sadness which so often comes over an active and
ambitious intellect in early youth, when it pauses to ask, in sorrow and
disdain, what its plots and counterplots, its restlessness and strife,
are really worth. The scene before him was of pleasure,--but in pleasure
neither the youth nor the manhood of Richard III. was ever pleased;
though not absolutely of the rigid austerity of Amadis or our Saxon
Edward, he was comparatively free from the licentiousness of his times.
His passions were too large for frivolous excitements. Already the
Italian, or, as it is falsely called, the Machiavelian policy, was
pervading the intellect of Europe, and the effects of its ruthless,
grand, and deliberate statecraft are visible from the accession of
Edward IV. till the close of Elizabeth's reign. With this policy, which
reconciled itself to crime as a necessity of wisdom, was often blended a
refinement of character which disdained vulgar vices. Not skilled alone
in those knightly accomplishments which induced Caxton, with propriety,
to dedicate to Richard "The Book of the Order of Chivalry," the Duke of
Gloucester's more peaceful amusements were borrowed from severer Graces
than those which presided over the tastes of his royal brothers. He
loved, even to passion, the Arts, Music,--especially of the more Doric
and warlike kind,--Painting and Architecture; he was a reader of books,
as of men,--the books that become princes,--and hence that superior
knowledge of the principles of law and of commerce which his brief reign
evinced. More like an Italian in all things than the careless Norman
or the simple Saxon, Machiavel might have made of his character a
companion, though a contrast to that of Castruccio Castrucani.

The crowd murmured and rustled at the distance, and still with folded
arms Richard gazed aloof, when a lady, entering the garden from the
palace, passed by him so hastily that she brushed his surcoat, and,
turning round in surprise, made a low reverence, as she exclaimed,
"Prince Richard! and alone amidst so many!"

"Lady," said the duke, "it was a sudden hope that brought me into this
garden,--and that was the hope to see your fair face shining above the
rest."

"Your Highness jests," returned the lady, though her superb countenance
and haughty carriage evinced no opinion of herself so humble as her
words would imply.

"My Lady of Bonville," said the young duke, laying his hand on her arm,
"mirth is not in my thoughts at