if God be pleased, I will this journey be his, and the honour thereof, and to them that be about him.' Then the knight returned again to them, and showed the king's words, the which greatly encouraged them, and they repined in that they had sent to the king as they did." And then, it may be, the whole epopee of that great war for the conquest of France might be shaped out in the young man's imagination, and amidst its chivalrous daring, its fields of slaughter, its perils overcome by almost superhuman strength, kings and princes for prisoners, and the conqueror lowly and humble in his triumph, would there be touching domestic scenes,-Sir Eustace de Pierre, the rich burgher of Calais, putting his life in jeopardy for the safety of the good town, and the vengeance of the stern conqueror averted by his gentle queen, all arranging themselves into something like a great drama. But even here the dramatic interest was not sustained. There was a succession of stirring events, but no one great action to which all other actions tended and were subservient. Cressy is fought, Calais is taken, P'oictiers is to come, after the hero has marched through the country, burning

and wasting, regardless of the people, thinking only of his father's disputed rights; and then a mercenary war in Spain in a bad cause, and the hero dies in his bed, and the war for conquest is to generate other wars. These are events that belong to the chronicler, and not to the dramatist. Romance has come in to lend them a human interest. The future conqueror of France is to be a weak lover at the feet of a Countess of Salisbury; to be rejected; to cast off his weakness. The drama may mix the romance and the chronicle together; it has done so: but we believe not that he who had a struggle with his judgment to unite the epic and the dramatic in the history of Henry V. ever attempted to dramatize the story of Edward III.*

Warwick-it is full of historical associations, but its early history is not dramatic according to the notions that William Shakspere will subsequently work out. Let the ballad-makers and the heroic poets that are to follow sing the legend of Guy the Saxon, and his combat with Colbrand the Dane. The stern power of the later Guy is for another to dramatize. Thomas Earl of Warwick, who led the van at Cressy, shall have his fame with the Cobhams and the Chan* See our Notice of the play entitled 'The Reign of Edward III.' in the Analysis of plays ascribed to Shakspere.

doses, and posterity shall look upon his tomb in the midst of the choir of the collegiate church at Warwick. The Earl who was cast aside by Richard II. (he also was named Thomas) shall be merged in the eventful history of that time; but it shall be recollected that he built "that strong and stately tower standing at the north-east corner of the Castle here at Warwick.”* His strong and stately tower could not stead him in his necessity, for he was made prisoner by the King at a feast to which he was treacherously invited, banished, subsequently imprisoned in the Tower, and his possessions seized upon. The fall of Richard restored him to his honours and possessions; and he was enabled to appoint by his will "that the sword and coat of mail sometime belonging to the famous Guy" should remain to his son and his heirs after him. This sword and coat of mail would have been a more appropriate, though perhaps not a more authentic, relic for the young Shakspere to look upon than the famous porridge-pot of our own day. In the reign of Henry IV. there came Earl Richard, who took the banner of Owen Glendower, and fought against the Percies at Shrewsbury; 'who voyaged to the Holy Land, and hung up his offerings at the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem, and was royally feasted by the Soldan's lieutenant, "hearing that he was descended from the famous Sir Guy of Warwick, whose story they had in books of their own language." And it was he who was sent to France to treat for the marriage of Henry V. with the Lady Katherine; and it was he who, after the death of the Conqueror of Agincourt, had tutelage of the young Henry his son; and was lieutenant-general and governor of the realm of France. The remainder of his history might be read by William Shakspere, inscribed upon that splendid monument which he erected in the chapel called after his name, and ordered by his will to be built adjoining the collegiate church. Visited by long sickness, he died in the Castle at Rouen. His monument is still a glorious specimen of the arts of the middle ages, and so is the chapel under whose roof it is erected. Another lord of Warwick succeeded, who, having been created Duke of Warwick, moved the envy of other great ones in that time of faction: but he died young, and without issue; and his sister, the wife of Richard Neville, succeeded to her brother's lands and castles, and by patent her husband became Earl of Warwick. This was indeed a mighty man, the stout Earl of Warwick, the king-maker, he who first fought at St. Albans in the great cause of York, and after many changes of opinion and of fortune fell at Barnet in the cause of Lancaster. The history of this, the greatest of the lords of the ragged staff, is in itself a wonderful drama, in a series of dramas that are held together by a strong poetical chain. The first scene of this great series of dramas begins when the Duke of Hereford and the Duke of Norfolk meet in the lists

"At Coventry upon St. Lambert's day."+

The last scene is at Bosworth, when he who is held to have wanted but courage left the world exclaiming

"A horse, a horse, my kingdon for a horse!"S

every virtue

The family traditions of William Shakspere; the Chronicle "of the two noble and illustre Families of Lancaster and York," his household book; the localities amidst which he dwelt; must have concurred early in fixing his imagination upon the dramatic capabilities of that magnificent story which has given us a series of eight poetical Chronicle Histories,' of which a German critic has said,"The historian who cannot learn from them is not yet perfect in his own art."* Tieck. 'Dramaturgische Blätter.

HALL, the chronicler, writing his history of The Families of Lancaster and York,' about seventy years after the "continual dissension for the crown of this noble realm" was terminated, says, "What nobleman liveth at this day, or what gentleman of any ancient stock or progeny is clear, whose lineage hath not been infested and plagued with this unnatural division?" During the boyhood of William Shakspere, it cannot be doubted that he would meet with many a gentleman, and many a yeoman, who would tell him how their forefathers had been

LIFE.

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