something of the power, but none of the flowing ease of Shakspeare's
manner. There are fine materials not well applied; there is poetry in
some of the scenes and speeches; the situations are often exceedingly
poetical; but in the character of Margaret herself, there is not an atom
of poetry. In her artificial dignity, her plausible wit, and her endless
volubility, she would remind us of some of the most admired heroines of
French tragedy, but for that unlucky box on the ear which she gives the
Duchess of Gloster,--a violation of tragic decorum, which of course
destroys all parallel.

Having said thus much, I shall point out some of the finest and most
characteristic scenes in which Margaret appears. The speech in which she
expresses her scorn of her meek husband, and her impatience of the power
exercised by those fierce overbearing barons, York, Salisbury, Warwick,
Buckingham, is very fine, and conveys as faithful an idea of those
feudal times as of the woman who speaks. The burst of female spite with
which she concludes, is admirable--

Not all these lords do vex me half so much
As that proud dame, the Lord Protector's wife.
She sweeps it through the court with troops of ladies,
More like an empress than Duke Humphrey's wife.
Strangers in court do take her for the queen:
She bears a duke's revenues on her back,
And in her heart she scorns our poverty.
Shall I not live to be avenged on her?
Contemptuous base-born callet as she is!
She vaunted 'mongst her minions t'other day,
The very train of her worst wearing gown
Was better worth than all my father's lands,
Till Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter.

Her intriguing spirit, the facility with which she enters into the
murderous confederacy against the good Duke Humphrey, the artful
plausibility with which she endeavours to turn suspicion from
herself--confounding her gentle consort by mere dint of words--are
exceedingly characteristic, but not the less revolting.

Her criminal love for Suffolk (which is a dramatic incident, not an
historic fact) gives rise to the beautiful parting scene in the third
act; a scene which it is impossible to read without a thrill of emotion,
hurried away by that power and pathos which forces us to sympathize with
the eloquence of grief, yet excites not a momentary interest either for
Margaret or her lover. The ungoverned fury of Margaret in the first
instance, the manner in w