evidence that Richard had by that time become an established favourite with the public, and had probably been out for a year or two. This would take us back to the earliest date which has been assigned to it, 1593 or 1594. About the same time there appeared The True Tragedie of Richard the Third, which was entered at Stationers' Hall 19 June, 1594, and published the same year. Possibly it was revived in consequence of the attention which Shakespeare's play attracted to the subject, and in support of such a conjecture may be quoted the parallel instance of the publication of the old play of King Leir in 1605, nearly at the time when Shakespeare was engaged upon his own greater work. passage from a song which is found in a volume containing Epigrams by Sir John Davies, and Marlowe's translation of Ovid's Elegies (Marlowe, ed. Dyce, p. 366), has been quoted as an imitation of some lines in Richard's first soliloquy: 'I am not fashion'd for these amorous times, To court thy beauty with lascivious rhymes, I cannot dally, caper, dance, and sing,' &c. A But even granting the imitation, this throws no light upon the date of the play; for the volume in which the lines first occur is undated, and is only supposed to have been printed before 1596. Mr. Stokes (Chronological Order of Shakespeare's Plays, p. 30) gives the following from The Mirror for Magistrates, 1594, which have some resemblance to lines in Richard's speech : 'God Mars laid by his lance, and took his lute, And with 'Now do play the touch, To try if thou be current gold indeed,' he compares Now is the hour come To put your love unto the touch, to try If it be current, or base counterfeit,' from A Warning for Fair Women, 1589. But in all these cases of resemblance it would be unsafe to insist upon imitation where the things compared are such evident poetical commonplaces. Mr. Fleay (Shakespeare Manual, pp. 20, 21) is of opinion that the wooing of Estrild in the old play of Locrine, which appeared in 1595, is imitated from Richard III, i. 2. But if so, this only helps us to some date before 1595. As our play was printed in 1597 it is unnecessary to refer to the often-quoted passage from Meres' Palladis Tamia, 1598, in which Richard the Third is enumerated among the plays upon which Shakespeare's fame securely rested. The date 1593 or 1594 which may be conjecturally assigned to Richard the Third brings it close to two other historical plays which were written about the same time, Richard the Second and King John. The metrical tests which have been applied to solve the question of the date of composition would place Richard the Third and King John very close together, and would make Richard the Second earlier than either. On such a point I am not careful to express a very confident opinion, but nevertheless I cannot read Richard the Third without feeling that in point of literary style, command of language, flexibility of verse, and dramatic skill, it is an earlier composition than Richard the Second and King John, and separated by no long interval from the Third Part of Henry VI, to which it is the sequel and the close. The earlier English play on the same subject has been mentioned, and may be dismissed without further consideration. Besides this there was a Latin play by Dr. Thomas Legge, Richardus Tertius, which was acted at St. John's College, Cambridge, as early as 1579. A supposed imitation of this, also in Latin, by Henry Lacey, of Trinity College, proves to be only a transcript (Cooper's Athenae Cantabrigienses, ii. 41). It is to Legge's play, in all probability, that Sir John Harington, in his Apologie for Poetry (1591), and Nash, in his Have with you to Saffron Walden, (1596), refer as having been acted at Cambridge. For the incidents of the play the dramatist has been indebted to the historian. It may be said generally that the whole idea of Richard's character is taken from his life by Sir Thomas More, written partly in Latin and partly in English, and incorporated by Hall and Holinshed in their Chronicles. In fact these writers stand in the same relation to Richard the Third as North's Plutarch to Coriolanus and the other Roman plays. The play is the historical narrative dramatised, and the only scene of importance for which some hint has not been supplied in the history is the second scene of the first Act, in which Richard wooes the widow of Prince Edward. This and the various appearances of the old Queen Margaret are introduced in defiance of historic truth and probability for the simple purpose of stage effect. From this point of view they are undoubtedly successful, and after so decisive a victory in the opening of his campaign we are prepared to accept everything which follows, feeling that the events are in harmony with the principal actor in the drama, and without any nice questionings about fidelity to human nature or to the truth of history. In Richard's world, the world of the stage, there is nothing incongruous, if we once admit the possibility of his being what he describes himself to be. What this is it requires no subtie analysis to discover. He takes us into his confidence at every step, and tells us not only what he is going to do, but why he intends to do it, so that action and motive are obvious to the most unskilful observer. The Richard of the Third Part of Henry VI is also the Richard of Sir Thomas More, and it is the continuity of his character which supplies the connecting link between the present play and its predecessors. Already in his soliloquy at the end of the second scene of the third Act of 3 Henry VI we have a very explicit confession of his ambitious designs and of the obstacles in his way to the crown, to the removal of which he thenceforth devotes himself. In Holinshed there is no hint of this ; and in the pages of the chronicler, Richard, during his brother's lifetime, only appears as the gallant soldier and loyal partisan of the House of York. Even when the common rumour is reported that he stabbed Henry the Sixth in the Tower, the deed is attributed to no ambitious designs of his own, but to his desire 'that his brother king Edward might reigne in more suertie.' But it can hardly be said with justice that Holinshed is inconsistent in his treatment of Richard's character when he represents him as brave and unscrupulous. It was no part of the business of the dramatist to follow the historian too closely or to observe the unities of place and time. The play opens in 1471, and before the end of the first Act we are hurried forward six years to the death of Clarence, which is made to be nearly contemporary with the death of Edward six years later still. In this way however the interval of Edward's reign, uneventful for dramatic purposes, is bridged over, and the catastrophe of the story of the struggle of the rival houses is reached. The following extracts from Hall's Chronicle will, it is hoped, together with the quotations in the Notes, supply all the historical materials out of which the play was constructed. For convenience of reference the quotations are made from the reprint of 1809. The portrait of Richard as drawn by More is thus copied by Hall : 'Richard duke of Gloucester the third sonne (of whiche I must moste entreate) was in witte and courage egall with the other, but in beautee and liniamentes of nature far vnderneth both, for he was litle of stature, eiuill featured of limmes, croke backed, the left shulder muche higher than the righte, harde fauoured of visage, such as in estates is called a warlike visage, and emonge commen persones a crabbed face. He was malicious, wrothfull and enuious, and as it is reported, his mother the duches had muche a dooe in her trauaill, that she could not be deliuered of hym vncut, and that he came into the worlde the fete forwarde, as menne bee borne outwarde, and as the fame ranne, not vntothed: whether that menne of hatred reported aboue the truthe, or that nature chaunged his course in his beginnynge, whiche in his life many thynges vnnaturally committed, this I leue to God his iudgemente. He was none euill capitain in warre, as to ye whyche, his disposicion was more enclined too, then to peace. Sondry victories he had and some ouerthrowes, but neuer for defaute of his owne persone, either for lacke of hardinesse or politique order. Free he was of his dispences and somwhat aboue his power liberall, with large giftes he gatte hym vnstedfaste frendship: for whiche cause he was fain to borowe, pill and extort in other places, whiche gat him stedfaste hatred. He was close and secrete, a depe dissimuler, lowlye of countenaunce, arrogante of herte, outwardely familier where he inwardely hated, not lettynge to kisse whom he thought to kill, despiteous and cruell, not alwaie for eiuill will, but ofter for ambicion and too serue his purpose, frende and fooe were all indifferent, where his auauntage grewe, he spared no mannes deathe whose life withstode his purpose. He slewe in the towre kynge Henry the sixte, saiynge now is there no heire male of kynge Edwarde the thirde, but wee of the house of Yorke : whiche murder was doen without kyng Edward his assente, which woulde haue appointed that bocherly office too some other, rather then to his owne brother. Some wise menne also wene, that his drifte lacked not in helpynge furth his owne brother of Clarence to his death, which thyng in all apparaunce he resisted, although he inwardly mynded it. And the cause therof was, as men notyng his doyngs and procedynges did marke (because that he longe in kynge Edwarde his tyme thought to obtaine the crowne in case that the kynge his brother, whose life he loked that eiuil diet woulde sone shorten) shoulde happen to diseace, as he did in dede, his chyldren beynge younge. And then if the duke of Clarence had liued, his pretenced purpose had been far hyndered. For yf the duke of Clarence had kepte hymself trewe to his nephewe the younge king, or would haue taken vpon hym too bee kynge, euery one of these castes had been a troumpe in the duke of Gloucesters |