網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

Stan. Courageous Richmond, well hast thou ac

quit thee!

Lo, here, this long usurped royalty,

From the dead temples of this bloody wretch
Have I pluck'd off, to grace thy brows withal;
Wear it, enjoy it, and make much of it.

Richm. Great God of heaven, say, amen, to all !-
But, tell me first, is young George Stanley living?
Stan. He is, my lord, and safe in Leicester town;
Whither, if it please you, we may now 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.
Richm. Inter their bodies as becomes their births.
Proclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled,
That in submission will return to us;

?

And then, as we have ta'en the sacrament,
We will unite the white rose with the red:-
Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction,
That long hath frown'd upon their enmity!—
What traitor hears me, and says not, amen
England hath long been mad, and scarr'd herself;
The brother blindly shed the brother's blood,
The father rashly slaughter'd his own son,
The son, compell'd, been butcher to the sire;
All this divided York and Lancaster,
Divided, in their dire division.-

O, now, let Richmond and Elizabeth,
The true succeeders of each royal house,
By God's fair ordinance conjoin together!
And let their heirs (God, if thy will be so),
Enrich the time to come with smooth-fac'd peace,
With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days!
Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,

4 i. e. diminish, or take away.

That would reduce these bloody days again!
And make poor England weep in streams of blood!
Let them not live to taste this land's increase,

That would with treason wound this fair land's peace!
Now civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again;
That she may long live here, God say-Amen.
[Exeunt.

5 To reduce is to bring back; an obsolete sense of the word, derived from its Latin original, reduco. The mornynge forsakyng the golden bed of Titan, reduced the desyred day.'Eurialus and Lucretia, 1560.

THIS is one of the most celebrated of our author's performances; yet I know not whether it has not happened to him as to others, to be praised most when praise is not most deserved. That this play has scenes noble in themselves, and very well contrived to strike in the exhibition, cannot be denied. But some parts are trifling, others shocking, and some improbable.-JOHNSON.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Malone says, he agrees with Dr. Johnson in thinking that this play, from its first exhibition to the present hour, has been estimated greatly beyond its merits.' He attributes (but I think erroneously) its popularity to the detestation in which Richard's character was held at the time Shakspeare wrote, and to the patronage of Queen Elizabeth, who was pleased at seeing King Henry VII. placed in the only favourable light in which he could be placed on the scene.' Steevens, in the following note, has stated the true grounds of the perpetual popularity of the play, which can only be attributed to one cause the wonderful dramatic effect produced by the character of Richard.-S. W. S.

I most cordially join with Dr. Johnson and Mr. Malone in their opinions; and yet, perhaps, they have overlooked one cause of the success of this tragedy. The part of Richard is, perhaps beyond all others, variegated, and consequently favourable to a judicious performer. It comprehends, indeed, a tract of almost every species of character on the stage: the hero, the lover, the statesman, the buffoon, the hypocrite, the hardened and repenting sinner, &c. are to be found within its compass. No wonder, therefore, that the discriminating powers of a Burbage, a Garrick, and a Henderson, should at different periods have given it a popularity beyond other dramas of the same author.-STEEVENS.

[merged small][graphic]

Katharine. Sir, I most humbly pray you to deliver

This to my lord the king.

Capucius.

Most willing, madam.

ACT iv. Sc. 2.

FROM THE CHISWICK PRESS.

1826.

King Henry the Eighth.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

Ir is the opinion of Johnson, Steevens, and Malone, that this play was written a short time before the death of Queen Elizabeth, which happened on the 24th of March, 1602–3. The elogium on King James, which is blended with the panegyric of Elizabeth in the last scene, was evidently a subsequent insertion, after the succession of the Scottish monarch to the throne: for Shakspeare was too well acquainted with courts to compliment, in the lifetime of Queen Elizabeth, her presumptive successor; of whom, history informs us, she was not a little jealous. That the prediction concerning King James was added after the death of the queen, is still more clearly evinced, as Dr. Johnson has remarked, by the awkward manner in which it is connected with the foregoing and subsequent lines.

After having lain by some years, unacted, probably on account of the costliness of its exhibition, it was revived in 1613, under the title of All is True,' with new decorations, and a new Prologue and Epilogue: and this revival took place on the very day, being St. Peter's, on the which the Globe Theatre was burnt down. The fire was occasioned, as it is said, by the discharge of some small pieces of ordnance called chambers in the

« 上一頁繼續 »