In the last lecture I endeavoured to point out in Shakespeare those characters where pride of intellect, without moral feeling, is supposed to be the ruling impulse, as in Iago, Richard III, and even Falstaff. In Richard III, ambition is, as it were, the channel in which the reigning impulse directs itself; the character is drawn by the Poet with the greatest fullness and perfection; and he has not only given the character, but actually shown its source and generation. The inferiority of his person made him seek consolation in the superiority of his mind; he had endeavoured to counterbalance his deficiency. This was displayed most beautifully by Shakespeare, who made Richard bring forward his very deformities as a boast. To show that this is not unfounded in nature, I may adduce the anecdote of John Wilkes, who said of himself that even in the company of ladies, the handsomest man ever created had but ten minutes’ advantage of him. A high compliment to himself; but higher to the female sex!

I will now proceed to offer some remarks upon the tragedy of Richard II, from its connection with Richard III. As, in the last, Shakespeare has painted a man whose ambition was only the channel in which the ruling impulse runs, so, in the first, he has given under the name of Bolingbroke, or Henry IV, where ambition itself, conjoined with great talents, is the uppermost feeling.

One main object of these lectures is to point out the difference between Shakespeare and other dramatists, and no superiority can be more striking, than that this great man could take two characters, which seem so be the same at first sight, and yet, when minutely examined, are totally distinct.

The popularity of Richard II is owing, in a great measure, to the masterly manner in which his characters are portrayed; but were there no other motive, it would deserve it from the fact that it contains the most magnificent, and truest eulogium on our native country, which the English language can boast, or which can be found in any other, not excepting the proud claims of Greece and Rome. When I feel, that upon the morality of Britain depends her safety, and that her morality is supported by our national feelings, I cannot read these lines without triumph.