And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill."

As in all Shakespeare's greater plays, a justice brings evil upon the
vow breaker. Curses called down in the solemn moment come home to roost
when the solemnity is forgotten or thrust aside. Clarence, who broke his
oath to the House of Lancaster, is done to death by his brother. Anne,
cursing the killer of her husband, curses the woman who shall marry him,
is, herself, that woman, and dies wretchedly. Grey, Rivers, Dorset,
Buckingham and Hastings make oaths of amity, call down curses on him
that breaks them, themselves break them, and die wretchedly. Richard,
too wise to make oaths, too strong to curse, dies, as his mother
foretells, "by God's just ordinance," when the measure of the blood of
his victims becomes too great, and when his victims' curses, after
wandering from heart to heart, get them into human bodies and walk the
world, executing justice.

All through the play there are warnings against human certainty. Of all
the dangerous pronouncements of man that to the fountain, "Fountain, of
thy water I will never drink," is one of the most dangerous. There are
terrible examples of certainty betrayed. Richard is certain as only fine
intellect can be that he will triumph. It is a part of his tragedy that
it is not intellect that triumphs in this world, but a stupid, though a
righteous something, incapable of understanding intellect. Rivers and
Grey are certain that Richard is friendly to them. They are hurried to
Pomfret and put to death. Hastings "Knows his state secure," and "goes
triumphant." He is rushed out of life at a moment's notice, one hour a
lord, giving his opinion at a council, the next a corpse in its grave.
Buckingham thinks himself secure. A moment's nicety of conscience sends
him flying to death. The little Princes lay down to sleep--

"girdling one another
Within their innocent alabaster arms.
Their lips were four red roses on a stalk
Which in their summer beauty kissed each other"--

when their waking time came they were stamped down under the stones at
the stair foot.

The poetry of this play is that of great and high spiritual invention.
There is much that stays in the mind as exquisitely said and beautifully
felt. But the wonder of the work is in the greatness of the conception.
That is truly great, both as poetry and as drama. The big and burning
imaginings do not please, they haunt.

The dream of Clarence, th