represented as occurring all about the same time; whereas in fact they were separated by considerable intervals, the latter not taking place till 1478. And there is a similar abridgment of time between the first Act and the second; as the lafter opens with the sickness of King Edward, his seeming reconciliation of the peers, and his death, all which took place in April, 1483. Thenceforward the events are mainly disposed in the order of their actual occurrence; the drama being perhaps as true to the history as were practicable or desirable in a work so different in its nature and use.. - This drawing together of the scattered events seems eminently judicious: for the plan of the drama required them to be used only as subservient to the hero's character; and it does not appear how the Poet could have ordered them better for developing in the most forcible manner his idea of that extraordinary man. So that the selection and grouping of the secondary incidents are regulated by the paramount law of the work; and, certainly, they are made to tell with masterly effect in furtherance of the author's purpose.

Since Shakespeare's time, much has been written to explode the current history of Richard, and to lessen, if not remove, the abhorrence in which his memory had come to be held. The Poet has not been left without his share of criticism and censure for the alleged blackening of his dramatic hero. This attempt at reforming public opinion was led off by Sir George Buck, whose History of Richard the Third was published in 1646. Something more than a century later, the work was resumed and carried on with great acuteness by Horace Walpole in his Historic Doubts. And several other writers have since put their hands to the same task. Still the old judgment seems likely to stand. Lingard has carried to the subject his usual candour and research, and, after dispatching the strong points on the other side, winds up his account of Richard thus: "Writers have indeed in modern times attempted to prove his innocence; but their arguments are rather ingenious than conclusive, and dwindle into groundless conjectures when confronted with the evidence which may be arrayed against them." The killing of the two Princes formed the backbone of the guilt laid at Richard's door. That they did actually disappear is tolerably certain; that upon him fell what

ever advantage could grow from their death is equally so; and it is for those who deny the cause uniformly assigned at the time and long after for their disappearance to tell us how and by whom they were put out of the way. And Sharon Turner, who is perhaps the severest of all sifters of historic fictions, is constrained to admit Richard's murder of his nephews; and, so long as this bloodstain remains, the scouring of others, however it may diminish his crimes, will hardly lighten his criminality.

As to the moral complexion of Shakespeare's Richard, the incidents whereby his character in this respect transpires are nearly all taken from the historians, with only such heightening as it is the prerogative of poetry to lend, even when most tied to actual events. In the Poet's time, the prevailing ideas of Richard were derived from the history of his life and reign put forth by Sir Thomas More; though the matter is supposed to have been mainly furnished by Dr. John Morton, who was himself a part of the subject, and was afterwards Cardinal, Primate of England, and Lord Chancellor to Henry the Seventh. More's History, as it is called, was adopted by both Hall and Holinshed into their Chronicles. It is a very noble composition; and Shakespeare's Richard, morally speaking, is little else than the descriptive analysis there given reduced to dramatic life and expression.

I must add, that after the battle of Tewksbury, in May, 1471, Queen Margaret was in fact confined in the Tower till 1475, when she went into France, and died there in 1482. So that the part she takes in this play is a dramatic fiction. And a very judicious fiction it is too. Nor is it without a basis of truth; for, though absent in person, she was nevertheless present in spirit, and in the memory of her voice, which still seemed to be ringing in the ears of both friends and foes. And her curses do but proclaim those moral retributions of which God is the author, and Nature His minister; and perhaps the only way her former character could be carried on into these scenes, was by making her seek indemnity for her woes by ringing changes upon the woes of others.

Lords and other Attendants; two Gentlemen, a Pursuivant, Scrivener, Citizens, Murderers, Messengers, Ghosts, Soldiers, &c.

Glos. Now is the Winter of our discontent

Made glorious Summer by this sun,1 of York;

1 The cognizance of Edward IV. was a sun, in memory of the three suns

And all the clouds that lour'd upon our House
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.2
Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now
- instead of mounting barbèd 3 steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber

To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;

I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am cúrtail'd of this fair proportion,5
Cheated of feature by dissembling Nature,6
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time

Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,

T

which are said to have appeared at the battle he gained over the Lancastrians at Mortimer's Cross. See page 31, note 4.

2 Measure was the name of a dance. See vol. iv. page 173, note 5.

3 Barbed is caparisoned or clothed in the trappings of war. The word is properly barded, from equus bardatus.

4 Fearful was, as it still is, used in the two opposite senses of terrible and timorous. Here it probably has the former.

5 Proportion for form, shape, or personal aspect. Repeatedly so. "This fair proportion" may refer to what has just been spoken of as "love's majesty." But this is probably here used indefinitely, and with something of a sneer. The demonstrative pronouns were, and still are, often used thus. So in 2 Henry IV., i. 2 : "This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy." See, also, vol. vi. page 174, note 9.

6 Feature in the sense of form or figure, and referring to the person in general. So in More's description of Richard: "Little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crook-backed.". - Dissembling, here, is sometimes explained to mean, not deceiving, but putting together or assembling things not semblable, as a brave mind and a deformed body. may be so; but the word cheated seems to make rather strongly against this explanation.

uminal mind

And that so lamely and unfashionable,
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun,
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days —
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the King
In deadly hate the one against the other:
And, if King Edward be as true and just
As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,8
About a prophecy, which says that G

Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.

Explora

Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here Clarence comes.

Enter CLARENCE, guarded, and BRAKENBURY.

Brother, good day: what means this armèd guard
That waits upon your Grace?

Clar.

9

His Majesty,

Tendering my person's safety, hath appointed
This conduct 10 to convey me to the Tower.

7 Inductions are beginnings, preparations; things that draw on or induce events. Shakespeare has the word just so in two other places.

8 To mew up was a term in falconry; hawks being shut up or confined in

a mew during the season of moulting.

9 To tender a thing is to be careful of it, to have a tender regard for it, to hold it dear. See vol. vii. page 51, note 49.

10 Conduct for conductor, or escort. See vol. v. page 208, note 20.