his Apologie for Poetrie, 1591, and sometimes mistaken for Shakspeare's, was a Latin one, written by Dr. Legge and acted at St. John's in our university, some years before 1588, the date of the copy in the Museum. This appears from a better MS. in our library at Emmanuel, with the names of the original performers. A childish imitation of Dr. Legge's play was written by one Lacy, 1583; which had not been worth mentioning, were they not confounded by Mr. Capell. FARMER. The Latin play of King Richard III. (MSS. Harl. n. 6926,) has the author's name,-Hency Lacey, and is dated-1586. TYRWHITT. Heywood, in his Actor's Vindication, mentions the play of King Richard III. " acted in St. John's Cambridge, so essentially, that had the tyrant Phalaris beheld his bloody proceedings, it had mollified his heart, and made him relent at sight of his inhuman massacres." And in the books of the Stationers' Company, 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." This could not have been the work of Shakspeare, unless he afterwards dismissed the death of Jane Shore, as an unnecessary incident, when he revised the play. Perhaps, however, it might be some translation of Lacey's play, at the end of the first Act of which is, "The showe of the procession. 1. Tipstaffe. 2. Shore's wife in her petticote, having a taper burning in her hande. 3. The Verger. 4. Queristers. 5. Singing-men. 6. Prebendary. 7. Bishoppe of London. 8. Citizens. There is likewise a Latin song sung on this occasion, in MS. Hars. 2412. STEEVENS. At the end of an ancient and very rare poetical miscellany, without either the printer's name or date (in my collection), entitled Licia, or Poems of Love, &c. is subjoined a poem with this title" The Rising to the Crowne of Richard the Thirde, written by himselfe;" but whether it preceded or followed our author's historical drama, I have not been able to ascertain. I conceive, however, that this poem, which consists of 300 verses in six-line stanzas, preceded Shakspeare's Richard III. He, however, took nothing from it. But the true origin of this play was doubtless that piece which was entered in the Stationers' Register by Thomas Creede, on June 19, 1594, which I suspect was then printed, and may perhaps be hereafter discovered. In this, as in several other instances, the bookseller, I believe, was induced to publish the old play in consequence of the success of the new one, and before it had yet got into print. This piece was probably written by either Marlowe or Greene, and doubtless had been exhibited some years before. Creede, in the same year, 1,594, published "The First Part of the Contention between the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, &c. probably from its connexion with the story of Richard. This very rare edition, which was long unknown to the collectors of old plays, fell into my possession a few years ago. Richard III. was written, I imagine, in 1593. See the Essay on the Chronological Order of Shakspeare's Plays, vol. ii. The Legend of King Richard III. by Francis Seagars, was printed in the first edition of The Mirrour for Magistrates, 1559, and in that of 1575, and 1587; but Shakspeare does not appear to be indebted to it. In a subsequent edition of that book printed in 1610, the old legend was omitted, and a new one inserted, by Richard Niccols, who has very freely copied the play before us. In 1597, when this tragedy was published, Niccols, as Mr. Warton has observed, was but thirteen years old. Hist. of Poetry, vol. iii. p. 267. The real length of time in this piece is fourteen years; (not eight years, as Mr. Theobald supposed ;) for 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 previously in the first scene, did not in fact take place till 1477-8. MALONE. I have been favoured by Mr. Rhodes, of Lyons Inn, with the perusal of an ancient interlude which unfortunately has lost the title page and a few lines at the beginning, but which I have not a doubt is the very piece referred to in the Stationers' Registers. As it is probably unique, and appears evidently to have been read and used by Shakspeare, that gentleman has very liberally permitted me to reprint it, and it will be found at the end of this play. BOSWELL. KING EDWARD the Fourth. EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, afterwards K. EDWARD V. Sons to the King. RICHARD, DUKE OF YORK, RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOSTER, af } Brothers to the King. terwards KING RICHARD III. A young Son of CLARENCE. HENRY, EARL OF RICHMOND, afterwards KING HENRY VII. CARDINAL BOUCHIER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTER BURY. THOMAS ROTHERAM, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK. DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. DUKE OF NORFOLK: EARL OF SURREY, his Son. EARL RIVERS, brother to KING EDWARD'S Queen : MARQUIS OF DORSET, and LORD GREY, her Sons. EARL OF OXFORD. LORD HASTINGS. LORD STANLEY. LORD Lovel. SIR THOMAS VAUGHAN. SIR RICHARD RATCLIFF. LADY ANNE, Widow of EDWARD PRINCE OF WALES, Son to KING HENRY VI.; afterwards married to the DUKE OF GLOSTER. A young Daughter of CLARENCE. Lords, and other Attendants; two Gentlemen, a Pursuivant, Scrivener, Citizens, Murderers, Messengers, Ghosts, Soldiers, &c. SCENE, England. LIFE AND DEATH OF KING RICHARD III. ACT I. SCENE I. London. A Street. Enter GLOster. GLO. Now is the winter of our discontent' Made glorious summer by this sun of York 2; And all the clouds, that lowr'd upon our house, I the WINTER of our discontent-] Thus, in Sidney's Astrophel and Stella: "Gone in the winter of my miserie." STEEVEns. 2- this sun of York ;] Alluding to the cognizance of Edward IV. which was a sun, in memory of the three suns, which are said to have appeared at the battle which he gained over the Lancastrians at Mortimer's Cross : So, in Drayton's Miseries of Queen Margaret: "Three suns were seen that instant to appear, "Which soon again shut themselves up in one; Ready to buckle as the armies were, "Which this brave duke took to himself alone," &c. Again, in the 22d Song of the Polyolbion : "And thankful to high heaven, which of his cause had care, "Three suns for his device still in his ensign bare." Such phænomena, if we may believe tradition, were formerly not uncommon. In the Wrighte's play in the Chester Collection, MS. Harl. 1013, the same circumstance is introduced as attending on a more solemn event : "That day was seene veramente "And torned into one." STEEVENS. See vol. xviii. p. 403, n. 6. Malone. In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths; 3 Now are our brows bound with VICTORIOUS WREATHS: OUR BRUISED ARMS, &c.] So, in The Rape of Lucrece : "Made glorious by his manly chivalry, "With bruised arms and wreaths of victory." MALONE. 4 Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings, Our dreadful marches to delightful MEASURES. Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front; And now,-instead of mounting BARBED STEEDS, &c.] So, in The Tragical Life and Death of King Richard the Third, which is one of the metrical monologues in a collection entitled, The Mirrour of Magistrates. The first edition of it appeared in 1559, but the lines quoted on the present as well as future occasions throughout this play, are not found in any copy before that of 1610, so that the author was more probably indebted to Shakspeare, than Shakspeare to him: 66 the battles fought in field before "Were turn'd to meetings of sweet amitie ; "The war-god's thund'ring cannons' dreadful rore, STEEVENS. Shakspeare seems to have had the following passage from Lyly's Alexander and Campaspe, 1584, before him, when he wrote these lines" Is the warlike sound of drum and trump turn'd to the soft noise of lyre and lute? The neighing of barbed steeds, whose loudness filled the air with terror, and whose breaths dimned the sun with smoak, converted to delicate tunes and amorous glances?" &c. REED. 66 - delightful measures." A measure was, strictly speaking, a court dance of a stately turn, though the word is sometimes employed to express dances in general. So, in Romeo and Juliet, vol. vi. p. 43: |