Enter OXFORD and SOMERSET, *Som. Ah, Warwick, Warwick! wert thou as

we are,

We might recover all our loss again!

The queen from France hath brought a puissant power:

Even now we heard the news: Ah, could'st thou fly!

War. Why, then I would not fly.-Ah, Montague,

If thou be there, sweet brother, take my hand, *And with thy lips keep in my soul a while! *Thou lov'st me not; for, brother, if thou didst, Thy tears would wash this cold congealed blood, That glues my lips, and will not let me speak. Come quickly, Montague, or I am dead.

Som. Ah, Warwick, Montague hath breath'd
his last;

And, to the latest gasp, cried out for Warwick,
And said-Commend me to my valiant brother.
And more he would have said; and more he

spoke,

The friends of France our shrouds and tacklings?
And, though unskilful, why not Ned and I
For once allow'd the skilful pilot's charge?
But keep our course, though the rough wind say
'We will not from the helm, to sit and weep;

-no,

*From shelves and rocks that threaten us with wreck.

Which sounded like a cannon in a vault,'
That might not be distinguish'd; but, at last,
I well might hear deliver'd with a groan,—
O, farewell, Warwick!
War.
Sweet rest to his soul!-
Fly, lords, and save yourselves: for Warwick bids
You all farewell, to meet again in heaven, [Dies.
Oxf. Away, away, to meet the queen's great
power! [Exeunt, bearing off WAR. Body.
SCENE III. Another Part of the Field. Flourish.
Enter KING EDWARD in triumph; with CLAR-*
ENCE, GLOSTER, and the rest.

K. Edw. Thus far our fortune keeps an upward
course,

And we are grac'd with wreaths of victory.
But, in the midst of this bright-shining day,
I spy a black, suspicious, threat'ning cloud,
That will encounter with our glorious sun,
Ere he attain his easeful western bed:

I mean, my lords,-those powers, that the queen
Hath rais'd in Gallia, have arriv'd' our coast,
• And, as we hear, march on to fight with us.
Clar. A little gale will soon disperse that cloud,
* And blow it to the source from whence it came:
Thy very beams will dry those vapours up;
*For every cloud engenders not a storm.

*Glo. The queen is valu'd thirty thousand strong,
And Somerset, with Oxford, fled to her;
If she have time to breathe, be well assur'd,
Her faction will be full as strong as ours.

K. Edw. We are advertis'd by our loving friends,
That they do hold their course towards Tewksbury;
We having now the best at Barnet field,

Will thither straight, for willingness rids way;
And, as we march, our strength will be augmented
In every county as we go along.

Strike up the drum; cry-Courage! and away.
[Exeunt.
SCENE IV. Plains near Tewksbury. March.
Enter QUEEN MARGARET, PRINCE EDWARD,
SOMERSET, OXFORD, and Soldiers.

* Q. Mar. Great lords, wise men ne'er sit and
wail their loss,'

* But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.

order to dissuade a person from covetousness, drew out with his lance the length and breadth of a man's grave, adding, This is all thou shalt have when thou art dead, if thou canst happily get so much.'

*

*As good to chide the waves, as speak them fair.
*And what is Edward, but a ruthless sea?
What Clarence, but a quicksand of deceit ?
*And Richard, but a ragged fatal rock?
*All these the enemies to our poor bark.
Say, you can swim; alas, 'tis but a while:
Tread on the sand; why, there you quickly sink :
Bestride the rock; the tide will wash you off,
Or else you famish, that's a threefold death.
*This speak I, lords, to let you understand,
In case some one of you would fly from us,
*That there's no hop'd-for merey with the brothers,
*More than with ruthless waves, with sands, and

rocks.

*Why, courage, then! what cannot be avoided, *"Twere childish weakness to lament, or fear.

* Prince. Methinks, a woman of this valiant spirit, * Should, if a coward heard her speak these words, *Infuse his breast with magnanimity,

* And make him, naked, foil a man at arms.
I speak not this, as doubting any here:
For, did but suspect fearful man,
'He should have leave to go away betimes;
Lest, in our need, he might infect another,
And make him of like spirit to himself.
If any such be here, as God forbid!
Let him depart, before we need his help.

Oxf. Women and children of so high a courage!
And warriors faint! why, 'twere perpetual shame.-
O, brave young prince! thy famous grandfather
Doth live again in thee; Long may'st thou live,
To bear his image, and renew his glories!

Som. And he, that will not fight for such a hope,
Go home to bed, and like the owl by day,
If he arise, be mock'd and wonder'd at.”
*Q. Mar. Thanks, gentle Somerset :-sweet
Oxford, thanks.

*Prince. And take his thanks, that yet hath
nothing else,

(says Steevens,) while they adjust a coffin in a family vault, will abundantly illustrate the preceding simile. Such a peculiar hubbub of inarticulate sounds might have attracted our author's notice; it has too often forced itself on mine.'

2 Arriv'd is here used in an active form.

8 This speech in the original play is expressed in ele. Johnson observes that Warwick's mention of his ven lines. Malone thinks its extraordinary expansion parks and manors diminishes the pathetic of these lines. into thirty-seven lines a decisive proof that the old play It is true that it is something in the strain of the whin-was the production of some writer who preceded Shak ing ghosts of the Mirror for Magistrates; but it was the speare. popular style of the time: Cavendish, in his Metrical 4 Thus Jaques moratizing upon the weeping stag in Legends, introduces Wolsey's shade lamenting to leave As You Like It, Acti. Se. 2 his palaces and gardens.

Thou mak'st a testament
As worldlings do, giving the sum of more
To that which has too much.

I cannot but think that cannon is an error of the press A similar thought is found in Shakpeare's Lover's Com in the first folio. 'The indistinc gabble of undertakers plaint

Enter a Messenger.

'Mess. Prepare you, lords, for Edward is at band,

Ready to fight; therefore be resolute.

Orf. I thought no less it is his policy,
To haste thus fast, to find us unprovided.
Som. But he's deceiv'd, we are in readiness.

Q. Mar. This cheers my heart, to see your for-
wardness.

Oxf. Here pitch our battle, hence we will not
budge.

March. Enter, at a distance, KING EDWARD,
CLARENCE, GLOSTER, and Forces.

K. Edw. Brave followers,' yonder stands the
thorny wood,

Which, by the heavens' assistance, and your strength,

Must by the roots be hewn up yet ere night. * I need not add more fuel to your fire,

* For, well I wot, ye blaze to burn them out: * Give signal to the fight, and to it, lords.

Q. Mar. Lords, knights, and gentlemen, what I
should say,

My tears gainsay; for every word I speak,
Ye see, I drink the water of mine eyes.
Therefore, no more but this :-Henry, your sove-

[Exeunt both Armies. SCENE V. Another part of the same. Alarums: Excursions: and afterwards a Retreat. enter KING EDWARD, CLARENCE, GLOSTER, and Forces; with QUEEN MARGARET, OXFORD, and SOMERSET, Prisoners.

'K. Edw. Now, here a period of tumultuous
broils.

Away with Oxford to Hammes castle straight:
For Somerset,' off with his guilty head.

Go, bear them hence; I will not hear them speak.
Oxf. For my part, I'll not trouble thee with

words.

'Canst thou not speak?-O traitors! murderers !-
Did not offend, nor were not worthy blame,
They, that stabb'd Cæsar, shed no blood at all,

Som. Nor I, but stoop with patience to my fortune. [Exeunt OxF. and Som. guarded. * Q. Mar. So part we sadly in this troublous✶ world,

To meet with joy in sweet Jerusalem.

If this foul deed were by, to equal it.
And men ne'er spend their fury on a child.
He was a man; this, in respect, a child;

What's worse than murderer, that I may name it?
No, no; my heart will burst, an if I speak ;-
*And I will speak, that so my heart may burst.-
*Butchers and villains, bloody cannibals!

*K. Edw. Is proclamation made,-that who* How sweet a plant have you untimely cropp'd!

finds Edward,

Enter Soldiers, with PRINCE EDWARD.

*K. Edw. Bring forth the gallant, let us hear
him speak:

* What! can so young a thorn begin to prick?
Edward, what satisfaction canst thou make,
For bearing arms, for stirring up my subjects,
*And all the trouble thou hast turn'd me to ?6
Prince. Speak like a subject, proud ambitious
York!

Suppose, that I am now my father's mouth;
Resign thy chair, and, where I stand, kneel thou,
Whilst I propose the self-same words to thee,
Which, traitor, thou wouldst have me answer to.

This scene is ill contrived, in which the king and queen appear at once on the stage at the head of oppo. sing armies. It had been easy to make one retire before the other entered.-Johnson.

2 Know.

3 Unsay, deny.

You have no children, butchers! if you had,"
But if you ever chance to have a child
The thought of them would have stirred up remorse.

Look in his youth to have him so cut off,
As, deathsmen! you have rid12 this sweet young
prince!

K. Edw. Away with her; go, bear her hence
perforce.

Q. Mar. Nay, never bear me hence, despatch me

here;

Here sheath thy sword, I'll pardon thee my death:
What! wilt thou not?-then, Clarence, do it thou.
Clar. By heaven, I will not do thee so much ease.
Q. Mar. Good Clarence, do; sweet Clarence, do

thou do it.

Clar. Didst thou not hear me swear, I would not do it?

ness; and the poet following nature makes Richard highly incensed at the reproach.

8 See King Henry VI. Part II. Act iv. Sc. 1.

9 That is, thou who art the likeness,' &c, The old copies describe Edward as striking the first blow, and Gloster the next; and this is according to history, which

4 A castle in Picardy, where Oxford was confined for informs us that Edward smote the prince with his many years.

5 See note 4, on p. 83.

6 We have nearly the same words in the Tempest :O, my heart bleeds,

To think of the teen that I have turn'd you to. 7 The prince calls Richard Esop for his crooked

Q. Mar. Ay, but thou usest to forswear thyself; 'Twas sin before,' but now 'tis charity. "What! wilt thou not? where is that devil's butcher, Hard-favour'd Richard? Richard, where art thou? Thou art not here: Murder is thy alms-deed; Petitioners for blood thou ne'er put'st back.

K. Edw. Away, I say; I charge ye, bear her

hence.

Q. Mar. So come to you, and yours, as to this prince! [Exit, led out forcibly. K. Edw. Where's Richard gone? Clar. To London, all in post; and, as I guess, To make a bloody supper in the Tower.

K. Edw. He's sudden, if a thing comes in his
head.

Now march we hence: discharge the common sort
With pay and thanks, and let's away to London,
And see our gentle queen how weil she fares;
By this, I hope, she hath a son for me. [Exeunt.
SCENE VI. London. A Room in the Tower.
KING HENRY is discovered sitting with a Book
in his Hand, the Lieutenant attending. Enter
GLOSTER.

Glo. Good day, my lord: What, at your book

so hard?

K. Hen. Ay, my good lord: My lord, I should
say rather;

'Tis sin to flatter, good was little better:
Good Gloster, and good devil, were alike,
* And both preposterous; therefore, not good lord.
*Glo. Sirrah, leave us to ourselves: we must
[Exit Lieutenant.
*K. Hen. So flies the reckless shepherd from

confer.

the wolf:

*So first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece, *And next his throat unto the butcher's knife.What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?

Glo. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; The thief doth fear each bush an officer.

K. Hen. The bird, that hath been limed in a
bush,

With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush:
And I, the hapless male to one sweet bird
Have now the fatal object in my eye,
Where my poor young was lim'd, was caught, and

kill'd.

Glo. Why, what a peevish fool was that of
Crete,

That taught his son the office of a fowl?
And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown'd.
K. Hen. I, Dædalus; my poor boy, Icarus;
Thy father, Minos, that denied our course;
The sun, that sear'd the wings of my sweet boy,
Thy brother Edward; and thyself, the sea,
Whose envious gulf did swallow up
Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words!
My breast can better brook thy dagger's point,
Than can my ears that tragic history.

his life.

* But wherefore dost thou come? is't for my life?
'Glo. Think'st thou, I am an executioner?
K. Hen. A persecutor, I am sure, thou art;
If murdering innocents be executing,
Why, then thou art an executioner.
Glo. Thy son I kill'd for his presumption,
K. Hen. Had'st thou been kill'd, when first thou

didst presume,
Thou hadst not liv'd to kill a son of mine.
And thus I prophecy,-that many a thousand,
Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear;
And many an old man's sigh, and many a widow's,
And many an orphan's water-standing eye,-

1 She alludes to the desertion of Clarence.

2 To misdoubt is to suspect danger, to fear.

3 The word male is here used in an uncommon sense, for the male parent: the sweet bird is evidently his son Prince Edward.

4 Peevish, in the language of our ancestors, was used to signify mad or foolish. See note on Comedy of Errors, Act iv. Sc. 1.

5 Who suspect no part of what my fears presage. 6 To rook or ruck, is to cower down like a bird at roost or on its nest. The word is of very ancient use in our language.

Men for their sons, wives for their husbands' fate,
And orphans for their parents' timeless death,-
Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.
The owl shriek'd at thy birth, an evil sign;

The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;
Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempests shook down
trees;
The raven rook'd her on the chimney's top,
And chattering pies in dismal discords sung.
Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain,
And yet brought forth less than a mother's hope;
To wit,-an indigest deformed 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 which I have heard,

this.

O God! forgive my sins, and pardon thee! [Dies.
Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted.
Glo. What, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster
See, how my sword weeps for the poor king's death!
O, may such purple tears be always shed

From those that wish the downfal of our house!
If any spark of life be yet remaining,
Down, down to hell; and say-I sent thee thither.
[Stabs him again.
I, that have neither pity, love, nor fear.
Indeed, 'tis true, that Henry told me of;
For I have often heard my mother say,
I came into the world with my legs forward:
Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste,

And seek their ruin that usurp'd our right?
The midwife wonder'd; and the women cried,
O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth.

That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.
And so I was; which plainly signified-
Then, since the heavens have shap'd my body so,
Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.
I have no brother, I am like no brother:
And this word-love, which greybeards call 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,

That 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:
Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest;
Counting myself but bad, till I be best.-
I'll throw thy body in another room,
And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom.
SCENE VII. The same. A Room in the Palace,
KING EDWARD is discovered sitting on his Throne;
QUEEN ELIZABETH with the infant Prince, CLA-
RENCE, GLOSTER, HASTINGS, and others, near
him.

[Exit.

K. Edw. Once more we sit in England's royal
throne,

Repurchas'd with the blood of enemies.
What valiant foemen, like to autumn's corn,
Have we mow'd down,1° in tops of all their pride?
Three dukes of Somerset, threefold renown'd
For hardy and undoubted champions:
Two Cliffords, as the father and the son,
And two Northumberlands; two braver men
Ne'er spurr'd their coursers at the trumpet's sound:
7'- rudis indigestaque moles.'

Ovid. Met. 1. 7.
S Dryden seems to have had this line in his mind
when writing his dipus:-

It was thy crooked mind hunch'd out thy back,
And wander'd in thy limbs.'

9 Select, choose out.

10 A kindred image occurs in King Henry V. :

-mowing like grass

Your fresh-fair virgins, and your flow'ring infants.'

Glo. I'll blast his harvest, if your head were laid; For yet I am not look'd or in the world. This shoulder was ordain'd so thick, to heave; And heave it shall some weight, or break my back:--not equally pleasing, nor the attitudes equally graceful, Work thou the way,-and thou shalt execute.

in all the pictures of Titian or Reynolds.

Dissimilitude of style and heterogeneousness of senbelong to the reputed author. But in these plays no such timent, may sufficiently show that a work does not really marks of spuriousness are found. The diction, the ver sification, and the figures, are Shakspeare's. These plays, considered, without regard to characters and incidents, merely as narratives in verse, are more happily bro-conceived, and more accurately finished than those of King John, King Richard II. or the tragic scenes of King speare, to whom shall they be given What author of Henry IV. and V. If we take these plays from Shakthat age had the same easiness of expression and flu. ency of numbers ?*

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF

KING RICHARD THE THIRD.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

THIS Tragedy, though called in the original edition 'The Life and Death of King Richard the Third,' | comprises only fourteen years. The second scene commences with the funeral of King Henry VI, who is said to have been murdered on the 21st of May, 1471. The imprisonment of Clarence, which is represented previ ously in the first scene, did not, in fact, take place till 1477-8.

Several dramas on the present story had been written before Shakspeare attempted it. There was a Latin play on the subject, by Dr. Legge, which had been acted at St. John's College, Oxford, some time before the year 1589. And a childish imitation of it, by one Henry Lacey, exists in MS. in the British Museum; (MSS. Harl. No. 6926;) it is dated 1586. In the books of the Stationers' Company are the following entries:- Aug. 15, 1596, A Tragical Report of King Richard the Third: a ballad.' June 19, 1594, Thomas Creede made the following entry: 'An enterlude, intitled the Tragedie of Richard the Third, wherein is shown the Deathe of Edward the Fourthe, with the Smotheringe of the Two Princes in the Tower, with the lamentable Ende of Shore's Wife, and the Contention of the Two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke. A single copy of this ancient Interlude, which Mr. Boswell thinks was written by the author of Locrine, unfortunately wanting the title-page, and a few lines at the beginning, was in the collection of Mr. Rhodes, of Lyon's Inn, who liberally allowed Mr. Boswell to print it in the last Variorum edition of Shakspeare. It appears evidently to have been read and used by Shakspeare. In this, as in other instances, the bookseller was probably induced to publish the old play, in consequence of the success of the new one in performance, and before it had yet got into print.

Say they are saints, althogh that saints they shew rot,
For thousand vowes to them subjective dutie,
They burn in love thy children Shakspeare let them,
Go wo thy muse more nymphish brood beget them.
27th Epig. 4th Weeke.
The character of Richard had been in part developed
in the last parts of King Henry VI. where, Schlegel ob-
serves, his first speeches lead us already to form the
most unfavourable prognostications respecting him: he
lowers obliquely like a thunder-cloud on the horizon,
which gradually approaches nearer and nearer, and first
pours out the elements of devastation with which it is
charged when it hangs over the heads of mortals.' 'The
other characters of the drama are of too secondary a na.
ture to excite a powerful sympathy; but in the back
ground the widowed Queen Margaret appears as the
fury of the past, who calls forth the curse on the future:
every calamity which her enemies draw down on each
other, is a cordial to her revengeful heart. Other fe-
male voices join, from time to time, in the lamentations
and imprecations. But Richard is the soul, or rather
the demon, of the whole tragedy, and fulfils the promise
which he formerly made to

set the murderous Machiavel to school.' 'Besides the uniform aversion with which he inspires us, he occupies us in the greatest variety of ways, by his profound skill in dissimulation, his wit, his prudence, his presence of mind, his quick activity, and his valour. He fights at last against Richmond like a desperado, and dies the honourable death of the hero on the field of battle.'-But Shakspeare has satisfied our moral feelings:-'He shows us Richard in his last moments already branded with the stamp of reprobation. We see Richard and Richmond on the night before battle sleepShakspeare's play was first entered at Stationers' ing in their tents; the spirits of those murdered by the Hall, Oct. 20, 1597, by Andrew Wise; and was then tyrant, ascend in succession and pour out their curses published with the following title: The Tragedy of against him, and their blessings on his adversary. King Richard the Third: Containing his treacherous These apparitions are, properly, merely the dreams of Plots against his Brother Clarence; and the pitiful Mur- the two generals made visible. It is no doubt contrary ther of his innocent Nephewes; his tyrannical Usurpato sensible probability, that their tents should only be tion: with the whole course of his detested Life, and separated by so small a space; but Shakspeare could most deserved Death. As it hath been lately acted by reckon on poetical spectators, who were ready to take the Right Honourable the Lord Chamberlaine his ser- the breadth of the stage for the distance between the two vants. Printed by Valentine Sims, for William Wise, camps, if, by such a favour, they were to be recom. 1597. It was again reprinted, in 4to, in 1598, 1602, 1612 pensed by beauties of so sublime a nature as this series or 1613, 1622, and twice in 1629. of spectres, and the soliloquy of Richard on his awak. ing.t

This play was probably written in the year 1593 or 1594. One of Shakspeare's Richards, and most probably this, is alluded to in the Epigrams of John Weever, published in 1599; but which must have been written in 1595.

AD GULIELMUM SHAKESPEARE.
Honie-tong'd Shakespeare, when I saw thine issue,
I swore Apollo got them, and none other:
Their rosie-tainted features clothed in tissue,
Some heaven-born goddesse said to be their mother.
Rose cheeckt Adonis with his amber tresses,
Faire fire-hot Venus charming him to love her,
Chaste Lucretia, virgine-like her dresses,
Proud lust-stung Tarquine, seeking still to prove her,
Romeo, Richard, more whose names I know not,
Their sugred tongues and power attractive beauty,

Steevens, in part of a note, which I have thought it best to omit, observed that the favour with which the tragedy has been received on the stage in modern times 'must in some measure be imputed to Cibber's reformation of it. The original play was certainly too long for representation, and there were parts which might, with advantage, have been omitted in representation, as 'dramatic encumbrances;' but such a clumsy piece of patchwork as the performance of Cibber, was surely any thing but judicious;' and it is only surprising, that the taste which has led to other reformations in the performance of our great dramatic poet's works, has not given to the stage a judicious abridgment of this tragedy in his own words, unencumbered with the superfluous transpositions and gratuitous additions which have been so long inflicted upon us.

6

(in so many Weekes) Studie. No longer (like the Fashion) not unlike to continue. The first seven, John Weever. Sit voluisse sit valuisse. At London: printed by V. S. for Thomas Bushele; and are to be sold at his shop, at the great north doore of Paules. 1599. 12. There is a portrait of the author, engraved by Cecill, prefixed. According to the date upon this print, Weever was then twenty-three years old; but he tells us, in some introductory stanzas, that when he wrote the Epigrams, which compose the volume, he was not twenty years old; that he was one

A complete copy of Creed's edition of this curious ley. The title is as follows:-'Epigrammes in the old Interlude, (which upon comparison proved to be a difest Cut and newest Fashion. A twise seven Houres ferent impression from that in Mr. Rhodes's collection,) was sold by auction by Mr. Evans very lately. The title was as follows: The true Tragedie of Richard the Third, wherein is showne the death of Edward the Fourth, with the smothering of the two yoong Princes in the Tower: With a lamentable end of Shore's wife, an example for all wicked women; and lastly, the con junction of the two noble Houses Lancaster and Yorke, as it was playd by the Queenes Maiesties players. London, printed by Thomas Creede; and are to be sold by William Barley at his shop in Newgate Market, neare Christ Church door, 1594; 4to.' It is a circumstance sufficiently remarkable that but a single copy of each of the two editions of this piece should be known to exist. This very curious little volume, which is supposed to be unique, is in the possession of Mr Comb, of Hen- p. 246.

That twenty twelvemonths yet did never know.' Consequently, these Epigrams must have been written

in 1595.

Schlegel's Lectures on Dramatic Literature, vol. ii.