The only rule, indeed, for altering Shakespeare is
to retrench certain passages which may be considered either as
superfluous or obsolete, but not to add or transpose anything. The
arrangement and development of the story, and the mutual contrast
and combination of the dramatis personae, are in general as finely
managed as the development of the characters or the expression of
the passions.
This rule has not been adhered to in the present instance. Some of
the most important and striking passages in the principal character
have been omitted, to make room for idle and misplaced extracts from
other plays; the only intention of which seems to have been to make
the character of Richard as odious and disgusting as possible. It is
apparently for no other purpose than to make Gloucester stab King
Henry on the stage, that the fine abrupt introduction of the
character in the opening of the play is lost in the tedious whining
morality of the uxorious king (taken from another play);--we say
TEDIOUS, because it interrupts the business of the scene, and loses
its beauty and effect by having no intelligible connexion with the
previous character of the mild, well-meaning monarch. The passages
which the unfortunate Henry has to recite are beautiful and pathetic
in themselves, but they have nothing to do with the world that
Richard has to 'bustle in'.
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