The elastic buoyancy of spirits, joined with the rare affability of disposition, which prominently marked the character of the prince whose recent loss we deplore, rendered him the enthusiastic admirer and steady supporter of the English stage. I hope I shall not be taken to task for alluding to a trifling coincidence, on recalling to recollection how largely the mighty master of this department, our immortal Shakspeare, has drawn upon his royal highness’s illustrious predecessors in title, in those unrivalled dramatic sketches which unite the force of genius with the simplicity of nature, whilst they impart to the strictly accurate annals of our national history some of the most vivid illuminations which blaze through the records of our national eloquence. The touches of a master-hand giving vent to the emanations of a mighty mind are, perhaps, no where more palpably traced, than throughout those scenes of the historical play of Richard II., where Edmund of Langley, duke of York, (son of king Edward III.,) struggles mentally between sentiments of allegiance to his weak and misguided sovereign on the one hand, and, on the other hand, his sense of his other nephew Bolingbroke’s grievous wrongs, and the injuries inflicted on his country by a system of favouritism, profusion, and oppression. Equal skill and feeling are displayed in the delineation of his son Rutland’s devoted attachment to his dethroned benefactor, and the adroit detection, at a critical moment, of the conspiracy, into which he had entered for Richard’s restoration. In the subsequent play of Henry V., (perhaps the most heart-stirring of this interesting series,) we learn how nobly this very Rutland (who had succeeded his father, Edmund of Langley, as duke of York) repaid Henry IV.’s generous and unconditional pardon, by his heroic conduct in the glorious field of Agincourt, where he sealed his devotion to his king and country with his blood. Shakspeare has rendered familiar to us the intricate plans of deep-laid policy, and the stormy scenes of domestic desolation, through which his nephew and successor, Richard, the next duke of York, obtained a glimpse of that throne, to which, according to strictness, he was legitimately entitled just before “York overlook’d the town of York.” The licentious indulgence, the hard-hearted selfishness, the reckless cruelty, which history indelibly stamps as the characteristics of his son and successor, Edward, who shortly afterwards seated himself firmly on the throne, are presented to us in colours equally vivid and authentic. The interestingly pathetic detail of the premature extinction in infancy of his second son, prince Richard, whom he had invested with the title of York, is brought before our eyes in the tragedy of Richard III., with a forcible skill and a plaintive energy, which set the proudest efforts of preceding or following dramatic writers at defiance.