nents; but that seems very unlikely. Johnson notes upon the question thus: "Surely the shouts that ushered in King Edward should be 'A York! A York!' I suppose the author did not write the marginal directions, and the players confounded the characters." Dyce adds, "There can be no doubt that in our early dramas the greater part of the stage-directions was inserted by the actors."

P. 98. And, lords, towards Coventry bend we our course,
Where peremptory Warwick now remains.
Glos. Away betimes, before his forces join,

And take the great-grown traitor unawares:
Brave warriors, march amain towards Coventry :
The Sun shines hot; and, if we use delay,

Cold-biting Winter mars out hoped-for hay. — In the old text, this closing couplet is printed as the end of the preceding speech. The lines come fitly from the mouth of Richard, but not, I think, from that of Edward. Lettsom proposed the transfer.

ACT V., SCENE 1.

P. 102. "[Taking the red rose out of his hat.". -The folio has no stage-direction here, though one is imperatively required by the conThe quarto has the words, "Clarence takes his red Rose out of his hat, and throwes it at Warwike."

text.

P. 105.

ACT V., SCENE 2.

And more he spoke,

Which sounded like a clamour in a vault,
That might not be distinguish'd; but at last

I well might hear, deliver'd with a groan, &c. — In the second of these lines, clamour is from the quarto; the folio having Cannon. In the third, the folio has mought, which is an old form of might; but in the next line it has might; and it does not well appear why the form should be thus varied.

ACT V., SCENE 4.

P. 107. Why, is not Oxford here another anchor?
And Somerset another goodly mast?

These friends of France our shrouds and tacklings? - So Walker. The old text has "The friends of France."

P. 109. Ye see, I drink the water of mine eyes. So the quarto. The folio has "water of my eye.".

ACT V., SCENE 5.

P. 110. Lo, here a period of tumultuous broils. So the quarto. The folio has Now instead of Lo.

P. III. Take that, thou likeness of this railer here.· of 1619. The other old copies have the instead of thou.

So the quarto

P. 112. The Tower, the Tower!-The folio omits The; accidentally, no doubt. Supplied by Capell.

P. 113. What, wilt thou not? Where is that devil-butcher,

Hard-favour'd Richard? — Richard, where art thou,

Thou art not here? The folio has "Where is that divels butcher Richard? Hard favor'd Richard?" Here the first Richard is no doubt an accidental repetition. The correction devil-butcher is Theobald's. The corresponding passage of the quarto is,

Whears the Divel's butcher, hardfavored Richard,

Richard where art thou?

ACT v., SCENE 6.

P. 114. And yet, for all his wings, the fowl was drown'd. So the quarto. The folio has "the Foole was drown'd."

P. 115. And thus I prophesy, that many a thousand, Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear,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. folio. The first lacks fate at the end of the third line; also And at the beginning of the fourth. The old text also has the two following lines between the second and the third:

So the second

And many an old mans sighe, and many a Widdowes,
And many an Orphans water-standing-eye.

Here I have not the slightest doubt that two alternative readings, or rather the first writing and the correction intended as a substitute for

it, both got jumbled in together. Of the four lines in question, Lettsom remarks, "I can make nothing out of them but that they are corrupt." For a like instance of confusion, see note on "And for we think the eagle-wingèd pride," &c., in King Richard II., i. 3.

P. 115. And chattering pies in dismal discord sung. quarto. The folio has Discords for discord.

- So the

P. 115. And yet brought forth less than a mother's hope, An indigested and deformed lump.· - Here the quarto has "To wit: an undigest created lumpe "; the folio, "To wit, an indigested and deformed lumpe." Dyce notes upon the passage thus: "I have no doubt that the words To wit were retained in the folio contrary to Shakespeare's intention; he having expanded the original line into a complete verse."

ACT v., SCENE 7.

P. 117. For hardy and redoubted champions. So Collier's second folio, as Capell also conjectured. The old text has "and undoubted Champions."

P. 118. Q. Eliz. Thanks, noble Clarence. folio has the prefix "Cla."

So the quarto. The

P. 119. With stately triumphs, mirthful comic shows,

Such as befit the pleasure of the Court.- The folio has "befits

the pleasure"; the quartos, " befits the pleasures." The correction is Pope's.

KING RICHARD THE THIRD.

REGISTERED at the Stationers' in October, 1597, as “The

66

Tragedy of King Richard the Third, with the Death of the Duke of Clarence," and published in quarto the same year, but without the author's name. In 1598 it was issued again, with 'By William Shakespeare ” added in the title-page. There was a third issue in 1602, which, though merely a reprint of the former, claimed to be "newly augmented." The same text was printed again in 1605, and also in 1613, besides three other editions in quarto, severally dated 1624, 1629, and 1634; in all, eight quarto editions. The play was also printed in the folio of 1623, with a few brief omissions, with considerable additions, amounting to some hundred and eighty lines, and with many slight variations of text. A report of these additions may have prompted the insertion of "newly augmented" in the quarto of 1602, the publisher wishing to have it thought that his copy. included them.

The great popularity of the play is shown by these frequent issues, wherein it surpassed any other of the Poet's dramas; and the three later quartos prove that even after the issue of the folio there was still a large demand for it in a separate form. It was also honoured beyond any of its fellows by contemporary notice. It is mentioned by Meres in his Wit's Commonwealth, 1598; Fuller, also, in his Church History, and Milton, in one of his political eruptions, refer to it as well known; and Bishop Corbet, writing in 1617, gives a quaint description of his host at Bosworth, which is highly curious, as witnessing both what an impression the play had made on the popular mind, and also how thoroughly the hero had become identified with Richard Burbage, the original performer of that part:

Why, he could tell

The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell.
Besides what of his knowledge he could say,

He had authentic notice from the play;

Which I might guess by's mustering up the ghosts,
And policies not incident to hosts;

But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing
Where he mistook a player for a king:

For, when he would have said, King Richard died,
And call'd "A horse, a horse!" he Burbage cried.

As to the time of the writing, we have no clear external evidence beyond the forecited entry at the Stationers'. The internal evidence makes strongly for as early a date as 1592 or 1593. The general style, though showing a decided advance on that of the Second and Third Parts of King Henry the Sixth, is strictly continuous with it; while the history and characterization of the three so knit in together as to make them all of one piece and texture. In several passages of the play, especially in Clarence's account of his dream, and Tyrrell's description of the murder of the young Princes, Shakespeare is out in his plenitude of poetical wealth; and the character of Richard is a marvel of sustained vigour and versatile aptness: nevertheless the play, as a whole, evinces somewhat less maturity of power than King Richard the Second: in several cases there is great insubordination of details to the general plan; as in the hero's wooing of Lady Anne and Queen Elizabeth, where we have an excess of dialogical epigram, showing indeed a prodigious fertility of thought, but betraying withal a sort of mental incontinence; and where we quite miss that watchful judgment which, in the Poet's later dramas, tempers all the parts and elements into artistic symmetry and proportion. Therewithal the play has great and manifest inequalities of workmanship, insomuch as well-nigh to force the conclusion that the Poet must have revised it after a considerable interval, and given it many touches of his riper and more practised hand.

Historically considered, the play covers a period of fourteen years, namely, from the death of Henry, in 1471, to the fall of Richard, in 1485. More than half of this period, however, is dispatched in the first Act; the funeral of Henry, the marriage of Richard with Lady Anne, and the death of Clarence being