to be ridiculed by Beaumont and Fletcher, when, in their mock-heroic play of the "Knight of the Burning Pestle," Ralph enters, "with a forked arrow through his head."

"The common people swarm like summer flies," etc. This line, obviously necessary to the sense, was inserted in the text, from the "True Tragedy."

"Now breathe we, lords: good fortune bids us pause,” etc.

This battle and victory of the house of York, was gained between Towton and Saxton, on Palm Sunday, 1461. "This conflict (says Hall) was in manner unnatural; for in it the son fought against the father, the brother against the brother, the nephew against the uncle, and the tenant against his lord."

"His lands then seiz'd on by the conqueror," etc. "This is, (says Malone,) in every particular, a falsification of history. Sir John Grey fell in the second battle of St. Albans, fighting on the side of King Henry; and so far is it from being true that his lands were seized by the conqueror, (Queen Margaret,) that they were in fact seized by King Edward, after his victory at Towton, (1461.) The present scene is laid in 1464. Shakespeare followed the old play in this instance; but when he afterwards had occasion to mention this matter, in writing his KING RICHARD III., he stated it truly, as he found it in the chronicles. In act i. scene 2, of that play, Richard, addressing himself to Queen Elizabeth, (the Lady Grey of the present scene,) says:

In all which time you and your husband Grey
Were factious for the house of Lancaster;

(And, Rivers, so were you :)—was not your husband In Margaret's battle at Saint Albans slain ?" This, Malone thinks, is one of the circumstances that prove incontestably, that Shakespeare was not the origi nal author of the "Contention." I do not see the force of the argument, as Shakespeare unquestionably enlarged the old play, and altered this speech. The error proves no more as to the first sketch than as to the alteration; and the correction in RICHARD III., like several others, only shows that, as his historical plays grew in popularity and importance, and he himself more familiar with the details of the history he worked upon, he was more attentive to minuter accuracy. Or it may be that, in the present case, the author thought he would gain in dramatic probability by an immaterial variation from historic accuracy,-by making Lady Grey not a sufferer by Edward's house, but from attachment to it. The text here gives the name Richard Grey, as it is in all the old copies. Hall calls him Sir John, which, however, is no sufficient reason to alter the author's text, as most late editors do.

"Ay, Edward will use women honourably. 'Would he were wasted, marrow, bones, and all," etc. This soliloquy is strongly impressed with all the pe culiar characteristics of our great Poet, and especially with his power of developing character; giving us a bold and distinctly marked outline of the approaching RICHARD III. Yet this is but the enlargement of a similar and brief soliloquy of Gloster, in the old playcontaining the same thoughts, less powerfully and vividly brought out. I think there are but few readers who will not agree with me, that the author of the original young Gloster must be also the author of the full-grown Richard III.; for, if the old 66 Contention" be not Shakespeare's, he owes to its author not only the groundwork of HENRY VI., but the whole character of Richard. To my mind, this soliloquy, as it stands in the old play, is alone conclusive of Shakespeare's authorship, and of his sole paternity of the character. The reader will judge for himself:

Glo. Ay, Edward will use women honourably.
Would he were wasted, marrow, bones, and all,
That from his loins no issue might succeed,
To hinder me from the golden time I look for:
For I am not yet look'd on in the world!
First is there Edward, Clarence, and Henry,
And his son, and all they look for issue
Of their loins, ere I can plant myself:
A cold premeditation for my purpose!

What other pleasure is there in the world beside?
I will go clad my body in gay ornaments,
And lull myself within a lady's lap,

And witch sweet ladies with my words and looks.
Oh monstrous man, to harbour such a thought!
Why, love did scorn me in my mother's womb;
And, for I should not deal in her affairs,
She did corrupt frail nature in the flesh,
And plac'd an envious mountain on my back,
Where sits deformity to mock my body;
To dry mine arm up like a wither'd shrimp;
To make my legs of an unequal size.
And am I then a man to be belov'd?
Easier for me to compass twenty crowns.
Tut, I can smile, and murder when I smile;
I cry content to that which grieves me most;

I can add colours to the chamelion;

And for a need change shapes with Proteus,
And set the aspiring Catiline to school.

Can I do this, and cannot get the crown?

Tush, were it ten times higher, I'll pull it down.

- an unlick'd bear-whelp"-" It was an opinion which, in spite of its absurdity, prevailed long, that the bear brings forth only shapeless lumps of flesh, which she licks into the form of bears. It is now well known that the whelps of bears are produced in the same state with those of other animals."-JOHNSON.

Who

"Then, since this earth affords no joy to me," etc. "Richard speaks here the language of nature. ever is stigmatized with deformity has a constant source of enmity in his mind, and would counterbalance by some other superiority those advantages which he feels himself to want. Bacon remarks, that the deformed are commonly daring; and it is almost proverbially observed that they are ill-natured. The truth is, that the deformed, like all other men, are displeased with infe riority, and endeavour to gain ground by good or bad means, as they are virtuous or corrupt."-JOHNSON.

"-set the murderous MACHIAVEL to school"-In the time of Shakespeare, the name of "Machiavel" had become synonymous with a wily, unscrupulous politician. Notwithstanding the anachronism, he therefore substituted "murderous Machiavel" for "aspiring Catiline," as it stands in the "True Tragedy," (1595,) because he thought the allusion would be better understood.

as earlier writers, of better authority, incline us to discredit the whole, and to refer the rupture between the King and his political creator to unknown causes, or to that jealousy and ingratitude too natural to those who are under obligations too great to be discharged. There needs no other proof how little our common histories are to be depended on, than this fabulous story of Warwick and the Lady Bona. The King was privately married to the Lady Elizabeth Widville, in 1463; and in February, 1465, Warwick actually stood sponsor to the Princess Elizabeth, their first child.”—RITSON.

"Exempt from ENVY"-Stevens thinks that "envy" in this place, as in many others, is put for malice, or hatred. His situation places him above these, though it cannot secure him from female disdain.

"You have a father able to maintain you," etc. Johnson thinks that this is ironical, as "the poverty of Margaret's father is a frequent topic of reproach.' Margaret's indignant outbreak upon Warwick, without any other provocation, shows that this was the author's meaning.

46

Thy sly CONVEYANCE"-i. e. Thy cunning artifice, or fraud. In the same sense, Richard II. says

O, good! convey? conveyers are you all.

"To SOOTH your forgery"-To "sooth," in ancient language, was "to countenance a falsehood, or forged tale; to uphold one in his talke, and affirme it to be true which he speaketh."-(Baret.) Malone errs in taking "to sooth" in its modern acceptation of to soften.

"Did I let pass th' abuse done to my niece?” King Edward (says Hollingshed) did attempt a thing once in the Earl's house, which was much against the Earl's honesty:-whether he would have deflowered his daughter, or his niece, the certainty was not, for both their honours, revealed; for surely such a thing was attempted by King Edward."

"FEAR thy king withal"—"Fear" is here used in an active sense, as was frequent in that age. So in HENRY IV., Part II. (act iv. scene 4.)

"There's thy reward"-Here we are to suppose that, according to ancient custom, Warwick makes a present to the herald or messenger, who in the old play is called a Post. (See note on KING HENRY V., act iii. scene 6.)

"I'll join mine eldest daughter, and my joy," etc. Malone again notices that "this is a departure from the truth of history, for Edward, Prince of Wales, was married to Anne, second daughter of the Earl of Warwick. In fact Isabella, his eldest daughter, was married to Clarence, in 1468. There is, however, no inconsistence in the present proposal; for at the time represented, when Warwick was in France, neither of his daughters were married. Shakespeare has here again followed the old play. In KING RICHARD III. he has properly represented Lady Anne, the widow of Edward, Prince of Wales, as the youngest daughter of Warwick." Malone insists, that this discrepancy proves that Shakespeare was not the original author of this play, to which Stevens well rejoins:-"Is it improbable that Shakespeare should have become more accurate as he grew older? Might he not, previous to the composition of a later play, have furnished himself with the knowledge which was wanting in his dramatic performances of an earlier date?"

"none else to make a STALE but me"-" Stale" is derived from the Saxon stælan, (to steal,) and is used for any pretence, but particularly for a stalking-horse, or artificial animal, behind which sportsmen of old stole upon their game. It sometimes meant a decoy, as in a passage in Sidney-“One bird caught served as a stale to bring in more;"-and Warwick seems to employ it in that sense. He had been sent by Edward as a decoy to procure the lady Bona for him.

ACT IV.-SCENE I.

"Pembroke, Stafford, and Hastings"-Collier remarks the particularity of the stage-directions in this play, as printed in the folio, (1623.) Here we have the addition of words, to show how the principal characters were to be ranged on the stage: "Four stand on one side, and four on the other." The attendants were probably to retire to the back of the scene, and were supposed to be out of hearing: there were nine principal persons present, viz., the King, the Queen, Gloster, Clarence, Somerset, Montague, Pembroke, Stafford, and Hastings. The King was therefore to stand in the middle, with "four on one side and four on the other."

"Or else you would not have bestow'd the heir," etc. "It must be remembered that, till the Restoration (of Charles II.,) the heiresses of great estates were in the wardship of the King; who, in their minority, gave them up to plunder, and afterwards matched them to his favourites. I know not when liberty gained more than by the abolition of the Court of Wards."―JOHNSON.

"I was not ignoble of descent"-The father of the unfortunate Queen of Edward IV. was Earl Rivers. Her mother was Jaqueline, daughter of the Earl of St. Paul, and widow of John, Duke of Bedford, brother to Henry V.

"she was there IN PLACE"-i. e. There present-a common form of expression among our old writers. The same expression occurs in the sixth scene of this Yet in this one thing let me blame your grace, For choosing me when Clarence is in place.

act:

SCENE III.

"Enter silently Warwick, Clarence, Orford," etc. Collier notices the alteration of the older play, in the conduct of this scene, as showing the extreme simplicity of the stage just before Shakespeare's time:-" In the older play, Warwick, Oxford, and Clarence, aided by a party of soldiers, standing on one part of the stage, concert a plan for surprising Edward IV. in his tent, on another part of the stage. Having resolved upon the enterprise, they merely cross the boards to Edward's encampment, the audience being required to suppose that the assailing party had travelled from their own quarters in order to arrive at Edward's tent. Shakespeare showed his superior judgment by changing the place, and by interposing a dialogue between the watchmen, who guard the King's tent."

SCENE V.

"A Park near Middleham Castle"-The account of Edward's captivity is according to Hollingshed and Hall. The minute Ritson objects to it as untrue, it appearing, from other authorities, that Edward was never in Warwick's hands.

SCENE VI.

"all his lands and goods CONFISCATED"-The reading of the folio is confiscate, which may be right, though the line reads defectively; and the modern editors therefore insert be before confiscate. With Collier, we prefer the smallest alteration, and the authority of the folio, for the insertion of "confiscated" in our text.

"This pretty lad will prove our country's bliss." "This 'pretty lad' was afterwards the fortunate and crafty Henry VII. Hollingshed, relating this incident, says, Whom when the King (Henry VI.) had a good while beheld, he said to such princes as were with him,-Lo, surely this is he to whom both we and our adversaries, leaving the possession of all things, shail hereafter give room and place.' Henry VII., to show his gratitude to Henry VI. for this early presage in his favour, solicited Pope Julius to canonize him as a saint;

"From RAVENSPURG HAVEN"-In the old play this is written Rauns purhaven; we may, therefore, infer that such was the pronunciation.

"A wise stout captain, and soon persuaded!" Thus in the old copies, but all modern editions, before Knight's, read thus:—

A wise stout captain, and persuaded soon. Knight well observes, that "the ruggedness of the original line has a peculiar propriety when uttered with the solemn irony of Richard. Shakespeare, as well as all real dramatic poets, vary their metre not only with the expression of passion, but according to the character of the speaker."

"The BRUIT thereof"-i. e. The noise, or report, (from the French bruit.) It is a word of constant occurrence in old English. In "Jeremiah" (x. 22) we read, "Behold, the noise of the bruit is come."

SCENE VIII.

"Let's levy men, and beat him back again." This line is assigned in all the folios to King Henry, from whom it has been transferred to Oxford, by the modern editors, on the ground of its being unsuited to the King. But, as Collier remarks, "It is not inconsistent with the other speeches of the King in this scene, who seems by the intelligence to have been roused, at least in the commencement, to an unusual degree of energy."

-wy MEED hath got me fame"-" Meed" is here, as before, used for merit, or desert.

"A Lancaster! A Lancaster!"-Unless we suppose the shouts to have proceeded from some of the troops in the pay of Henry, the more proper stage-direction on the arrival of Edward would be, as Johnson observed, "A York! A York!"

"Seize on the SHAME-FAC'D Henry"-This line is from the old play, and the epithet of "shame-fac'd," so portrait-like of the timid and fearful king, so characteristic of the speaker, so like Shakespeare's own manner of portraiture, is enough to counterbalance a hundred small criticisms, and to stamp these scenes as from his hand, even if other matters remind us that it was but "the 'prentice's hand."

ACT V.-SCENE I.

"-from the DECK"-i. e. From the pack. A pack of cards was of old called a "deck," as many authorities show. The word (as Ritson observed) continued in use as late as 1788, being found in the Sessions Paper of that year.

["Taking the red Rose out of his Hat"]-There is here no stage-direction in the folio, and what was done by Clarence could only be guessed, if the "True Tragedy" had not supplied the deficiency. We there read, Richard and Clarence whisper together, and then Clarence takes his red rose out of his hat, and throws it at Warwick."

["March. Exeunt."]-The folio adds, as a stagedirection, "Warwick and his company follow;" meaning, probably, that they quitted the walls of Coventry. But it may mean that Edward and his forces, having gone out, were followed across the stage by Warwick and his company, who left the city for the field of

Barnet.

SCENE II.

46- - Warwick was a BUG, that FEAR'D us all”—i. e. Warwick was a bugbear, which alarmed or frightened us all. The word "bug" occurs in CYMBELINE, in this sense. "Fear'd" is used actively, as in a preceding

scene.

"like a CANNON in a vault"-The old play has "like a clamour in a vault," which inclines me to agree with Singer, that "cannon" is an error of the press in the first folio. "The indistinct gabble of undertakers, (says Stevens,) while they adjust a coffin in a family vault, will abundantly illustrate the simile. Such a peculiar hubbub of inarticulate sounds might have attracted our author's notice; it has too often forced itself on mine."

66

SCENE IV.

Enter Queen Margaret, Prince Edward, Somerset, Oxford, and Soldiers"-This scene stands thus in the old tragedy:—

Queen. Welcome to England, my loving friends of France, And welcome Somerset and Oxford too. Once more have we spread our sails abroad, And though our tackling be almost consum'd, And Warwick as our mainmast overthrown, Yet, warlike lords, raise you that sturdy post That bears the sails to bring us unto rest, And Ned and I, as willing pilots should, For once with careful minds guide on the stern,

To bear us through that dangerous gulf

That heretofore hath swallow'd up our friends.

Prince. And if there be (as God forbid there should)
Amongst us a timorous or fearful man,
Let him depart before the battles join,
Lest he in time of need entice another,
And so withdraw the soldiers' hearts from us.

I will not stand aloof and bid you fight,
But with my sword press in the thickest throngs,
And single Edward from his strongest guard,
And hand to hand enforce him for to yield,
Or leave my body as witness of my thoughts.

Orf. Women and children of so high resolve,
And warriors faint! why 'twere perpetual shame.
Oh, brave young prince, thy noble grandfather
Doth live again in thee; long may'st thou live
To bear his image, and to renew his glories.

Som. And he that turns and flies when such do fight,
Let him to bed, and like the owl by day
Be hiss'd and wonder'd at if he arise.

The large expansion of the rough sketch is pronounced. by Malone, to " 'prove decisively that the two plays of the Contention' were the production of some writer who preceded Shakespeare," which he only revised and amplified. The comparison of any of the first editions in quarto, of those of Shakespeare's unquestioned plays, which he subsequently revised and amplified. with the enlarged and improved copy, will lead to a precisely opposite conclusion. The amplification and alteration here are precisely of the same nature with those found in ROMEO AND JULIET, in the MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, and in HAMLET,-to say nothing of half a dozen others of the plays, where the revision and expansion, though of the very same sort, are not carried so far. Thus, Hamlet's impassioned soliloquy, in act ii. scene 2

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! etc.is expanded in the folio into sixty lines, from the thirty of the first known edition; retaining, as here, the same ideas, and as here expanding them, and adding force and beauty to the expression. Where Shakespeare really employed the groundwork of a predecessor, as in KING JOHN, LEAR, and MEASURE FOR MEASURE, his process was wholly different,-borrowing nothing but the names, outline of the plot, historical or traditionary incidents, and general notion of the characters; but as carefully avoiding any transference of thought or expression.

SCENE V.

"Let Esop fable"-The allusion is to the deformity of the fabulist Æsop, which "mis-shapen Dick," as he is soon after called, takes, according to his nature, deliberately, but with purpose of revenge. There is little

alteration in this scene from the old play, where the high spirit of the young Prince, and the brief but strongly marked notices of the other characters, are given with a truly Shakespearian effect. It is, too, well worthy of remark, that the fine and animated dramatic effect and personal interest obtained by young Edward's there exhibiting the courage and spirit of his mother, without her vices, instead of his appearing to inherit the meek virtues of his father, is quite original in this play; there being no part of his character, in this respect, in the old historians.

11

the likeness of this RAILER here"-" This railer" is Queen Margaret, whom Prince Edward resembled.

"You have no children, butchers"-This is from the old play, which has "You have no children, devils!" Judge Blackstone notes that the Poet repeats the same thought in Macduff's lament for his murdered children. This is done with the same sort of variation which Shakespeare is wont to use in repeating a favourite thought, and indicates at least, if it does not absolutely prove, that he was using his own original materials. The speech stands thus in the old play :

Queen. Ah, Ned, speak to thy mother, boy: Ah, thou canst not speak.

Traitors, tyrants, bloody homicides,

They that stabb'd Cæsar shed no blood at all,

For he was a man; this, in respect a child;

And men ne'er spend their fury on a child.

What's worse than tyrant that I may not name?

You have no children, devils, if you had

The thought of them would then have stopp'd your rage:
But if you ever hope to have a son,

Look in his youth to have him so cut off,

As, traitors, you have done this sweet young prince.

SCENE VI.

The Walls of the Tower"-I have generally, in this edition, preferred retaining, as near as may be, the old stage-directions, which modern editors have often taken a needless license in altering, though it may be occasionally necessary. Here the author (as the folio gives it) has chosen to make the scene of the murder a part of the Tower walls, which we may suppose to be some retired inner part of the walls of that citadel, as it then stood. This is changed, in the generality of editions, to "A Room in the Tower."

The raven ROOK'D her"-To "rook," or ruck, meaning to squat down, roost, or lodge, was a word often used by Chaucer, Gower, J. Heywood, Stanyhurst, Golding, Warner, etc.

"What! will the aspiring blood of Lancaster

Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted." Here again is another passage, in which Gloster's character is strongly brought out, which I think no reader, who judges not from minute details, but from the poetical effect and dramatic spirit, can hesitate to ascribe to Shakespeare. If this has not the internal evidence of being his, I do not know in what passage such evidence is to be found. Yet it is remarkable that this speech is mainly from the old play, the alterations being slight, and there being no new insertions. We extract the whole of this scene, as it was first printed, in order to enable the reader to compare one of the more striking passages, but little modified, as elsewhere those more amplified and re-cast have been selected :

Good Gloster, and good devil, were all alike.
What scene of death hath Roscius now to act!

Glo. Suspicion always haunts a guilty mind.
King. The bird once lim'd doth fear the fatal bush.
And I, the hapless male to one poor bird,
Have now the fatal object in mine eye,

Where my poor young was lim'd, was caught, and kill'd.
Glo. Why, what a fool was that of Crete,
That taught his son the office of a bird!

And yet, for all that, the poor fowl was drown'd.
King. I, Dædalus, my poor son, Icarus;

Thy father, Minos, that denied our course;
Thy brother Edward the sun that sear'd his wings;
And thou the enviest gulf that swallow'd him.
Oh, better can my breast abide thy dagger's point,
Than can mine ears that tragic history.

Glo. Why, dost thou think I am an executioner?
King. A persecutor, I am sure thou art;
And if murdering innocents be executions,
Then I know thou art an executioner.

Glo. Thy son I kill'd for his presumption.

King. Hadst thou been kill'd when first thou didst presume, Thou hadst not liv'd to kill a son of mine. And thus I prophesy of thee:

That many a widow for her husband's death,

And many an infant's water-standing eye,

Widows for their husbands, children for their fathers,
Shall curse the time that ever thou wert born.
The owl shriek'd at thy birth, an evil sign;
The night-crow cried, a boding luckless tune;

Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempests shook down trees;
The raven rook'd her on the chimney's top,

And chatt'ring pies in dismal discord sung;

Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain,

And yet brought forth less than a mother's hope;

To wit, an undigest created lump,

Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree.

Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born,

To signify thou cam'st to bite the world:

And if the rest be true that I have heard,

Thou cam'st into the world

Glo. Die, prophet, in thy speech, I'll hear no more:

[Stabs kim.

For this amongst the rest was I ordain'd.

King. Ay, and for much more slaughter after this. O, God! forgive my sins, and pardon thee.

[He dies. Glo. What! will the aspiring blood of Lancaster Sink into the ground? I had thought it would have mounted See how my sword weeps for the poor king's death. Now may such purple tears always be shed, For such as seek the downfall of our house. If any spark of life remain in thee, Down, down to hell, and say I sent thee thither: I, that have neither pity, love, nor fear. Indeed, 'twas true that Henry told me of, For I have often heard my mother say,

[Stabs him again.

I came into the world with my legs forward:
And had I not reason, think you, to make haste,
And seek their ruins that usurp'd our rights?
The women weeping, and the midwife crying,
"O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!"
And so I was, indeed; which plainly signified
That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.
Then, since heaven hath made my body so,
Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.
I had no father, I am like no father;

I have no brothers, I am like no brothers
And this word love, which greybeards term divine,
Be resident in men like one another,;
And not in me; I am myself alone.
Clarence, beware; thou keep'st me from the light,
But I will sort a pitchy day for thee:
For I will buz abroad such prophecies,
Under pretence of outward seeming ill,
As Edward shall be fearful of his life,
And then to purge his fear, I'll be thy death.
King Henry, and the prince his son, are gone;
And, Clarence, thou art next must follow them :
So by one and one despatching all the rest,
Counting myself but bad, till I be best.
I'll drag thy body in another room,
And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom.

This last is a speech which, it seems to me, is as unlike Marlowe, or Peele, or Greene, as it is like to Shakespeare.

We learn from Mr. Knight, that the most curious accounts, both of the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, and indeed of all this rapid counter-revolution, which has scarcely a parallel in our English annals, are to be found in the contemporary narrative published by the Camden Society. Neither that narrative, nor the Ghent Manuscript, which is an abridgment of it, were probably accessible to Shakespeare. We must, therefore, be content to trace him in Hall and Hollingshed. The following graphic account of the battle of Tewkesbury is from Hall:

"After the field ended, King Edward made a proclamation that whoever could bring Prince Edward to him, alive or dead, should have an annuity of an c l. during his life, and the prince's life to be saved. Sir Richard Croftes, a wise and a valiant knight, nothing mistrusting the king's former promise, brought forth his prisoner Prince Edward, being a goodly feminine and a wellfeatured young gentleman, whom when King Edward had well advised, he demanded of him how he durst so presumptuously enter into his realm with banner displayed. The prince, being bold of stomach and of a good courage, answered, saying, To recover my father's kingdom and inheritage from his father and grandfather to him, and from him, after him, to me lineally divoluted. At which words King Edward said nothing, but with his hand thrust him from him, (or, as some say, stroke him with his gauntlet,) whom incontinent they that strode about, which were George Duke of Clarence, Richard Duke of Gloucester, Thomas Marquis Dorset, and William Lord Hastings, suddenly murdered and piteously mangled. The bitterness of which murder some of the actors after in their latter days tasted and essayed by the very rod of justice and punishment of God. His body was homely interred with the other simple corpses in the church of the monastery of Black Monks in Tewkesbury. This was the last civil battle that was fought in King Edward's days, which was gotten the iii day of May, in the x year of his reign, and in the year

of our Lord Mcccclxxi, then being Saturday. And on the Monday next ensuing was Edmund Duke of Somerset, John Longstrother, Prior of Saint John's, Sir Garveys Clifton, Sir Thomas Tresham, and xii other knights and gentlemen beheaded in the market-place of Tewkesbury."

In this account of Edward's murder, as given by Hall, he is followed by Hollingshed, and agrees with his pre decessor, Fabyan, who, however, only says he was slain by the King's servants. Mr. Courtenay, in his curious work on Shakespeare's "Historical Plays," denies that these old historians are supported by prior authority; and from the language of Croyland, Comines, and two contemporary chroniclers, who speak merely of the prince's being slain," he concludes that "there is no thing like evidence of Prince Edward's reply to the king, or his assassination by any body, and that there is not even the report of one who lived near the time, of the participation of either of the King's brothers in the assassination, if it occurred." The traditional belief of Shakespeare's times, however, was undoubtedly as Hollingshed gives it.

Hollingshed gives the following account of the murder of Henry VI., agreeing with Hall:-" Poor King Henry VI., a little before deprived (as we have heard) of his realm and imperial crown, was now in the Tower spoiled of his life by Richard Duke of Gloster, (as the constant fame ran,) who, to the intent that his brother King Edward might reign in more surety, murdered the said King Henry with a dagger, although some writers of that time, favouring altogether the house of York, have recorded that, after he understood what losses had chanced to his friends, and how not only his son but also all other his chief partakers were dead and despatched, he took it so to heart, that of pure displeasure, indignation, and melancholy, he died the threeand-twentieth of May. The dead corpse, on the Ascension even, (the 29th,) was conveyed with bills and glaives pompously (if you will call that a funeral pomp) from the Tower to the church of St. Paul, and there laid on a bier, where it rested the space of one whole day, and on the next day after, it was conveyed, without priest or clerk, torch or taper, singing or saying, unto the monastery of Chertsey, distant from London fifteen miles, and there was it first buried; but after, it was removed to Windsor, and there in a new vault newly inhumulate."

The actual murder of Henry by Richard, either with his own hand or by his immediate direction, is again one of the disputed points of history. The old chroniclers generally point to a mysterious murder by some one in high place, except the old Yorkist chronicle, which says that Henry died in this town, "of pure displeasure and melancholy."

Courtenay's conclusion, after stating the evidence, is this:-"I agree with Walpole, as to the improbability of Richard's becoming the murderer of the captive and childless king. On the other hand, it is clear that, from the first, it was suspected that Henry was murdered, and that the perpetrator was in station so high as to be called a tyrant; and that a rumour was prevalent at an early period, but perhaps not until after Richard's death, that Gloster was the murderer."

"The three parts of KING HENRY VI. are suspected, by Mr. Theobald, of being suppositious, and are declared, by Dr. Warburton, to be certainly not Shakespeare's. Mr. Theobald's suspicion arises from some obsolete words; but the phraseology is like the rest of the author's style; and single words, of which, however, I do not observe more than two, can conclude little.

"Dr. Warburton gives no reason; but I suppose him to judge upon deeper principles and more comprehensive views, and to draw his opinion from the general effect and spirit of the composition, which he thinks inferior to the other historical plays.

"From mere inferiority nothing can be inferred: in the productions of wit there will be inequality. Sometimes judgment will err, and sometimes the matter