Perhaps the opposite verdicts
given by the instinct of the people on "bluff King Hal" and "Bloody Mary"
may be understood by reference to a famous verse of Juvenal. The
wretched queen was sparing of noble blood and lavish of poor men's
lives--_cerdonibus timenda_; and the curses under which her memory was
buried were spared by the people to her father, _Lamiarum caede madenti_.
In any case, the humblest not less than the highest of the poets who
wrote under the reign of his daughter found it safe to present him in a
popular light before an audience of whose general prepossession in his
favour William Shakespeare was no slower to take advantage than Samuel
Rowley.
The two plays we have just discussed have one quality of style in common
which has already been noted; that in them rhetoric is in excess of
action or passion, and far in excess of poetry. They are not as yet
perfect examples of his second manner, though far ahead of his first
stage in performance as in promise. Compared with the full and living
figure of Katherine or of Constance, the study of Margaret of Anjou is
the mere sketch of a poet still in his pupilage: John and Henry,
Faulconbridge and Wolsey, are designs beyond reach of the hand which drew
the second and third Richard without much background or dramatic
perspective.
Pages:
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110