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 tedious 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. A bugbear seems to have been always necessary to the English nation, and—give them but this to vent their spleen upon—they will, either in matters of taste or opinion, ‘as tenderly be led by the nose as asses are.’ It is apparently for no other purpose than to make _Gloucester_ stab _King Henry_ on the stage, that the fine abrupt introduction of this 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 connection with the previous character of the mild and well-meaning monarch. The passages which Mr. Wroughton has to recite are in themselves exquisitely pathetic, but they have nothing to do with the world that _Richard_ has to ‘bustle in.’ In the same spirit of vulgar caricature is the scene between _Richard_ and _Lady Anne_ (when his wife)—interpolated, merely to gratify this favourite propensity to disgust and loathing. With the same perverse consistency, _Richard_, after his last fatal struggle, is raised up by some Galvanic process, to utter the imprecation, without any motive but pure malignity, which is so finely put into the mouth of _Northumberland_ on hearing of _Percy’s_ death. We hope that Mr. Kean, when he acts _Macbeth_, will die as Shakespeare makes him, and not with four lines of canting penitence (a common-place against ambition) in his mouth. To make room for these needless additions and interpolations, many of the most striking passages in the real play have been omitted by the foppery and ignorance of the prompt-book critics. We do not mean to insist merely on passages which are fine as poetry and to the reader, such as _Clarence’s_ dream, &c. but those which are important to the developement of the character, and peculiarly adapted for stage effect. We give the following as instances among many others. The first is the scene where _Richard_ enters abruptly to the Queen and her friends, to defend himself: _Enter_ GLOUCESTER.