The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-10-25
A MAJESTIC VILLAIN.


and artistic skill from first to last. Prob
ably this is due to the fact that he is tenn
peramentally better adapted to the cor
rect apprehension of Richard than he is TO
that of Othello, just as Booth, who makes
but an indifferent Romeo and an unsatis-
factory Othelo, plays admirably Iago and
Don Caesar de Bazan. 1t is noteworthy
fact that the late James Russell Lowell,
Americas most eminent and accurate
scholar in English literature, attacked
the authenticity of "Richard the
Third" alleging the absence of GER
tam things in the play as ''in-
dicating that it is not one of Shakes
peare's works" Mr.. Lowell found few in
telligent students of Shakespeare to agree
with him, because the absence of certain
Shakespearean characteristics is a purely
negative objection that can be met by the
presence of indisputable Shakespearean
characteristics in this play. The play of
Richard as a whole is inferior to "Henry
Fourth" "The Merchant of Venice"
Measure for Measure" Romeo and
Juliet" "The Tempest" Twelfth
and "Othello," but it is quite
equal to any other of the plays at
tributed TO Shakespeare. The weak
ness of all critics who impeach the
authenticity of the plays attributed to
Shakespeare is that when they reach the
point of deciding by whom these plays
were wrought, if not by Shakespeare, they
are at once brought to confusion. Bacon
had learning, wit, wisdom, philosophy,
logic, science, law, worldly knowledge
won by the experience of European travel,
at his tongues end, but he had none of
that high-soaring poetic imagination,
which is the supreme feather in Shake
speare's splendid plume. If Bacon had
essayed to paint Richard for the stage he
would have made dramatic figure about
of the quality of Bulwer's Rchelieu;
superficial rhetorical creation; not a flesh
and blood picture of courage, craft and
vlllainy; speaking canvas. Raleigh had
learning, wit and superior thinking
powers, but he had the poetic quality but
feebly developed. Then the splendid
melodious dlction of Shakespeare, as
plainly characteristic of his lighter youth
full efforts, like "The Two Gentlemen of
Verona" as Of his sublimest work, is
found in no other man of his time.
Massinger in "Sir Giles Overreach" ap-
preached nearest to Shakespeare's power
of thought, but he has no trace of Shake
speare's beautiful color, no echo of the
magnificent music of his verse. There are
drum and trumpet" passages in Henry
the Sixth and Richard the Third, but such
passages are not the peculiar and superior
characteristic of Shakespeare. "Cymbe-
line" is not great play as whole, but
who save Shakespeare was equal to that
lovely picture of womanhood at once
sweet and strong, the fair and heroic
Imogen. "Henry the Sixth" has many
turgid passages that another than Shake
speare might have written, but his mighty
hand is seen in the speech of Warwick
over the strangled Duke Humphrey; in
the solemn words of the pious king over
the awful deathbed of Cardinal Win
chester; in the sketch of Cade and his
mob; in the speech of Margaret over the
captive Duke of York; in the soliloquy of
King Henry, beginning
"Ths battle fares like to the mornings war,
When dying clouds contend with growing light"
and in the dying speech of Warwick
Hermionc and Perdita are the only great
figures in "The Winters Tale" and yet
they are sufficient to stamp the play as
Shakespeare's work.
If this difficulty of finding parent for
these plays, when We reject Shakespeare,
confronts US in the works we have named
it becomes still more formidable when we
turn to Richard the Third" which is full
Of splendid passages that, standing alone,
are almost if not quite equal to the finest
lines Of Lear, Hamlet Macbeth or Othello.
Ciarence's dream, the description oil the
little princes asleep in the Tower,
Their lips were four red roses on one stalk,
Which in their summer beauty kissed each
other
the invectives of Margaret, are instinct
with genius that belonged to no.
BODY of that time save Shakespeare. The
same trumpet voice is audible In Richards
speech TO his army that Shakespeare at
tributes to Henry Fifth before Agincourt.
ahu thcio - hO scene OF super
natural terrors more powerfully paint
Ell in Macbeth or Hamlet than
is exhibited in Richards dream the night
before Bosworth, and the fearful solil-
oquy his tremendous nervous excitement
wrings from his lips. And yet note the
art Of Shakespeare IN making Richard a
sane villain TO the last. Macbeth, who
srl,f
ghosts In his waking moments, for his
mind yields something OF its sanity under
the stress of remorse and conscious guilt;
Hamlet, too, a noble prince of highly
poetic imagination, sees ghosts in his wax
ing moments; he has that temperament of
deep sensibility which periodically drifts
from perfect sanity under the pressure OF
his dread commission to see Justice
wrought on his fathers murderers, but
Shakespeare's sense of poetic art was too
line to allow him to represent Richard as
seeing ghosts in his waking moments, be-
cause Richard is not like Macbeth, gal
liant man gone wrong, a man capable of
remorse tor crime to the point of lapsed
sanity; but Richard is, like Iago, a consti-
tutlonal william incarnate; like Iago from
the cradle creature born with a moral
vacancy. and therefore without date Of
Generalization. Shakespeare would no
more make Satanic, subtle, cynical villain
like Richard or Iago see ghosts in
..al q.