The speech of Margaret to her council of generals before the battle of Tewkesbury, (Act v. Scene v.) is as remarkable a specimen of false rhetoric, as her address to the soldiers on the eve of the fight, is of true and passionate eloquence. She witnesses the final defeat of her arm y, the massacre of her adherents, and the murder of her son; and though the savage Richard would willingly have put an end to her misery, and exclaims very pertinently— Why should she live to fill the world with words? she is dragged forth unharmed, a woful spectacle of extremest wretchedness, to which death would have been an undeserved relief. If we compare the clamorous and loud exclaims of Margaret after the slaughter of her son, to the ravings of Constance, we shall perceive where Shakspeare's genius did not preside, and where it did. Margaret, in bold defiance of history, but with fine dramatic effect, is introduced again in the gorgeous and polluted court of Edward the Fourth. There she stalks around the seat of her former greatness, like a terrible phantom of departed majesty, uncrowned, unsceptered, desolate, powerless—or like a vampire thirsting for blood—or like a grim prophetess of evil, implicating that ruin on the head of her enemies, which she lived to see realized. The scene following the murder of the princes in the tower, in which Queen Elizabeth and the Duchess of York sit down on the ground bewailing their desolation, and Margaret suddenly appears from behind them, like the very personification of woe, and seats herself beside them, revelling in their despair, is, in the general conception and effect, grand and appalling, THE DUCHESS. O, Harry's wife, triumph not in my woes; QUEEN MARGARET. Bear with me, I am hungry for revenge, Thy Clarence he is dead that stabbed my Edward; The adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey, And send them thither. But at hand, at hand, Ensues his piteous, and unpitied end Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar for him; saints pray To have him suddenly conveyed from hence. Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray, That I may live to say, the dog is dead!* She should have stopped here; but the effect thus powerfully excited is marred and weakened by so much superfluous rhetoric, that we are tempted to exclaim with the old Duchess of York Why should calamity be full of words? * Horace Walpole observes, that it is evident from the conduct of Shakspeare, that the house of Tudor retained all their Lancastrian prejudices even in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In his play of Richard the Third, he seems to deduce the woes of the house of York from the curses which Queen Margaret had vented against them; and he could not give that weight to her curses, without supposing a right in her to utter them. QUEEN KATHARINE OF ARRAGCN. To have a just idea of the accuracy and beauty of this historical portrait, we ought to bring immediately before us those circumstances of Katharine's life and times, and those parts of her character, which belong to a period previous to the opening of the play. We shall then be better able to appreciate the skill with which Shakspeare has applied the materials before him. Katharine of Arragon, the fourth and youngest daughter of Ferdinand, King of Arragon, and Isabella of Castile, was born at Alcala, whither her mother had retired to winter after one of the most terrible campaigns of the Moorish war-that of 1485. Katharine had derived from nature no dazzling qualities of mind, and no striking advantages of person. She inherited a tincture of Queen Isabella's haughtiness and obstinacy of temper, but neither her beauty nor her splendid talents. Her education, under the direction of that extraordinary mother, had implanted in her mind the most austere principles of virtue, the highest ideas of female. docorum, the most narrow and bigoted attachment to the forms of religion, and that excessive pride of birth and rank, which distinguished so particularly her family and her nation. In other respects, her understanding was strong, and her judgment clear. The natural turn of her mind was simple, serious, and domestic, and all the impulses of her heart kindly and benevolent. Such was Katharine; such, at least, she appears, on a reference to the chronicles of her times, and particularly from her own letters, and the papers written or dictated by herself which relate to her divorce, all of which are distinguished by the same artless simplicity of style, the same quiet good sense, the same resolute, yet gentle spirit, and fervent piety. When five years old, Katharine was solemnly affianced to Arthur, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of Henry VII.; and in the year 1501, she landed in England, after narrowly escaping shipwreck on the southern coast, from which every adverse wind conspired to drive her. She was received in London with great honor, and immediately on her arrival united to the young prince. He was then fifteen, and Katharine in her seventeenth year. Arthur, as it is well known, survived his marriage only five months; and the reluctance of Henry VII. to refund the splendid dowry of the infanta, and forego the advantages of an alliance with the most powerful prince of Europe, suggested the idea of uniting Catharine to his second son Henry; after some hesitation, a dispensation was procured from the pope, and she was betrothed to Henry in her eighteenth year. The prince, who was then only twelve years old, resisted as far as he was able to do so, and appears to have really felt a degree of horror at the idea of marrying his brother's widow. Nor was the mind of King Henry at rest; as his health declined, his conscience reproached him with the equivocal nature of the union into which he had forced his son; and the vile motives of avarice and expediency which had governed him on the occasion. A short time previous to his death, he dissolved the engagement, and even caused Henry to sign a paper in which he solemnly renounced all idea of a future union with the infanta. It is observable that Henry signed this paper with reluctance, and that Katharine, instead of being sent back to her own country, still remained in England. It appears that Henry, who was now about seventeen, had become interested for Katharine, who was gentle and amiable. The difference of years was rather a circumstance in her favor; for Henry was just at that age, when a youth is most likely to be captivated by a woman older than himself; and no sooner was he required to renounce her, than the interest she had gradually gained in his affections, became, by opposition, a strong passion. Immediately after his father's death, he declared his resolution to take for his wife the lady Katharine of Spain, and none other; and when the matter was discussed in council, it was urged that, besides the many advantages of the match in a political point of view, she had given "so much proof of virtue and sweetness of condition, as they knew not where to parallel her." About six weeks after his accession, June 3, 1509, the marriage was celebrated with truly royal splendor, Henry being then eighteen, and Katharine in her twenty-fourth year. It has been said with truth, that if Henry had died while Katharine was yet his wife and Wolsey was minister, he would have left behind him the character of a magnificent, popular, and accomplished prince, instead of that of the most hateful ruffian and tyrant who ever swayed these realms. Notwithstanding his occasional infidelities, and his impatience at her midnight vigils, her long prayers, and her religious austerities, Catharine and Henry lived in harmony together. He was fond of openly displaying his respect and love for her, and she exercised a strong and salutary influence over his turbulent and despotic spirit. When Henry set out on his expedition to France, in 1513, he left Katharine regent of the kingdom during his absence, with full powers to carry on the war against the Scots, and the Earl of Surry at the head of the army, as her lieutenant-general. It is curious to find Katharine-the pacific, and unpretending Katharine-describing herself as having |