Richm. God, and your arms, be prais'd, victorious friends, The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead. Stan. Courageous Richmond, well hast thou acquit thee. Lo! here, this long-usurped royalty, Richm. Great God of heaven, say, amen, to all!- Whither, if you please, we may withdraw us. Richm. What men of name are slain on either side? Stan. John duke of Norfolk, Walter lord Ferrers, Sir Robert Brakenbury, and Sir William Brandon. 60 Richm. Inter their bodies as becomes their births. Proclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled, O! now, let Richmond and Elizabeth, [Exeunt. "Made glorious summer by this sun of York," etc. This is an allusion to the cognizance of the House of York, which was three suns, in memory of the three suns which were supposed to have appeared at the battle which Edward IV. gained at Mortimer's Cross. The incident is given in HENRY VI. (Part III. :) Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns? - instead of mounting BARBED steeds"-" Barbed" and barded appear to have been indifferently used for a horse caparisoned with military trappings. In Hall we have, "About the time of prime came to the barriers of the lists the Duke of Hertford, mounted on a white courser, barbed with blue and green velvet." In Lord Berners' "Froissart" we read, "It was a great beauty to behold the banners and standards waving in the wind, and horses barded, and knights and squires richly armed." It comes from the equus bardatus of the unclassical Latin of the middle ages. "-by DISSEMBLING nature"-Johnson interprets "dissembling" here as fraudulent, deceitful; but it certainly is here used in a sense not rare in contemporary old poets, for that which puts together things dissimilar. "-to SEE my shadow in the sun"-Most modern editors here read, "to spy my shadow," etc., as it is in the early quartos. It was probably the author's original word, which, in the copy from which the folio was printed, he altered to "see my shadow." The reason of the change is clear. To spy is expressive of an intentional effort to trace out his own deformity; while "see" signifies that it was forced upon his observation. "That TEMPTS him to this harsh extremity," etc. With Collier, we follow the reading of the folio: the quartos have "That tempers him to this extremity," which, taking temper in the sense of to harden or soften, to adapt to any intended purpose, is a good sense, in the diction of the times. "-LIE for you"-To "lie for you" is to lie in prison in your stead. "Now, by Saint PAUL"-So all the quarto editions: the folio, "Now, by Saint John." As Gloster habitually swears by Saint Paul, this change was probably accidental. SCENE II. "OBSEQUIOUSLY lament"-i. e. Lament as at the obsequies of a dead person. In the lament of the father who has slain his own son, in the third part of HENRY VI., obsequious is used exactly in the same way, as well as in HAMLET, (act ii. scene 2)-"To do obsequious sorrow." -KEY-COLD figure of a holy king"-This epithet is common in the old writers. Shakespeare has it in the RAPE OF LUCRECE: And then in key-cold Lucrece' bleeding stream Decker uses it, in 1603; and this very phrase ("keycold figure") is found in the comedy of the "Country Girl," as late as 1647. Stevens says that the epithet is derived from the application of a cold key to stop bleeding. I should rather think it a relic of our ancient language. "Cold" is from the Anglo-Saxon, being the past participle of kel-an, (to cool;) and "key-cold" may have been originally a reduplication-" stiffened cold." "- heir to his UNHAPPINESS"-i. e. Mischievous disposition. "Unhappy" was often used in this sense; as in ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL-"A shrewd knave, and an unhappy." "O, gentlemen! see, see! dead Henry's wounds Open their congeal'd mouths, and bleed afresh!" "It is a tradition very generally received, that the murdered body bleeds on the touch of the murderer. This was so much believed by Sir Kenelm Digby, that he has endeavoured to explain the reason."-JOHNSON. This opinion has classical authority; for Plutarch says that Agrippina's body bled afresh at the approach of Nero, which was looked upon as evidence of his guilt. The incident here is historical; for Hollingshed says that Henry's body, when laid in state, "the same in the presence of the beholders did bleed." It bled again at Blackfriars; but nothing is said of Richard's being present at either time. "these supposed EVILS"-So the quartos: the folio, crimes; but Lady Anne, reiterating Gloster's words, repeats "evils." "DIFFUS'D infection of a man"-" Diffused," in old use, meant confused, uncouth; and here refers to Richard's deformity-"but half made up." "Then say they were not slain"-With Knight and Collier, we give the reading of the folio, which better preserves the antithesis than "Why, then, they are not dead," of the quartos, which is found in other modern editions. "sweet SMOOTHING WORD"-Thus the folio. In scene 3, Gloster uses the verb to smooth. The quartos read, "sweet soothing words." "GLO. Vouchsafe to wear this ring. ANNE. To take, is not to give." Knight well remarks, that "this rapid interchange of speech is wonderfully helped in its effect by the short lines of six syllables; but Stevens, by the aid of some transpositions, has contrived to manufacture these ten lines into six of the vilest resemblances to the eye of blank verse that his botching ever achieved." "And presently repair to Crosby-place." Crosby-place (or Crosby-house, as the folio here calls it,) is in Crosby-square, Bishopsgate-street, (London.) This magnificent house was built in 1466, by Sir John Crosby, grocer and woolman. Crosby-hall, after many vicissitudes, has been lately restored, with great skill; and now exhibits one of the most interesting specimens of old domestic architecture which England can show. "—with all EXPEDIENT duty”—"Expedient" is used by Shakespeare for expeditious. "Imagine I have said farewell already. [Exeunt Lady ANNE," etc. Cibber, who altered KING RICHARD III. for the stage, was so convinced of the improbability of this scene, that he thought it necessary to make a bystander say :— When future chronicles shall speak of this, They will be thought romance, not history. The embassy under Lord Macartney, to China, witnessed the representation of a play, in a theatre at Tien-sing, with a similar plot;-in which a rebel General kills the Emperor with his own hand. While the Empress is tearing her hair in all the agony of grief, the conqueror enters, addresses her in the language of adoration, and in half an hour, like Richard, prevails on the Chinese beauty to dry up her tears, and yield to a consoling wooer." Stevens pronounces both scenes equally absurd; yet it is probable that the Chinese dramatist, like the English one, drew his plot from history. In both cases probably, certainly in the English instance, the strangeness, "absurdity and ridiculousness," censured by the critic, is in the history, not in the play. "Truth is strange, stranger than fiction." Whatever doubt later inquiry may have thrown on Richard's personal agency in the deaths of Anne's husband and of his father, there can be no doubt that he was identified with their enemies; and that her husband was slain, if not by Richard's hand, by his comrades or soldiers. 11 SCENE III. with quick and merry WORDS"-The folio has eyes for "words," which may be right; but all the quartos have words," which is generally adopted. "Enter Buckingham and STANLEY"-Derby in all the old copies, quarto and folio; but Lord Stanley (as Theobald observes) was not created Earl of Derby until after Henry VII. came to the throne. It may be doubted whether we ought not to allow the old text to stand, as Stanley is spoken to and of as Derby by the characters, and the inadvertence was probably committed by Shakespeare. Theobald's alteration is followed by all later editors, from whom I have not cared to differ. "The Countess Richmond, good my lord of Stanley." The Countess Richmond was Margaret, daughter to John Beaufort, first Duke of Somerset. After the death of her first husband, Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, (by whom she had one son, afterwards Henry VII.,) she married, first, Sir Henry Stafford; and secondly, Thomas, Lord Stanley. - with LEWD complaints"-i. e. With wicked complaints. Here Stevens would show that "lewd" meant merely ignorant. This may have been one of its senses, but its frequent meaning at the date was bad, wicked. as it is used in our English Bible, (Acts, chap. xvii. ver. 5,) "lewd fellows"-for the original word, ponéros. "—wrens MAKE prey"-So in the folio, and the two first quartos. The ordinary reading is " may prey." "That will I MAKE"-The double acceptation of the verb "make" is also exemplified in As You LIKE IT:Now, sir, what make you here? Nothing: I am not taught to make anything. "Wert thou not banished, on pain of death?" Queen Margaret fled into France after the battle of Hexham, and remained abroad till 1471. After the battle of Tewkesbury, in that year, she was confined in the Tower till 1475, when she was ransomed by her father, and removed to France, where she died in 1482. "Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog!" "It is an old prejudice, which is not yet quite extinct, that those who are defective or deformed, are marked by elves, or invisible evil agents, and made prone to mischief. She calls him hog, in allusion to his cognizance, which was a boar. The expression (says Warburton) is fine; remembering her youngest son, she alludes to the ravage which hogs make with the finest flowers in gardens; and intimating that Elizabeth was to expect no other treatment for her sons.' The rhyme for which Collingborne was executed, as given by Heywood, in his Metrical History of King Edward IV.,' will illustrate this: The cat, the rat, and Lovell our dog, Doe rule all England under a hog. The crooke backt boore the way hath found To root our roses from our ground, Both flower and bud will he confound, And then the dog, the cat, and rat The persons aimed at, in this rhyme, were the King, Catesby, Ratcliff, and Lovell."-JOHNSON and MALONE. 64 "Our EYRY buildeth in the cedar's top," etc. 'Eyry" properly signified a brood of eagles or hawks, though afterwards used for the nests of those birds. "Sin, death, and hell, have set their marks on him," etc. Blackstone suggests that Milton caught the idea of his magnificent allegory from this line. It may be so; but if so, it is one of those uses of a thought which is not plagiarism. "He is FRANK'D up to fatting"-A "frank" is a pen, or coop, in which hogs and other animals were confined, while "fatting." To be "franked up" was to be closely confined. To franch, or frank, was to stuff, to cram, to fatten. There seems, in this phrase, another allusion to the armorial bearing of the boar, by the house of York. "SCATH to us"-i. e. Harm, mischief. "So do I ever, being well advis'd; For had I curs'd now, I had curs'd myself." This is one of the few instances in the old copies, where a speech aside is so marked: the direction is, "Speaks to himself.” Your eyes drop mill-stones, when fools' eyes FALL tears." "Drop tears" in the quartos. The expression is proverbial, and it is used in the tragedy of "Cæsar and Pompey," (1607:)— Men's eyes must mill-stones drop, when fools shed tears. SCENE IV. "So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights," etc. The quartos give this line thus: So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams. and he SHRIEK'D out aloud"-There are many slight variations, in this scene, between the folio text here followed, and the earlier text. Several are immaterial; such as "sights of ugly death," or "ugly sights of death." But "shriek'd" has been substituted in the revision for squeak'd, as also "sour" ferryman for grim ferryman-both apparently substitutions of better words by the author. "CLAR. Ah, keeper, keeper"-In the quarto this scene commences with Clarence addressing the description of his dream to Brakenbury; but in the folio the stage-direction is, "Enter Clarence and Keeper." In this passage, the reading of the quartos, "O, Brakenbury" is altered to "Ah, keeper, keeper!" Brakenbury subsequently enters, in the folio, when Clarence is sleeping. But as Brakenbury's remarks ("Sorrow breaks seasons,' etc.,) seem to rise naturally from the preceding conversation, and Clarence's reposing, they cannot well have been intended to be spoken by a person just entering. The quartos, therefore, evidently give the author's design, and should be adhered to in the arrangement. The folio text, however, having several lines not in the quartos, is evidently the corrected one to be followed. "There lies the duke asleep, and there the keys." The line in the quartos stands thus: Here are the keys; there sits the duke asleep. "THIS HOLY humour of mine"-So the quartos: the folio, "my passionate humour." the current tale of his own time. But (as Malone shows) Clarence was tried and found guilty by his peers, and a bill of attainder was afterwards passed against him. According to Sir Thomas More, his death was commanded by Edward; but he does not assert that the Duke of Gloster was the instrument. Polydore Virgil says, though he talked with several persons who lived at the time, he never could get any certain account of the motives that induced Edward to put his brother to death. "to have redemption"-" The folio here substitutes 'for any goodness,' and omits the next line, probably on account of the statute against oaths, etc. We ought not on such an account to lose a line from Shakespeare's pen, written by him long before the statute. All the quarto editions contain the line, which was no doubt erased by the Master of the Revels, who in this play. as in others, discharged his duty very capriciously."COLLIER. "When gallant-springing, brave Plantagenet," etc. That is, Plantagenet, brave and blooming in youth—a compound resembling others in this play, as "childishfoolish," etc. Spenser has my springing youth," in the sense of the spring of life. "You are deceiv'd: your brother Gloster hates you." Horace Walpole suggested, from the Chronicle of Croyland, that the true cause of Gloster's hatred to Clarence was, that Clarence was unwilling to allow Gloster that moiety of the estate of the great Earl of Warwick, to which he became entitled by his marriage with Lady Anne, younger sister of the Duchess of Clarence. That the brothers were at variance on the subject, appears from a letter in the Paston collection:Yesterday, the King, the Queen, my lords of Clarence and Gloucester, went to Shene, to pardon. The King entreateth my lord of Clarence for my lord of Gloucester; and (as it is said) he answereth, that he may well have my lady his sister-in-law, but they shall part no livelihood, as he saith. So what will fall can I not say." 46 "Were you in my distress"-The five lines ending with these words are not in the quarto editions. With Collier, we have adhered to the distribution of the dialogue of the folio. Other editors have inserted the pas sage, some in one place and some in another, but in no place rightly. There are many other variations in this scene. According to the quartos, it does not appear that one of the murderers made his exit and returned; and in the folio we are left to infer that the body of Clarence was carried out by one of them. There are also small verbal differences scattered throughout, none of them affecting the sense or spirit. The folio text is followed, except when there seems a misprint. Knight well points out, that "in the great drama before us Shakespeare fell in with the popular view of the character of Richard III.;-preserving all the strong lineaments of his guilty ambition, as represented by Sir Thomas More, and the chroniclers who followed the narrative of that illustrious man, with marvellous subservience to his own wonderful conception of the high intellectual supremacy of this usurper. We are not about to inquire whether the Richard of history has had justice done to him, but whether the Richard of Shakespeare accords with the Richard of the old annalists. We quote from Hall, because his narrative is more literally copied from More, and the contemporary writers, than that of Hollingshed, who is never so quaint and vigorous; and, further, because we wish to show that the nonsense which has been uttered by Malone and others, that Shakespeare knew no other historian than Hollingshed, is disproved, in the clearest manner, by the accuracy with which, in some scenes, he follows the older chronicler." We first give Hall's description (from More) of Richard's person and character: "Richard, duke of Gloster, was in wit and courage equal with the others, (his brothers Edward and George,) but in beauty and lineaments of nature far underneath both; for he was little of stature, evil-featured of limbs, crook-backed, the left shoulder much higher than the right, hard-favoured of visage, such as in estates is called a warlike visage and among common persons a crabbed face. He was malicious, wrathful, and envious, and, as it is reported, his mother the duchess had much ado in her travail, and that he came into the world the feet for ward, as men be borne outward, and, as the fame ran, not untoothed: whether that men of hatred reported above the truth, or that nature changed his course in his beginning which in his life many things unnaturally committed, this I leave to God his judgment. He was none evil captain in war, as to the which his disposition was more inclined to than to peace. Sundry victories he had, and some overthrows, but never for default of his own person, either for lack of hardiness or politic order. Free he was of his dispenses, and somewhat above his power liberal; with large gifts he got him unsteadfast friendship, for which cause he was fain to borrow, pill, and extort in other places, which got him steadfast hatred. He was close and secret, a deep dissimuler, lowly of countenance, arrogant of heart, outwardly familiar where he inwardly hated, not letting to kiss whom he thought to kill; despiteous and cruel, not alway of evil will, but often for ambition and to serve his purpose; friend and foe were all indifferent where his advantage grew; he spared no man's death whose life withstood his purpose. He slew in the Tower King Henry the Sixth, saying, Now is there no heir male of King Edward the Third but we of the house of York: which murder was done without King Edward his assent, which would have appointed that butcherly office to some other rather than to his own brother. Some wise men also wen that his drift lacked not in helping forth his own brother of Clarence to his death, which thing to all appearance he resisted, although he inwardly minded it. And the cause thereof was, as men noting his doings and proceedings did mark, because that he long in King Edward his time thought to obtain the crown in case that the king his brother, whose life he looked that evil diet would soon shorten, should happen to decease, as he did indeed, his children being young. And then, if the Duke of Clarence had lived, his pretended purpose had been far hindered; for if the Duke of Clarence had kept himself true to his nephew the young king, or would have taken upon him to be king, every one of these casts had been a trump in the Duke of Gloster's way; but when he was sure that his brother of Clarence was dead, then he knew he might work without that jeopardy. But of these points there is no certainty, and whosoever divineth or conjectureth may as well shoot too far as too short; but this conjecture afterward took place, (as few do,) as you shall perceive hereafter." The "taking off" of Clarence is not imputed, by the old historians, to Richard. At the time when Shakespeare wrote, little more than a century after these events, it was probably usual to ascribe crimes which we have not even heard of to the usurper who had perished, and from whose triumphant rival the reigning family had sprung. ACT II-SCENE I. "And Now in peace"-So the earlier editions, instead of the "more in peace" of the folio, which, though retained by the later editors, seems to me to give no appropriate sense, and to be a misprint. "BUT with all duteous love"-i. e. Except with all duteous love. And, in good time, here comes the noble duke." So the quartos; but the folio reads— And in good time Here comes Sir Richard Ratcliffe and the duke. The stage-direction which follows in the folio is consistently, "Enter Ratcliffe and Gloster;" but Gloster only appears to have entered. It is not easy to account for this discordance. "I thank my God for my humility." Milton, in his Eckonoclastes, one of his bitterest controversial writings, thus assails Charles I. : "The poets, and some English, have been in this point so mindful of decorum, as to put never more pious words in the mouth of any person than of a tyrant. I shall not instance an abstruse author, wherein the king might be less conversant, but one whom we well know was the closet companion of these his solitudes, William Shakespeare; who introduced the person of Richard the Third, speaking in as high a strain of piety and mortification as is uttered in any passage in this book, and sometimes to the same sense and purpose with some words in this place. I intended (saith he) not only to oblige my friends, but my enemies. The like saith Richard: I do not know that Englishman alive, Other stuff of this sort may be read throughout the tragedy, wherein the Poet used not much license in departing from the truth of history, which delivers him a deep dissembler, not of his affections only, but his religion." "The forfeit, sovereign, of my servant's life"-i. e. Grant me my servant's life, which has become forfeit. "Have I a tongue to doom my brother's death,” etc. recollection of the good qualities of the dead is very "This lamentation is very tender and pathetic. The natural; and no less naturally does the King endeavour to communicate the crime to others."-JOHNSON. The hint for this pathetic speech is to be found in Sir Thomas More's "History of Edward IV.," inserted in the chronicles. SCENE II. My pretty COUSINS"-The duchess is here addressing her grandchildren; but "cousin" seems to have been used instead of kinsman and kinswoman, and to have supplied the place of both. "—from my DUGS"-This word gave no offence to our ancestors; one instance will show that it was used even in the most refined poetry: And on thy dugs the queen of love doth tell "Think you, my uncle did DISSEMBLE"-In the language of our older writers, to "dissemble" signified to feign, or simulate, as well as to cloak or conceal feelings or dispositions. Milton uses dissembler in this sense, in the extract just quoted from him, in the preceding scene. "Enter Queen Elizabeth, DISTRACTEDLY”—" With her hair about her ears," is the business-like stage-direction in the folio. "—your high-swoln HATES"-So in the folio; the quartos, hearts. Monck Mason objects that the Poet, by "inadvertency," exhorts them to preserve the rancour of their hearts. It is surely the broken rancour— the breaking up of their hates-that must be preserved and cherished. "To give your CENSURES"-Here, as in many other places, "censure" is only used for opinion, or judgment. Many editors insert weighty before "business," from the quartos. "As INDEX to the story"-i. e. As introduction, or commencement. Thus, in this play, (act iv. scene 4,) we have, "The flattering index of a direful pageant;" and in OTHELLO, (act ii. scene 1,) "An index and obscure prologue to the history." This use of the word seems to have arisen out of the fact, that the index of a book was formerly placed at the beginning |