Doubtless each
believed the other to be the villain that he called him. And Shakspere
has no desire or need to act the historian in the decision of that
question. He leaves his reader in full sympathy with the perplexity of
_Richard_; as puzzled, in fact, as if he had been present at the
interrupted combat.
If every writer could write up to his own best, we should have far less
to marvel at in Shakspere. It is in great measure the wealth of
Shakspere's suggestions, giving him abundance of the best to choose
from, that lifts him so high above those who, having felt the
inspiration of a good idea, are forced to go on writing, constructing,
carpentering, with dreary handicraft, before the exhausted faculty has
recovered sufficiently to generate another. And then comes in the
unerring choice of the best of those suggestions. Yet if any one wishes
to see what variety of the same kind of thoughts he could produce, let
him examine the treatment of the same business in different plays; as,
for instance, the way in which instigation to a crime is managed in
"Macbeth," where _Macbeth_ tempts the two murderers to kill _Banquo_; in
"King John," when _the King_ tempts _Hubert_ to kill _Arthur_; in "The
Tempest," when _Antonio_ tempts _Sebastian_ to kill _Alonzo_; in "As You
Like it," when _Oliver_ instigates _Charles_ to kill _Orlando_; and in
"Hamlet," where _Claudius_ urges _Laertes_ to the murder of _Hamlet_.
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