[Footnote 10: Richard II. is perhaps an exception, and I must confess
that to me he is scarcely a tragic character, and that, if he is
nevertheless a tragic figure, he is so only because his fall from
prosperity to adversity is so great.]

[Footnote 11: I say substantially; but the concluding remarks on
_Hamlet_ will modify a little the statements above.]

[Footnote 12: I have raised no objection to the use of the idea of fate,
because it occurs so often both in conversation and in books about
Shakespeare's tragedies that I must suppose it to be natural to many
readers. Yet I doubt whether it would be so if Greek tragedy had never
been written; and I must in candour confess that to me it does not often
occur while I am reading, or when I have just read, a tragedy of
Shakespeare. Wordsworth's lines, for example, about

poor humanity's afflicted will
Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny

do not represent the impression I receive; much less do images which
compare man to a puny creature helpless in the claws of a bird of prey.
The reader should examine himself closely on this matter.]

[Footnote 13: It is dangerous, I think, in reference to all really good
tragedies, but I am dealing here only with Shakespeare's. In not a few
Greek tragedies it is almost inevitable that we should think of justice
and retribution, not only because the _dramatis personae_ often speak of
them, but also because there is something casuistical about the tragic
problem itself. The poet treats the story in such a way that the