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further, such qualifications for villainy become, by unbroken CHAP. IV. success in villainy, reflected in Richard's very bearing; when the only law explaining his motions to onlookers is the lawlessness of genius whose instinct is more unerring than the most laborious calculation and planning, it becomes only natural that the opinion of his irresistibility should become converted into a mystic fascination, making Richard's very presence a signal to his adversaries of defeat, chilling with hopelessness the energies with which they are to face his consummate skill.

The two main ideas of Shakespeare's portrait, the idea of an artist in crime and the fascination of invincibility which Richard bears about with him, are strikingly illustrated in the wooing of Lady Anne. For a long time Richard will not i. ii. put forth effort, but meets the loathing and execration hurled at him with repartee, saying in so many words that he regards the scene as a 'keen encounter of our wits.' All this time 115. the mysterious power of his presence is operating, the more strongly as Lady Anne sees the most unanswerable cause that denunciation ever had to put produce no effect upon her adversary, and feels her own confidence in her wrongs recoiling upon herself. When the spell has had time to from 152. work then he assumes a serious tone: suddenly, as we have seen, turning the strong point of Anne's attack, his own inhuman nature, into the basis of his plea-he who never wept before has been softened by love to her. From this point he urges his cause with breathless speed; he presses a 175. sword into her hand with which to pierce his breast, knowing that she lacks the nerve to wield it, and seeing how such forbearance on her part will be a starting-point in giving way. We can trace the sinking of her will before the unconquerable will of her adversary in her feebler and feebler from 193. refusals, while as yet very shame keeps her to an outward defiance. Then, when she is wishing to yield, he suddenly finds her an excuse by declaring that all he desires at this

CHAP. IV. moment is that she should leave the care of the King's funeral

To him that hath more cause to be a mourner.

By yielding this much to penitence and religion we see she has commenced a downward descent from which she will never recover. Such consummate art in the handling of human nature, backed by the spell of an irresistible presence, the weak Anne has no power to combat. To the last iv. i. 66- she is as much lost in amazement as the reader at the way 87. it has all come about:

Ideal v. real villainy.

Lo, ere I can repeat this curse again,

Even in so short a space, my woman's heart
Grossly grew captive to his honey words.

To gather up our results. A dramatist is to paint a portrait of ideal villainy as distinct from villainy in real life. In real life it is a commonplace that a virtuous life is a life of effort; but the converse is not true, that he who is prepared to be a villain will therefore lead an easy life. On the contrary, 'the way of transgressors is hard.' The metaphor suggests a path, laid down at first by the Architect of the universe, beaten plain and flat by the generations of men who have since trodden it: he who keeps within this path of rectitude will walk, not without effort, yet at least with safety; but he who 'steps aside' to the right or left will find his way beset with pitfalls and stumblingblocks. In real life a man sets out to be a villain, but his mental power is deficient, and he remains a villain only in intention. Or he has stores of power, but lacks the spark of purpose to set them aflame. Or, armed with both will to plan and mind to execute, yet his efforts are hampered by unfit tools. Or, if his purpose needs reliance alone on his own clear head and his own strong arm, yet in the critical moment the emotional nature he has inherited with his humanity starts into rebellion and scares him, like Macbeth, from the half

accomplished deed. Or, if he is as hardened in nature as CHAP. IV. corrupt in mind and will, yet he is closely pursued by a mocking fate, which crowns his well-laid plans with a mysterious succession of failures. Or, if there is no other limitation on him from within or from without, yet he may move in a world too narrow to give him scope: the man with a heart to be the scourge of his nation proves in fact no more than the vagabond of a country side.-But in Shakespeare's portrait we have infinite capacity for mischief, needing no purpose, for evil has become to it an end in itself; we have one who for tools can use the baseness of his own nature or the shame of those who are his nearest kin, while at his touch all that is holiest becomes transformed into weapons of iniquity. We have one whose nature in the past has been a gleaning ground for evil in every stage of his development, and who in the present is framed to look on unnatural horror with the eyes of interested curiosity. We have one who seems to be seconded by fate with a series of successes, which builds up for him an irresistibility that is his strongest safeguard; and who, instead of being cramped by circumstances, has for his stage the world of history itself, in which crowns are the prize and nations the victims. In such a portrait is any element wanting to arrive at the ideal of villainy?

The question would rather be whether Shakespeare has Ideal villainy not gone too far, and, passing outside the limits of art, ex- v. monhibited a monstrosity. Nor is it an answer to point to the strosity. 'dramatic hedging' by which Richard is endowed with undaunted personal courage, unlimited intellectual power, and every good quality not inconsistent with his perfect villainy. The objection to such a portrait as the present study presents is that it offends against our sense of the principles upon which the universe has been constructed; we feel that before a violation of nature could attain such proportions nature must have exerted her recuperative force to crush it. If, however,

Nemesis = retributive justice

CHAP. IV. the dramatist can suggest that such reassertion of nature is actually made, that the crushing blow is delayed only while it is accumulating force in a word, if the dramatist can draw out before us a Nemesis as ideal as the villainy was ideal, then the full demands of art will be satisfied. The Nemesis that dominates the whole play of Richard III will be the subject of the next study.

V.

RICHARD III: How SHAKESPEARE WEAVES

NEMESIS INTO HISTORY.

A Study in Plot.

I

ter side a

HAVE alluded already to the dangerous tendency, which, CHAP. V. as it appears to me, exists amongst ordinary readers of Richard Shakespeare, to ignore plot as of secondary importance, III: from and to look for Shakespeare's greatness mainly in his con- the Charac ceptions of character. But the full character effect of a violation of dramatic portrait cannot be grasped if it be dissociated from Nemesis the plot; and this is nowhere more powerfully illustrated than in the play of Richard III. The last study was devoted exclusively to the Character side of the play, and on this confined view the portrait of Richard seemed a huge offence against our sense of moral equilibrium, rendering artistic satisfaction impossible. Such an impression vanishes when, as in the present study, the drama is looked at from from the the side of Plot. The effect of this plot is, however, the transside of Plot, missed by those who limit their attention in reviewing it to formation of history Richard himself. These may feel that there is nothing in his into Nemefate to compensate for the spectacle of his crimes: man sis. must die, and a death in fulness of energy amid the glorious stir of battle may seem a fate to be envied. But the Shakespearean Drama with its complexity of plot is not limited to the individual life and fate in its interpretation of history; and when we survey all the distinct trains of interest in the play of Richard III, with their blendings and mutual influence, we shall obtain a sense of dramatic satisfaction

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