archives has gradually brought to light old chronicles, unknown before, and among them especially that most important manuscript mown by the name of the Croyland Continuätor, letters— some of them autograph— accounts, parliamentary rolls, and other documents which, even if they cannot clear Richard of all the atrocities and crimes that have been laid to his charge, and cannot make of him an aungel of light, yet, at least, show that he was not that monster, that devil in body and mind he has been represented by tradition, and by. Shakespeare's admirable plays. Shakespeare, to be sure, did not mean to wrong Richard, on the. contrary, he meant to give him but his due, and to be in harmony with history, for he took his 1