zle in Shakspere-editing."

Non nostrum tantas componere lites. All that to take one of the texts as a basis-we are Collier, Knight, Verplanck, Hudson, and Wh the folio* and to use the other, according to ment, in correcting and amending it. All var importance will be recorded in the Notes.

The date of the play was fixed by Malone Dowden considers that it "can hardly be late inclined to put it in the same year, "or early i nivall and Stokes favour 1594; Fleay (Manua. ably 1595;" while Dyce (2d ed.) thinks it was long before 1597, the date of the earliest qua allusion to "Richard" in the 22d of John grammes, addressed "Ad Gulielmum Shake Richard III., as the critics generally agree, th play cannot well be later than 1595, as the E cording to Drake and Ingleby, were written in not printed until 1599.

The internal evidence is in favour of as ea 1594. Stokes remarks: "There are many sig atively early work: for instance, the prologu

* Malone preferred the quarto, as do the Cambridge e and (in his 2d ed.) Dyce. For a very full discussion o the two texts, see the papers by Spedding and Peckersg actions of the New Shakspere Society, 1875-76, pp. 1-124

† Collier also (2d ed.), referring to Malone's date of I to place it nearer the time of its original publication in Stokes quotes him as agreeing with Malone.

racters; and the analysis of motive someOechelhäuser (Essay über Richard III.) play marks "the significant boundaryates the works of Shakespeare's youth works of the period of his fuller splen

HE SOURCES OF THE PLOT.

nd his materials in Holinshed and Hall, n of English history were chiefly indebted ore. Dowden (Primer, p. 79) remarks: punt gives two views of Richard's charportion of history previous to the death of Lich Richard is painted in colours not so ally black; and the second, in which he s in Shakspere's play. This second and Eon of Richard was derived by Holinshed More's History of Edward IV. and Richhimself probably derived it from Cardiellor of Henry VIII. and the enemy of

on some of the events of Richard's reign, ge, was acted at Cambridge before 1583; y, probably written before Shakespeare's, 594, with the following title-page: "The Richard the third: Wherein is showne the

om Furnivall, p. 33 below. In Guesses at Truth, ; that the fact that Richard boldly acknowledges ess, instead of endeavouring to palliate or excuse 5, shows that Shakespeare wrote this drama in his

to be sold by William Barley, at his shop in New neare Christ Church doore. 1594."* Shakesp made no use of the former of these plays, and of the latter.

With regard to "the degree of dramatic in ascribed to the poet in this brilliant delineatio splendid theatrical villain of any stage," Verpla "More had given the dramatist nearly all his i many of those minor details of Richard's person character which give life and individuality to He, and the subsequent chroniclers who built u had shown Richard as a bold, able, ambitiou they had described him as malicious, deceitful cruel. The poet has made the usurper a nobl spirit than the historians had done, while he de dark shadow of guilt they had gathered around his acts. The mere animal courage of the s raised into a kindling and animated spirit of da brought out his wit, his resource, his talent, ambition, far more vividly than prior history them. His deeds of blood are made to appear, Tudor chronicles, as prompted by gratuitous f vious malignity, but as the means employed by tion for its own ends, careless of the misery wh or the moral obligations on which it tramples. of Shakespeare has no communion with his k

* This play was reprinted by the Shakespeare Socie the only perfect copy (now in the collection of the Duke that has come down to us. Dr. Legge's Latin tragedy is

cruel, artful, cold-blooded tyrant of the that mingles a sort of admiring interest e of him, and invests the deformity of his e majesty is the poet's own conception; ese effects not by the invention of new pervading spirit with which he has aniand sentiments, and the vivid colouring over the old historical representation."

CAL COMMENTS ON THE PLAY.

=hlegel's “Dramatic Literature."*]

rd the Third has become highly celebrated having been filled by excellent performCurally had an influence on the admiration For many readers of Shakspeare stand in preters of the poet to understand him miration is certainly in every respect well annot help thinking there is an injustice hree parts of Henry the Sixth as of little h Richard the Third. These four plays composed in succession, as is proved by pirit in the handling of the subject. The nounced in the one which precedes it, and ences to it; the same views run through d, the whole make together only one sine deep characterization of Richard is by sive property of the piece which bears his ter is very distinctly drawn in the two 'ic Art and Literature, by A. W. Schlegel; Black's Morrison (London, 1846), p. 435 fol.

which it is charged when it hangs over the hea Two of Richard's most significant soliloquies, us to draw the most important conclusions v his mental temperament, are to be found in th Henry the Sixth. As to the value and the jus tions to which passion impels us, we may be bl edness cannot mistake its own nature. Rich: Iago, is a villain with full consciousness. Tha say this in so many words is not perhaps in h but the poet has the right in soliloquies to lend most hidden thoughts, otherwise the form of t would, generally speaking, be censurable. formity is the expression of his internal malice in part, the effect of it; for where is the ugline not be softened by benevolence and opennes ever, considers it as an iniquitous neglect of justifies him in taking his revenge on that h from which it is the means of excluding him. sublime lines :

"And this word love, which greybeards call
Be resident in men like one another,
And not in me; I am myself alone."

Wickedness is nothing but selfishness designed tious; however, it can never do altogether wit at least of morality, as this is the law of all thin it must seek to found its depraved way of ac thing like principles. Although Richard is t quainted with the blackness of his mind and h sion, he yet endeavours to justify this to himself The happiness of being beloved is denied to h