L. v. 2. 838, and K. John, ii. 1. 573. . Cf. 2 Hen. IV. p. 150. Steevens made : "most Abated captives." D. quotes the ce abates that edge that Presence whets;" of spontare: "to abate the edge or point t, to unpoint." Coll. adopts the "rebate" 11. MS. 5 etymological sense (Latin reduco). Cf. duce into our former favour," etc. DDENDA. ICHARD THE THIRD (p. 12). -Collier gives nt of this old play: nposition, deserves little remark; but as a uliar features. It is in some respects unwas evidently written several years before It opens with a singular dialogue between et. rie: what makes thou upon a stage? dde bodies to the shadowes. ve Truth leave be a Player? edia like for to present done but late, arts of drooping mindes. ch a sort of argument of the play; but beghost of George, Duke of Clarence, had ng two lines as he went, which we give prenow before us: guinis, satietur sanguine cresse, - O scitio, scitio, vendicta!" ith a scene representing the death of Edy is thenceforward most inartificially and cal disregard of dates, facts, and places, by and ill sustained. Shore's wife plays a condy does not finish with the battle of Bos panegyric upon Elizabeth, ending thus : 'For which, if ere her life be tane away, this epilogue no allusion is made to the Spanish Arr er public events of less prominence are touched upon, we he drama was written before 1588. yle in which it is composed deserves observation; it is 1 Dartly in heavy blank-verse (such as was penned before introduced his improvements, and Shakespeare had ade ced them), partly in ten-syllable rhyming couplets and sta in the long fourteen-syllable metre, which seems to have ven before prose was employed upon our stage. In every may be asserted that few more curious dramatic relics guage. It is the most ancient printed specimen of compos lic theatre of which the subject was derived from Er ell asserts that the True Tragedy of Richard the Thira / been used and read by Shakespeare;' but we cannot trac ices, but such as were probably purely accidental, and are Two persons could hardly take up the same period of ot the groundwork of a drama, without some coincidences o point, either in the conduct of the plot or in the langua s clothed, where our great dramatist does not show his mea riority. The portion of the story in which the two plays est approach to each other is just before the murder c where Richard strangely takes a page into his confidence res ttest agent for the purpose. Le Memoirs of Edward Alleyn, it is shown that Henslowe's Osequent to 1599, was either in possession of a play upo Richard III., or that some of the poets he employed wer pon such a drama. From the sketch of five scenes, there in may judge that it was a distinct performance from the True ichard the Third. By an entry in Henslowe's Diary, dated 2, we learn that Ben Jonson received 10/. in earnest of a ichard Crookback, and for certain additions he was to ma banish Tragedy. Considering the success of Shakespeare's , and the active contention, at certain periods, between the which Shakespeare belonged and that under the manageme above, remarks: "It may be added that, contrary to the old historical account, his le-field, so popular on the stage, and which ling dramatists-' A horse! a horse! my e traced to this rude old play, where it is Richard wounded with his Page. sh horse! save your life. s though I would fly? -No! first shall,' etc. on of the ghost-scene, in place of Richard's all, might have been suggested by one of ch before the battle, in the old play; and peech it contains, it is here extracted: life that hangs upon the crown, nightly dreams, cry; sits croaking for revenge; d nothing but revenge: - poison lurk therein, said? who dare attempt my death' ich as once to think my death? e be that would my body kill, a never-dying mind. els, traitors as you are, not a trace in the elder play of the character of Shakesp n that play he is a coarse ruffian only-an unintellectua author has not even had the skill to copy the dramatic Thomas More in the scene of the arrest of Hastings. or him to make Richard display the brute force of the t ed complacency, the mock passion, the bitter sarcasm f the historian were left for Shakespeare to imitate an LITICS OF THE PLAY.-Mr. Richard Simpson, in his pap itics of Shakspere's Historical Plays," read before the Society, October 9, 1874 (published in the Transactio y for 1874, pp. 396-441), has the following remarks on rama of the fall of the house of Lancaster is completed b chard III. The references in this play to the three par . are so many as to make it impossible to deny the serial unity of the whole tetralogy, whatever questions may be authorship of parts of it. The whole exhibits the fate of vir in the face of unscrupulous strength, and concludes wit is strength in the face of Providence. Henry VI. perish uses. The forces which destroy Richard III. are wholly s Three women are introduced whose curses are inevitable he Eumenides. Ghosts prophesy the event of a battle. 1 ons on themselves are literally fulfilled. Their destiny is Hepend on their words than their actions; it is removed o ds, and placed in those of some unearthly power which d judges the earth. As if the lesson of the poet was that remedy where there are ordinary human motives, but th ined with Machiavellian policy the only remedy is patienc on Providence. ard III., like King John, commits his last and unpardonab en he slays the right heir. But the poet treats the offence he calls the barons who opposed John rebels; his moral ms to approve those who placed the first Tudor on the th cases were placed on equal footing by the opposition wi isgrace or shame was it, asks Cardinal Allen, 'for all the our country to revolt from King John and to deny him aid, ned to the See Apostolic?.. or for the English nobility - for the renowned Stanley [he is defending Sir William revolt from King Richard the tyrant, and to yield himsel > crowned head, it is against the country: tors, gracious Lord, se bloody times again,... lay the dangers of a disputed succession The third scene of the second act exdecease of a prince when the succession 1. et gave what he long left as a final picture 1, as it had been developed by the civil old baronage it had lost the counterpoise . surrounded himself with new peers, renom he governed. Richard III. cut all ned of the older nobles, and declared his for himself, and using nothing but unre He issues his commands without pres a legislator are entirely put out of sight to use Raleigh's words, 'not only an abereigns of England and France, but a Turk ural and fundamental laws.' Absolutism those days, a legal state of things. Tyranaberration of the rightful absolute prince. cessation of villenage: 'Since slaves were Lise and service, there are grown up a rabner like trades, slaves in nature though not THE PLAY. This is summed up by Mr. aks. Soc. 1877-79, p. 336) as follows : Lys represented on the stage; with inter nin one month (?). Act II. sc. i, and ii. Durney to Ludlow. quent marriage of Richard with the Lady Anne. Besides Richard's 'Clarence hath not anothet rence in I. iii. 91 to Hastings' late imprisonment." |