SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

Hamm

Richard III. as Duke of Gloucester and King of England. By Caroline A. Halsted, Author of the " Life of Margaret Beaufort," Sec. In two volumes. Longman and Co.

TRAVELS,

Observations in Europe, principally in France and Great Britain. By John P. Durbin, D.E., President of Dickenson College. In two volumes.

Wiley and Putnam.

norms, High Life in New York. By Jonathan Slick, Esq., of Weatherefield, Connecticut.

In two volumes Jeremiah Floe'.

CAROLINE HALSTED'S RICHARD THE THIRD.

Arrsa so many writers for so many years have done their en- deavour to exonerate, in one or more particulars, the character of RICHARD the Third, a new work upon the subject seemed scarcely necessary. If BUCK in the seventeenth, CARTE, WALPOLE, and Lento in the eighteenth century, with TURNER, LINGARD, and NIeoLes in our own day, have not succeeded in shaking the popu- lar impression as to the deeds of this usurper, it was scarcely to be expected that the womanly verboseness of Miss HALSTED should succeed. To fulfil what she proposes to undertake, and collect together "all existing notices, however trivial, of the defamed prince and monarch, as well from manuscripts as from recent pub- lications," would have produced a curious, perhaps a useful book, had critical acumen, competent logic, and sufficient taste to observe some sort of relation between the style and the subject- matter, been brought to the task. This is by no means the case in the work before us ; nor do we remember to have ever met such a total disproportion between the capacity of the writer and the magnitude of the argument,—unless, perhaps, in the case of Mr. LEICESTER STANHOPE F. BUCKINGHAM'S Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots. To point out in detail the faults of such a book, would be un- profitably tedious : it may suffice to mention one of the most ob- vious. Miss HALSTED professes to make contemporary chroniclers the principal, indeed the only evidence, in disputed points : but, throughout the work, she has no other test than her own con- ceptions; they are authorities if they support her view—if not, they are nothing. She prefers BucK to BACON, (the only possible resemblance between them being that both lived in the same pe- riod,) till the Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to JAMES the First quotes a letter from the Lady Elizabeth, which he says he had seen, establishing the fact of Richard's plan to marry his niece ; when Miss HALSTED discovers that Sir GEORGE BucK must have been mistaken. No less a person than Sir THOMAS MORE, who was born in the reign of Edward the Fourth, five years old at the time of Richard's death, and mingled familiarly with all the great actors of the period, is degraded from all authority, as being a mere mouthpiece of the Lancasterians, except when he supports her views. The three " men-grown " contemporaries fare no better. Even her prime favourite the "Chronicler of Croyland" is thrown overboard when he presumes to relate— "It is not to be concealed, that during the feast of the Nativity he [Rich- ard] was over much intent upon singing and dancing and vain changes of dress ; which were given of the same colour and form to Queen Anne and to the Lady Elizabeth, daughter of the deceased King ; whereat the people were scandalized, and the Peers and Prelates marvellously wondered : for it was said by many, that the King, either in expectation of the Queen's death, or by divorce, for the procuring of which it was conjectured that he had sufficient cause, applied his mind in all ways to contracting a marriage with the said Elizabeth : he did not otherwise see that the realm would be confirmed to him, or his competitor deprived of hope."

" Hath he so long held out with me untired, and stops be now for breath ? "—But our authoress is at no loss for a reason : the chronicler had to pay for the "vanities." "This most heinotis and revolting crime," quoth Miss HALSTED, " is not hinted at by the ecclesiastical historian, who has perpetuated the report, until Richard had incurred the anger of the Church by his renewal of benevolence." Surely a moment's consideration would have shown that he could not chronicle the " report " till it had originated.

The precise objects this lady's thousand pages would effect are not clear, because the reality is too strong for her to tor- ture, and the admissions of her narrative contrast oddly with her tone : but a dead-set is made against SHAKSPERE'S play. It is shown, and we think successfully, that Gloucester did not stop the funeral of Henry the Sixth to make love to Lady Anne, sub die' and in presence of all the processionals. His acquittal from the deaths of King Henry and his son Edward Prince of Wales is not so clearly established. We only learn, what we knew before, that King Henry' was found dead in the Tower the day after Edward and his brother Richard came triumphantly to London from the battle of Tewkesbury. Contemporary writers do not make a specific accusation against any one as regards the murder of young Edward Prince of Wales : they only mention that he was slain revengefully after the battle, by certain persons, but differ slightly in the circumstances of the narrative. The intrigue of Gloucester to cause the execution of his brother Clarence, is but upon " the Queen and her allies" ; and Richard is exonerated, ecause be was in the North. This physical impediment would certainly have prevented some of the striking scenes in the play of Richard the Third ; but it is not of itself conclusive evidence that Gloucester, contemplating designs upon the crown, might not covertly endeavour to get his elder brother removed. As respects his " openly denouncing the extreme rigour of the sentence," this is precisely what SHAKSPERE makes him do. It cannot be denied that Richard, immediately on the death Edward the Fourth, seized Lord Rivers and Sir Richard Grey, the young King's relations, and shortly after beheaded them ; that he treated his own friend and former partisan Hastings in the same way ; that he got possession of the person of the little Duke ofYizirk, as well as of his brother Edward the Fifth, kept them both in the Tower, and was easily persuaded to mount the throne. The first exploit Miss HALSTED attributes partly to " deep-revolving, witty Buckingham," and partly to the necessity of the case, as there seemed reason to suspect that Rivers and Grey had entered into a " plot " against the Lord Protector. Hastings, it appears, had also entered into another " plot " ; though the " terrible words" that nobleman used to Catesby evidently refer to Richard's contemplated attempt upon the crown, and not to any other opposition Hastings was about to offer to the Protector. As regards the crown, Miss HALSTED informs us, " Richard took possession of the throne, not as an usurper, but as a legitimate sovereign." The arguments by which this opinion is sustained, are set forth at length in the second volume of Richard III. as Duke of Gloucester and King of England ; but much more pithily, and quite as conclusively, in the play. "Buckingham. You say, that Edward is your brother's son : So say we too, but not by Edward's wife ; For first he was contract to Lady Lucy—

Your mother lives a witness to his vow ; And afterwards by substitute betroth'd To Bona, sister to the Queen of France.

These both put by, a poor petitioner,

A care-craz'd mother to a many sons, A beauty-waning and distressed widow, Even in the afternoon of her best days, Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye, Seduc'd the pitch and height of all his thoughts To base declension and loath'd bigamy :

By her, in his unlawful Led, he got

This Edward, whom our manners call the Prince."

The defence of Richard from the murder of his nephews occupies the greater part of a long chapter ; and is perhaps the most miser- able piece of critical reasoning, if not in the book, at least out of it, that we ever encountered. The authoress cannot always under- stand, or she wilfully misinterprets, her authorities; and her argu- ments really amount to no more than this, that we have no positive proof of the murder—we have not got the written order. The sub- ject may be briefly touched upon under the question of authorities, and circumstantial evidence ; and we will give the lady the advan- tage of her own authorities. There are three writers who were contemporary with the alleged event—that is, men grown and living in the country at the time it occurred. These are the Chronicler of Croyland, FARYAN, a citizen of London, and Rots of Warwick. The Chronicler of Croyland states, that at the time of Buckingham's insurrection " it was spread abroad that King Edward's sons were dead, but by what kind of violent death was unknown." FABYAN says, that after the accession or usurpation of Richard, " King Edward V., with his brother the Duke of York, were put under sure keeping within the Tower, in such wise that they never came abroad after"; and that " the common fame went that King Richard put unto secret death the two sons of his brother." Rots says, " The Duke of Gloucester, for his own promotion, took upon him to the disin- heriting of his Lord King Edward V., and shortly imprisoned King Edward with his brother, whom he had obtained from Westminster under promise of protection ; so that it was afterwards known to very few what particular martyrdom they suffered." The three next writers in point of time are BERNARD ANDREWS, Sir Timmas MORE, and POLYDORE VIRGIL—all contemporaries with the alleged murder, though either not then living in the country, or too young to be produced as witnesses ; but each men of learning, ability, and literary merit, and not only acquainted with the grown-up contemporaries of the event, but, from their public employment, with some of the leading historical actors of the period. All these historians mention the fact of the murder ; and the greatest of them, Sir THOMAS MORE, describes in detail the most probable circumstances, as he had selected them from numerous reports ; though both he and POLYDORE VIRGIL mention that a belief also prevailed that the young Princes were still alive, having been secretly conveyed abroad. Surely, historical evidence of such an event cannot, go beyond this almost universal belief at the time and afterwards, with the agreement of so many contemporary authorities, all reporting the general opinion, and tacitly or expressly affirming their own. What wretched quibbling is it to fasten upon some discrepancies in the narrative, not as evidence of the obscurity of the circumstances, but as disproving the fact itself! The circumstantial evidence seems equally conclusive. The writer asks, would a criminal be convicted on such evidence as has been brought against a chivalrous prince 7—as "if nothing could be true but what could be proved in a court ofjustice." Had Miss HALSTED been better qualified for her task, she would have seen reason to doubt whether men have not been condemned and exe- cuted on less cogent circumstances than exist against Richard. Company, much more custody, is a weighty presumption in law. When a person suspiciously disappears, the individual who was last in his company, and had any cogent motive for his removal, is held as bound to account for himself, especially if other circum- stances strengthen the suspicion : if he will not, or cannot, he takes his chance with the jury. But when a person is charged with the custody of a person or thing, he becomes accountable for the pro. duction, or for an explanation of its absence, subject always to the conclusion of the tribunal. If this rule be applied to the ease be-

fore us, tommon sense will decide as it has decided for nearly four hundred years. The Princes were in Richard's custody ; he had a direct interest in their removal ; and removed they were. As no one has supposed they were translated like Enoch, the ra- tional question is, what became of them ? If Richard had immured them in secret, he would have produced them on Buckingham's revolt, still more on Richmond's invasion. If they had escaped and he was aware of the fact, he would assuredly have sought for them ; if they escaped and without his knowledge, we cannot see what is gained as respects Richard's character, since he must have designed their murder though he was deceived by his instru- ments. In every hypothesis of escape, however, the question arises, where are they ? The place of confinement and their tender years forbid the idea of unassisted flight. The first step of those who assisted the Princes would be to carry them to their aunt the Dut- chess of Burgundy : if that princess would or could have kept the secret, out of regard to Richard, she would have produced them on Richmond's invasion, or certainly after Richard's death. If they were (most improbable position !) secreted in England, their mo- ther the Queen Dowager, as well as the friends of the house of York, would have been made acquainted with the fact ; and though they might not have acted on the knowledge during Richard's life, they would assuredly upon his death,—as their conduct during the subsequent reign, in supporting impostors, sufficiently shows. Turn which way you will, there is no escape : common fame, con- temporary historical authority, common sense, and the rules of evidence, all point to one conclusion—that Richard murdered his nephews. We know not whether Miss HALSTED has legal lore to object, that the body must be found, or sufficient evidence produced to satisfy the jury of the death, before a conviction for murder can be obtained. But perhaps as weak a ease as that against Richard is upon record. The discovery of the bones in the Tower, during the reign of Charles the Second, is of a kindred character to the skeleton in EUGENE ARAM'S case ; though the arguments of the criminal were far more cogent than some of the hypotheses of our authoress—that they might possibly be those of adults, or of apes.* Quitting matters of sense, Miss HALSTED thinks SHAKSPERE wrong for introducing the world of spirits. He had no good authority for bringing the "ghosts of all that he had murdered" to threaten "tomorrow's vengeance on the bead of Richard." The monarch's sleep was disturbed, she says, but this is the true in- terpretation.

" The events of the last few months had taught the King how transient was popular favour ; and those even of the last few days had brought still more painfully home to his conviction the little dependance to be placed on vows of fealty, which were as easily broken as they had been enthusiastically proffered. Perplexed, harassed, scarcely knowing whom to trust and whom to suspect, Richard became a prey to those excitable feelings—that distressing restlessness which so often results from the union of too vigorous mental powers with a corporeal frame of little bodily strength. Weak in constitution, and subject to that nervous irritability which is its invariable accompaniment, with so much, too, of real anxiety to distract his thoughts, so much of paramount importance to absorb the attention of a mind peculiarly susceptible and anxious, it is no marvel that, as the monarch sought repose upon his couch on the eve of the approaching contest, fearful dreams and harrowing thoughts should have in- terrupted a rest which, under the most favourable auspices, could scarcely have been tranquil and unbroken. He awoke, agitated, dispirited, unrefreshed, ' be fore the chaplains were ready to officiate, or the breakfast was prepared.' Pros- trated in mind and body, bemoaning the direful consequences which must result to the realm from the approaching struggle whichever party might gain the vic- tory, and acting under the influence of that morbid feeling which results from overwrought nervous excitement, he unhesitatingly communicated to his trusty attendants, who, on entering his tent, found him agitated, pale, and depressed, the simple cause of that lassitude which superstition quickly exaggerated into the appearance of supernatural visions, and subsequent chroniclers, with more indulgence of their imagination than became the simplicity of their task, re- corded as a visitation of ghastly forms, forerunners of his death, or evil spirits sent to reproach him with curses for his alleged crimes."

The personal appearance of the hero is laboured, but not with complete success. The representations of the players, and the description of HOME—" This prince was of a small stature, hump- backed, and had a harsh disagreeable countenance"—are only modi- fied, and hardly that. Miss HALSTED allows that he was short ; that he was possibly what is called round-shouldered ; one shoulder also was lower than the other—but this is quite the heroic pattern- " Ammon's great son one shoulder had too high."

On the faith of several reports, and several portraits, of very slender authority we suspect, she decides that he was positively well-looking, though plain compared with his handsome brothers. Perhaps the most curious point in the volumes is that relating to the hero's marriage with Lady Anne. The authoress not only maintains that it was a love-match, but a first love. It is probable that Richard and Anne were brought up together in the house of her father ; it is more than probable that Anne was only betrothed to Edward Prince of Wales, not absolutely married ; and though the immense possessions of the lady as coheiress of the Earl of Warwick might stimulate the wooer, he seems, like other lovers, to have had some difficulties, from his own brother and the lady's brother-in-law, Clarence, who wished to possess the whole of War- wick's estates, Returning to the drama, it may be remarked how instinctively genius saw the historical truth of Richard's character, and applied

' The reader who wishes to see the subject fully treated, may consult Humes note to the reign of Henry the Seventh on Perkin Warbeck ; originally written as a review of Wel:Foxes Historical Doubts, for DEY- VERDUN'S and Grinost's "Mernoires Litt6raires de la Grand Bretagne." Some errors of statement may be detected, or charged, arising from the histo- rian's ignorance of documents inaccessible in his time, or overlooked, or from his disregard of trifling details; but the whole is a model of disquisition— clear, uompsehenaive, and conclusive.

it to the purposes of the dramatic art. SHAER/MEE knew that the intellectual qualities of Richard—his courage, his military skill, and his capacity for civil government—might exist in conjunction with the most odious criminality, and be exercised not for the advantage of others but for himself, not as a matter of duty but self-interest, and as such not worthy of prominent praise. He perceived that the moral excellences, which deluded many "simple gulls"" in his own time, and for that matter in other ages—the religion, the libe- rality, and the strictness of manners and morals—could not be real, but only assumed ; and he exhibited the hypocrite in higher relief than he could have appeared in life or history ; making the crown his object before he had any probable hope of reaching it, and its attainment, with the consequences, the action of the drama. In doing this, he availed himself of traditional reports—probably be- lieved them—which exaggerated Richard's personal disadvantages ; and by representing him as born with teeth, seemed to mark him out as foredoomed to something unusual; and whilst he did not omit

"all your victories in Scotland, Your discipline in war, wisdom in peace,

Your bounty, virtue, fair humility,' he knew that, however important they might be in an historical narrative and in a critical estimate of his reign, they could not be adduced as a moral set-off, still less used, as is done by Miss HALSTED, to disprove recorded or evident criminality.

*" Clarence, whom I indeed have laid in darkness, I do beweep to many simple gulls."