Richard the Third 
 
 >>^2g2-^i?7 AND 
 
 The Primrose Criticism 
 
 ■ A primrose by the river's brim * 
 A yellow primrose was to him, 
 Axi-^ it vi?"' nothing more." 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 
 1887 
 

 Copyright, 
 
 By a. C. McClurg and Co., 
 
 A.D. 1887. 
 
I ASK you to listen to a few words : first, 
 a few general remarks on criticism, and 
 then an illustration of them from the play of 
 ' Richard III.,' or rather from the absence of 
 certain things in the play of * Richard III.,' 
 which, to my mind, seem to indicate that it 
 is not Shakespeare's work. 
 
 I propose to say a few words on one of 
 the plays usually attributed to him, — a play 
 in respect of which I find myself in the posi- 
 tion of poor Peter Bellj seeing little more 
 than an ordinary primrose where I perhaps 
 hoped to see a plant, a flower of light. I 
 mean the play of ' Richard III.' 
 
 James Russell Lowell, 
 Chicago, Feb. 22, 1887. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 ilart I. 
 
 FAGB 
 
 The Primrose Criticism ii 
 
 ♦ ■ 
 
 ^art II. 
 The Historical Basis of Richard III. 65 
 
 ' ' ♦ '■ 
 
 ^art III. 
 The Histrionic Richards 109 
 
PART I. 
 THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 
 
 " Your reasons are too shallow and too qmck." 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 
 
 " The pale primroses, 
 That die unmarried ere they can behold 
 Bright Phoebus in his strength," 
 
 may have contained virtues of beauty and 
 suggestion which escaped the peculiar eye 
 of Peter Bell. There may have been a lan- 
 guage in them which to other eyes revealed 
 ideas of taste, design, wisdom, creation. To 
 Peter Bell and his Primrose Criticism many 
 another object of beauty in nature, art, and 
 literature has appeared to be but common- 
 place, though it bore the impress of high 
 origin, and carried in upon other minds ex- 
 quisite sentiments and edifying speculations. 
 The historical tragedy of * Richard III.' ex- 
 cites no admiration in the common-sense 
 mind of Peter Bell. He fails to discover its 
 poetic and dramatic merits, but, more par- 
 
12 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 ticularly, seems to be oblivious to those mas- 
 terly touches of energy and grandeur which 
 declare its author to be Shakespeare. Prim- 
 rose Criticism assumes to be synonymous 
 with Common Sense, which is the only safe 
 guide in the study of any subject, whether 
 it be the Primrose or 'Richard the Third.' 
 It is to be regretted, however, that Peter Bell 
 has been so backward in coming forward with 
 his peculiar critical method ; and that, as a 
 consequence, the world has been studying the 
 " thousand-souled " Shakespeare for three hun- 
 dred years without the light of common-sense. 
 So uncommon was the sense of Pope, Dry- 
 den, rare Ben Jonson, and " starry-minded " 
 Milton, the poet-eulogists of our glorious bard, 
 that they accepted base counterfeits for the 
 genuine productions of his inspired pen ! 
 So uncommon were the sense and scholar- 
 ship of the distinguished commentators and 
 editors, — Rowe, Farmer, Theobald, Capell, 
 Hanmer, Steevens, Johnson, Malone, Chal- 
 mers, Douce, Dyce, and Knight, — that they 
 were unable, with a life-long study, to distin- 
 guish between the genuine and the spurious 
 plays of Shakespeare ! With their master- 
 ful knowledge of Ehzabethan literature, and 
 their familiar acquaintance with the English 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 13 
 
 dramatists, they do not seem to have had 
 the slightest suspicion that ' Richard III.' 
 was not written in the style of Shakespeare, 
 or that it was unworthy of him and must 
 have been the production of an inferior 
 genius. 
 
 Alas, that Peter Bell should have been so 
 tardy in making his appearance ! But Prim- 
 rose Criticism had to await the coming of 
 Peter Bell, and Peter Bell the advent of 
 Wordsworth. It is certainly only a coinci- 
 dence ; but Peter Bell's criticism of the Prim- 
 rose was almost identical with Wordsworth's 
 estimate of Shakespeare. The author of 
 ' Peter Bell ' should not blame poor Peter for 
 a dulness of vision of which he is himself 
 guilty. On the authority of Mr. Buckle, 
 Wordsworth once told Charles Lamb that 
 Shakespeare was not so great as he was pop- 
 ularly estimated to be, and thought that he 
 could, if he had a mind, write as well as 
 Shakespeare. " But then, you see," said Lamb, 
 "he had not the mind.^^ Wordsworth looked 
 upon Shakespeare through the very spectacles 
 of Peter Bell, and 
 
 The primrose by the Avail's brim 
 A yellow primrose was to him, 
 And it was nothing more. 
 
14 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 But to all eyes that wear not Peter Bell's 
 spectacles the world never grew, before nor 
 since, such another primrose. 
 
 " Beware (delighted Poets!) when you sing 
 To welcome Nature in the early Spring : 
 
 Your num'rous Feet not tread 
 The Banks of Avon ; for each Flowre 
 (As it nere knew a Sunne or Showre) 
 Hangs there, the pensive head. 
 
 " Each Tree, whose thick, and spreading growth hath 
 made 
 Rather a Night beneath the Boughs than shade, 
 
 (Unwilling now to grow.) 
 Lookes like a Plume a Captaine weares, 
 Whose rifled Falls are steept i' th teares 
 Which from his last rage flow. 
 
 " The pitious River wept it selfe away 
 Long since (Alas !) to such a swift decay ; 
 
 That reach the Map, and looke 
 If you a River there can spie ; 
 And for a River your mock'd Eye, 
 
 Will find a shallow Brooke." 
 
 Valuable as common-sense may be, possibly 
 the sense of man should not grow too com- 
 mon, if it would appreciate the most uncom- 
 mon sense that ever yet was writ. Let it 
 be admitted, however, that the unadulterated 
 Primrose Criticism fully appreciates Shake- 
 speare's genius, and even places him far above 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 15 
 
 the ignoble possibility of errors and vulgar 
 faults j yet it attempts to stab to the heart 
 the most celebrated offspring of the poet's 
 genius, and then to deny its Shakespearian 
 legitimacy. 
 
 It is to be supposed that a shoemaker is 
 the best judge of a shoe, an artist of a pic- 
 ture, and a poet of verse. But while the cob- 
 bler's judgment as to the quality of the shoe 
 must be accepted, the soundness of his judg- 
 ment as to the age and the maker of it may 
 be questioned. The poet may pass judgment 
 on the poetical merits of an '■ Iliad,' ' The Faerie 
 Queene,' or a ' Richard III.,' but his poetical 
 genius and instinct alone are not sufficient 
 foundation for a judgment that must rest on 
 historical data, on antiquarian knowledge, on 
 records, facts, and logic. Let the poet de- 
 clare on his judgment that ' Richard III.' is an 
 inferior production, — that it by merit holds no 
 high rank among dramas. Then let the critic 
 have the courage of a Voltaire or a Words- 
 worth and attack Shakespeare himself, — 
 point out his faults, expose his blunders, and 
 show wherein his genius has been overrated. 
 Here is critical heroism and enterprise. When 
 Peter Bell turned his unique optics upon the 
 primrose, and stared in upon its deUcate 
 
1 6 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 beauty, he did not have the temerity to argue 
 that as the primrose is nothing but a prim- 
 rose, therefore the Almighty needs to be re- 
 lieved of the responsibility of having created 
 it. But Peter Bell grows brave as he scruti- 
 nizes the dramatic flower known as ' Richard 
 III.' To his superb common-sense it is but 
 a rank and unsightly weed of low and vulgar 
 origin. " But, ' in the name of all the gods 
 at once,' charge me not," says Peter, "with 
 the unpardonable offence of imputing any 
 fault or slightest imperfection to Shakespeare's 
 infallible judgment and genius, because '■ Rich- 
 ard III.,' you know, must not be attributed 
 to his divine, unerring pen." Sublime crit- 
 ical courage ! Marvellous veneration for 
 Shakespeare ! 
 
 The Primrose Criticism lays down the new 
 canon that whatever a genius may do that is 
 unworthy of him shall not be attributed to 
 him, but shall be branded as a literary found- 
 ling. Happy the artist, general, statesman, 
 historian, preacher, or poet who may be thus 
 easily reHeved of responsibihty for his faults 
 and weaknesses ! But is this Common-sense 
 Criticism? It is undoubtedly Primrose-sense, 
 and Peter-Bell-sense put to criticism ; but, in 
 the name of scientific and literary integrity. 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 
 
 17 
 
 let it be hoped that it will long remain very 
 Uncommon-sense. 
 
 The arguments employed by the Primrose 
 Criticism in its attempt to rob Shakespeare of 
 * Richard III.' are not sound. One argu- 
 ment stands in this shape : Shakespeare never 
 wrote deliberate nonsense, nor knowingly in- 
 dulged in defective metre. 'Richard III.' 
 contains deliberate nonsense and premedi- 
 tated defective metre. Ergo : Shakespeare 
 ^ never wrote the historical tragedy of ' Richard 
 III.' With all due and unfeigned respect for 
 him who advanced this argument, it cannot 
 be accepted as sound and reliable. It sug- 
 gests itself to a careful student of the Prim- 
 rose method, that it would take very uncommon 
 sense at this time to discover whether Shake- 
 speare's nonsense was deliberate or not, and 
 whether he indulged in defective metre know- 
 ingly or unknowingly. The discussion of 
 questions of this character is as futile as it 
 is unimportant. But if Primrose Criticism 
 affirms that Shakespeare never wrote nonsense 
 nor indulged in defective metre as a fact, 
 there shall be a square issue, which may be 
 settled without resort to any transcendental 
 speculations. Shakespeare did write non- 
 sense, and he indulged very frequently in 
 
 2 
 
1 8 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 defective metre. Peter Bell must be devel- 
 oping a supernatural power of vision in these 
 latter days that he is able to discover in every 
 production of Shakespeare absolute perfec- 
 tion of poetical form, infallibihty of dramatic 
 plan, unadulterated wisdom, and impeccable 
 fancy. Surely this is finding " infinite deeps 
 and marvellous revelations in a primrose." 
 
 There is not a play, among all that are 
 attributed to Shakespeare, which can be said 
 to be absolutely free from nonsense. Nor is 
 there a single play that is absolutely free from 
 defective metre. These are the very faults 
 which our poet's detractors have most suc- 
 cessfully proven against him, and which his 
 admirers have most unhesitatingly admitted. 
 Rare Ben Jonson was almost prophetic in his 
 honest criticism ; writing, it would seem, with 
 his eye on the Primrose critic of this far-off 
 time. "^ I remember," says he, " the Players 
 have often mentioned it as an honor to Shake- 
 speare, that in his writing (whatsoever he 
 penn'd) hee never blotted out line. My an- 
 swer hath beene, would he had blotted a 
 thousand. Which they thought a malevolent 
 speech. I had not told posterity this, but 
 for their ignorance, who choose that circum- 
 stance to commend their friend by, wherein 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 19 
 
 he most faulted." Editors and commentators 
 have been severely and justly criticised them- 
 selves for attempting to correct Shakespeare's 
 nonsense and defective metre. The per- 
 fection of nonsense has been employed to 
 explain away the nonsense of Shakespeare; 
 syllables have been added to or subtracted 
 from his lines, and absolute prose changed 
 into verse to mend the poet's limping metre. 
 But the best editions of Shakespeare's works 
 at the present time contain, in almost if not 
 quite every play, instances of nonsense and 
 of defective metre which have fortunately 
 been rescued from the literary botchery of 
 over-nice emendators whose delicate tastes 
 and sensitive ears could not permit Shake- 
 speare's art to remain in its original and now 
 valuable imperfection. It is the aim of the 
 highest Shakespearian scholarship and editor- 
 ship to permit this age and all the future to 
 know what this singer really sang, and to let 
 
 " sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, 
 Warble his native wood-notes wild." 
 
 The metrical dissonance of an Alexandrine 
 or a blank prose line introduced into the har- 
 mony of heroic verse has often thrown such 
 critics as Steevens, Seymour, and CoUier into 
 
20 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 the very anguish of hypercriticism and into 
 those emendatory spasms that have resulted 
 in the infliction of wounds of metrical correc- 
 tions upon the original text of Shakespeare's 
 plays, which the best and wisest scholarship 
 of to-day would heal and obliterate. 
 
 Primrose Criticism affirms that the original 
 text of Shakespeare's plays could not have 
 contained a faulty verse, nor a passage of 
 obscure sense, nor a low, unchaste fancy. 
 The conclusion is, that every such defect 
 must be an interpolation, which originated 
 with actors, short-hand reporters, and brain- 
 less critics of the Anti-Primrose school. This 
 is certainly a petitio principii^ if we are to 
 ignore all the historical and scientific data on 
 which an argument for the genuineness of the 
 text should be based. 
 
 The scholarly judgment of Richard Grant 
 White had not been bewitched by the Prim- 
 rose method when he wrote : " Not what 
 Shakespeare might, could, would, or should 
 have written, but what, according to the best 
 evidence, did he write, is the only admissible 
 or defensible object of the labors of his editors 
 and verbal critics." This is true common- 
 sense apphed to the study of Shakespeare ; 
 and no critic need fear that he will be " laying 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 2 1 
 
 himself open to the reproach of applying com- 
 mon sense to the study of Shakespeare," who 
 tramples upon this canon. It may require 
 an uncommon sense to determine what Shake- 
 speare might, could, would, or should have 
 written, — and this the Primrose Criticism, in 
 consistency, should never attempt, — but to 
 determine what Shakespeare did write may 
 require simply that ordinary common- sense 
 which is to be distinguished from extraor- 
 dinary Primrose common-sense. 
 
 The external evidences of the Shakespearian 
 authorship of 'Richard III.' are many and 
 indisputable. 
 
 In the Books of the Stationers' Company, 
 London, the play is attributed to Shakespeare. 
 Four editions of the quarto were issued during 
 the author's lifetime. The first edition was 
 published in 1597, according to the Stationers' 
 Registers. This first edition did not bear the 
 name of its author. It was published anony^ 
 mously. All the subsequent editions, 1598, 
 1602, 1605, 1612, 1621, 1622, 1629, and 
 1634, bore the name of William Shakespeare. 
 When Shakespeare's complete plays were first 
 published, in 1623, 'Richard III.' was in- 
 cluded. Nor has that play ever been excluded 
 from the undisputed works of Shakespeare. 
 
22 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 This is at \t2iSt prima facie evidence of the 
 Shakespearian authorship of the play. If it 
 be argued that some doubt is justified by the 
 absence of Shakespeare's name from tlie title- 
 page of the first quarto edition, the reply will 
 be, that on the same ground doubt should be 
 cast on the Shakespearian authorship of ' Rich- 
 ard II.,' 'Romeo and Juliet,' 'Henry IV.,' 
 and ' Henry V.,' which even Primrose Criti- 
 cism may not be prepared to do. At least 
 three editions of 'Richard HI.' were published 
 during the lifetime of the author, bearing his 
 name, nor was any question then raised as to 
 the genuineness of the play. After the author's 
 death, as has been stated, this tragedy took its 
 place in all the folio editions of Shakespeare's 
 works, and has not in a single instance been 
 denied its rightful place in subsequent editions. 
 
 It is not altogether unimportant as an argu- 
 ment, that this play has passed without chal- 
 lenge the scholarly and critical scrutiny of 
 Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, Warburton, 
 Johnson, Capell, Steevens, Reed, Malone, 
 Chalmers, Harness, Singer, Knight, Collier, 
 Halliwell-Phillipps, Hudson, Dyce, White, 
 and Clarke, — a score of editors and critics 
 whose several and united scholarship is the 
 pride and glory of English letters. It will take 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 
 
 23 
 
 a more vigorous logic than Primrose Criticism 
 employs to set aside the verdict of this splen- 
 did array of scholars. 
 
 It may strengthen the confidence of the 
 wavering to glance at some of the allusions 
 made to Shakespeare in connection with the 
 play of 'Richard III.' by contemporaneous 
 and immediately succeeding poets. There 
 does not seem to have been a suspicion in 
 Shakespeare's day that he was not the author 
 of this tragedy, or that he had perpetrated the 
 literary fraud of putting his name to a drama 
 which he did not v/rite. 
 
 One of the earHest references to Shakespeare 
 is made in John Weever's Poem (1599), Ad 
 Guliebnum Shakespeare. 
 
 " Honie-Tong'd Shakespeare when I saw thine issue 
 I swore Apollo got them and none other." 
 
 Of this " issue," the poet mentions " Rose- 
 checkt Adonis,'' " Faire fire-hot Veftus,'' 
 " Chaste Zucretia,'' and 
 
 *' RojneO' Richard ; more whose names I know not." 
 
 Francis Meres, in his ' Palladis Tamia,' 1598, 
 refers to Shakespeare in the words : — 
 
 "As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the 
 best for Comedy and Tragedy among the 
 
24 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 Latins; so Shakespeare among y^ English is the 
 most excellent in both kinds of the stage . . . 
 witness . . . for Tragedy his Richard the 2, 
 Richard the 3, Henry the 4, King John, Titus 
 Andronicus and his Romeo and Juliet." 
 
 There was a rather broad anecdote current 
 in Shakespeare's time, in which both the poet's 
 and the actor Burbage's names were associated 
 with the name and play of 'Richard III.,' 
 which would be out of character here. But this 
 same Burbage, Shakespeare's friend and the 
 original Richard, is introduced as one of the 
 characters in a play entitled ' The Returne 
 from Pernassus ; or the Scourge of Simony, 
 publiquely acted by the Students in St. John's 
 College in Camebridge, 1606.' The following 
 lines occur in this play : — 
 
 *^ Kemp. Few of the university pen plaies well, 
 they smell too much of that writer Ovid, and that 
 writer Metamorphosis, and talke too much of Pro- 
 serpina & Jitppiter. Why here 's our fellow Shake- 
 speare puts them all downe, I, and Ben Jonson, too. 
 O, that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow, he brought 
 up Horace giving the Poets a pill, but our fellow 
 Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him 
 beray his credit. 
 
 Burbage. I like your face, and the proportion of 
 your body for Richard the 3. I pray, M. Phil, let me 
 see you act a little of it. 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 25 
 
 Philo. Now is the winter of our discontent, 
 Made glorious summer by this sonne of Yorke/' etc- 
 
 In a religious poem on ' Saint Mary Mag- 
 dalen's Conversion,' written by ' C. J./ 1603, 
 the following lines occur : — 
 
 " Of Helens rape and Troyes besieged Towne, 
 Of Troylus faith, and Cressids falsitie, 
 Of Richards stratagems for the english crowne, 
 Of Tarquins lust, and Lucrece chastitie, 
 Of these, of none of these my muse now treates, 
 Of greater conquests, warres and loves she speakes." 
 
 Richard Brathwaite, in ' A Strappado for the 
 Devill,' 1 6 15, writes the lines : — 
 
 " If I had liv'd but in King Richard's days, 
 "Who in his heat of passion, midst the force 
 Of his assailants troubled many waies, 
 Crying A horse, a kingdome for a horse, 
 O ! then my horse, which now at livery stayes. 
 Had beene set free, where now he 's forc't to stand, 
 And like to fall into the Ostler's hand." 
 
 If it be kept in mind that these allusions 
 to Shakespeare and his ' Richard III.' were 
 made in his own lifetime and during the time 
 in which Burbage was gaining celebrity as the 
 principal character in the tragedy, the state- 
 ment that Shakespeare was credited with the 
 authorship of ' Richard III.,' and that this 
 
26 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 tragedy produced a deep impression on liter- 
 ary as well as vulgar minds, will be admitted. 
 John Milton was one of Shakespeare's most 
 enthusiastic eulogists, and, beyond question, an 
 ardent student of his works. It would be re- 
 markable for him to have given special atten- 
 tion to ' Richard III.' without discovering that 
 it was written in a style wholly foreign to the 
 manner of Shakespeare, if such were the case. 
 It is matter for wonder that Milton's poetic 
 tastes, instincts, and judgment did not equal 
 the Primrose sense of Peter Bell in detecting 
 the un-Shakespearian character of that trag- 
 edy. It is still more surprising, if the play is 
 so very commonplace and is not the pro- 
 duction of Shakespeare's genius, that glorious 
 John Milton should have found in that very 
 play some of the most striking ideas which he 
 has introduced into ^ Paradise Lost,' and that 
 he should have quoted from that very play in 
 his prose works, where he attributes the play 
 to Shakespeare. Sir William Blackstone and 
 Edmund Malone could not but think that 
 Milton was indebted for his characterization 
 of Satan to these Hnes : — 
 
 " Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him ; 
 And all their ministers attend on him." 
 
 Act I. Scene 3. 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 27 
 
 In ' Eikonoklastes/ written in answer to 
 ^ Eikon Basilike/ in 1690, Milton makes this 
 striking reference to Shakespeare and the 
 play of * Richard III. : ' — 
 
 " From Stories of this nature both Ancient 
 and Modern which abound, the Poets also, and 
 some English, have been in this Point so mind- 
 ful of Decorum^ as to put never more pious 
 words in the Mouth of any Person, than of a 
 Tyrant. I shall not instance an abstruse 
 Author, wherein the King may be less conver- 
 sant, but one whom we well know was the 
 Closet Companion of these his Solitudes, Wil- 
 Izam Shakespeare ; who introduces the Person 
 of Richard the Third, speaking, in as high a 
 strain of Piety, and mortification, as is uttered 
 in any passage of this Book and sometimes to 
 the same sense and purpose with some words 
 in this Place, I intended, saith he, not only 
 to oblige my Friends, but mine enemies. The 
 like saith Richard, Act II. Scene i : — 
 
 * / do not know that English Man alive. 
 With whom my soul is any jot at odds. 
 More than the Infajit that is born to-night ; 
 I thank my God for my humility^ 
 
 " Other stuff of this sort may be read through- 
 out the whole Tragedy, wherein the Poet us'd 
 not much License in departing from the Truth 
 of History, which delivers him a deep Dissem- 
 bler, not of his affections only, but of Religion." 
 
28 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 As the great poets themselves, including 
 Jonson, Milton, Dryden, and Pope, never 
 questioned the Shakespearian authorship of 
 * Richard III.,' so the great actors who have 
 won their renown in Shakespearian charac- 
 ters, and who have made Richard III. one 
 of the most celebrated histrionic represen- 
 tations of the EngHsh stage, have never 
 detected that Richard was not Shakespeare's. 
 Burbage, Ryan, Gibber, Garrick, Mossop, 
 Henderson, Gooke, Kean, Kemble, Booth, 
 Macready — all the great, original Richards 
 — have had as firm confidence in the Shake- 
 spearian authorship of this character as they 
 have had of Hamlet, Macbeth, Goriolanus, 
 Othello, Shylock, or Lear. It is ordinarily, 
 if not extraordinarily reasonable, to sup- 
 pose that actors of such intelligence and 
 genius, actors devoted to the study and 
 representation of Shakespeare, would be 
 able to detect, if it existed, the un-Shake- 
 spearian character of ' Richard III.' The 
 universal opinion of the stage is not easily 
 to be set aside by the Primrose Griticism. 
 Peter Bell has not a more authoritative 
 voice than Burbage, Betterton, Gibber, Gar- 
 rick, Kemble, Gooke, Kean, Young, and 
 Macready. 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 
 
 29 
 
 The judgment of learned and philosophi- 
 cal students of Shakespeare should not be ig- 
 nored in a discussion of this character. Yet 
 Primrose Criticism is peculiarly and signifi- 
 cantly hostile to anything that approaches the 
 uncommon in sense, learning, scholarship, or 
 subtlety of criticism ; hence its antipathy to 
 German criticism, and the scientific, philo- 
 sophical instincts of the German mind. There 
 may be method in this madness when Shake- 
 speare is under discussion, as it is beyond all 
 dispute that the Germans are the broadest, 
 profoundest, and most scholarly critics and 
 commentators of Shakespeare in the world. 
 Englishmen must admit this, as the able and 
 candid Furnivall has done. Lessing, Goethe, 
 Schiller, Tieck, Schlegel, Ulrici, and Gervinus 
 are names that cannot be cast into shadow 
 by even such names as Pope, Dryden, John- 
 son, Malone, Steevens, Collier, and Halliwell- 
 Phillipps. If these open-eyed German critics 
 see more in the primrose than the littleness 
 and inferiority of it, so do they also see more 
 in the dramatic delineation of the character 
 of Richard III. than the second-rate genius 
 of a Marlowe, a Peele, or a Greene. 
 
 Schiller, with a true anti-Primrose spirit, 
 closed his reading of ' Richard III.' with the 
 
30 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 splendid encomium : " It is one of the sub- 
 limest tragedies I know." Ulrici finds in 
 ' Richard III.' the fifth act of the great 
 tragedy of which ' Richard II.' is the first. 
 In a very un-Primrose fashion, this philoso- 
 pher makes bold to say : — 
 
 " No drama shows more distinctly than Henry 
 VI. and its continuation Richard III. how the 
 two sides of tragedy and comedy — according 
 to their ethical significance — meet in the his- 
 torical drama, and become blended into a higher 
 unity." 
 
 Schlegel advances a similar theory, and im- 
 plies the Shakespearian authorship of ' Richard 
 III.' when he says : — 
 
 "These four plays ['Henry VI.' and 'Rich- 
 ard III,'] were undoubtedly composed in suc- 
 cession, as is proved by the style and the spirit 
 in the handling of the subject : the last is defi- 
 nitely announced in the one which precedes it, 
 and is also full of references to it ; the same 
 views run through the series ; in a word, the 
 whole make together only one single work." 
 
 This distinguished scholar thinks that the Eng- 
 lishmen's great admiration of this tragedy " is 
 certainly in every respect well founded." 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 31 
 
 Dr. Gervinus, in his ' Shakespeare Commen- 
 taries,' unconsciously arrays himself against 
 all Primrose Criticism when he bluntly and 
 confidently says, with the assurance of a 
 scholar : — 
 
 "Richard III. is Shakespeare's first tragedy 
 of undoubted personal authorship ; it is written 
 in connection with Henry VI., and appears as 
 its direct continuation." 
 
 But the great Professor comes into still closer 
 colHsion with the Primrose Criticism when 
 he says : — 
 
 "Richard III. shows extraordinary progress 
 when compared to Henry VI. . . . The poetic 
 diction, however much it reminds us of Henry 
 VI., has gained surprisingly in finish, richness, 
 and truth ; we need only compare the words of 
 Anne at the beginning (Act I. Sc. 2) with the 
 best parts of Henry VI., to find how thoroughly 
 they are animated with the breath of passion, 
 how pure and natural is their flow, and how 
 entirely the expression is but the echo of the 
 feeling." 
 
 It would seem that Primrose Criticism had 
 involved itself in a vastly greater iconoclastic 
 enterprise than it had bargained for, in its 
 attempt to disprove the Shakespearian author- 
 ship of ^ Richard III.,' since scientific criticism 
 
32 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 demands that the genuineness of all these re- 
 lated historical plays be invalidated together, 
 or that they ail stand together in their un- 
 questioned integrity. 
 
 Attention is further called to the reasons 
 laid down by the Primrose Criticism for rob- 
 bing Shakespeare of his ' Richard III.' 
 ^/ It is asserted that the tragedy is not written 
 in Shakespeare's style ; that it proceeds with 
 a different gait ; that it contains nonsense and 
 defective metre ; that it is devoid of humor 
 and eloquence; and that it contains whole 
 scenes where the author's mind seems at 
 dead low-tide throughout, and lays bare all 
 its shallows and its ooze, p^ith these serious 
 charges made against the tragedy, singularly 
 enough, not a shadow of a proof, not even an 
 illustration or a quotation, is given in support 
 of the charges. 
 
 It may again be suggested that it is remark- 
 able that men of the poetical tastes of Jonson, 
 Milton, Dryden, Pope, Schiller and Goethe ; 
 and men of the critical acuteness and ripe 
 scholarship of Johnson, Steevens, Malone, 
 Hazlitt, Lamb, Halliwell-Phillipps, and Richard 
 Grant White ; and men of the splendid his- 
 trionic genius of Burbage, Garrick, Cooke, 
 Kean, Kemble, and Macready, have not de- 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 2i2i 
 
 tected the iin-Shakespearian style, the aUen, 
 unknown, and vulgar gait of this remarkable 
 * Richard III.' 
 
 As to the "nonsense," it would be un- 
 Shakespearian if it were absolutely free from it. 
 The same is true of the " defective metre." 
 If Sophocles, ^schylus, Corneille, Racine, or 
 Voltaire were to be our model, then Shake- 
 speare would be full of "nonsense." The 
 violation or utter ignoring of the Unities, the 
 J;rampling under foot of AristoteHan rules of 
 dramatic composition, would be considered 
 " nonsense " by the classical school. But if 
 this be the " nonsense " for which ' Richard 
 III.' is condemned, then must many a play of 
 Shakespeare's come under the ban of con- 
 demnation. Nor is this the only kind of 
 " nonsense " that may be found in Shake- 
 speare's plays. Ben Jonson made this charge 
 in his day : — 
 
 " His wit was in his owne power ; would the 
 rule of it had beene so too. Many times hee 
 fell into those things, could not escape laughter : 
 As when hee said in the person of CcEsar^ one 
 speaking to him : ' Ccssar thou dost u^e wrong.'' 
 Hee replyed : ' Ccssar did never ivrong^ but 
 with just cause:'' and such like; which were 
 ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices, with 
 his vertues." 
 
34 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 Anachronisms are " nonsense " to those who 
 measure by the classical standards ; but if 
 such " nonsense " is un-Shakespearian, — and 
 none would seem greater to Aristotle, Ben 
 Jonson, or Voltaire, — then must nearly every 
 play of Shakespeare's be denied its accredited 
 merit and high origin. 
 
 * Coriolanus ' is marred and disfigured by 
 the " nonsense " of Titus Lartius quoting 
 Cato's estimate of a true soldier, when Cato 
 was not born until two hundred and fifty years 
 after the time in which Lartius mentions 
 him. In the same play Menenius Agrippa 
 refers to Alexander the Great, more than two 
 hundred years before the conqueror of the 
 world was born. And the same person 
 speaks of " the most sovereign prescription 
 in Galen," six hundred and fifty years be- 
 fore the great physician saw the light of 
 day. 
 
 In the tragedy of ^ Hamlet ' we are aston- 
 ished to hear Hamlet and the King in the 
 tenth or eleventh century speak of the school 
 at Wittenberg, which was not founded until 
 1502. Then reference is therein made to a 
 performance of the play of 'Julius Caesar,' 
 which took place at the Oxford University in 
 1582 ! Several references are made to " brazen 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 
 
 35 
 
 cannon " which were not in existence in 
 Hamlet's time. Here is " nonsense " ! 
 
 In ' Merry Wives of Windsor/ one may 
 be surfeited with "nonsense." What right 
 has Bardolph, in 1400, to know anything 
 about " three German devils, three Doctor 
 Faustuses " ? What sense is there in Shallow's 
 threatening Falstaff with, " I will make a Star-* 
 Chamber matter of it," when the Star-Chamber 
 Court was not in existence ? Mill sixpences 
 were first coined in 15 61, and the " Edward 
 shovel-boards" not earlier than about 1550; 
 yet Slender accuses Pistol, in 1400, of picking 
 his pocket and robbing him " of seven groats 
 of mill sixpences, and two Edward shovel- 
 boards." Mrs. Ford, in a most unaccount- 
 able fashion, seemed to be familiar with the 
 tune of " Green Sleeves " one hundred and 
 seventy-five years before it was composed, 
 which was in 1580. And Mr. Page had heard 
 that " the Frenchman hath good skill in his 
 rapier," nearly two hundred years before the 
 rapier was introduced. 
 
 In the ' Winter's Tale ' is the famous " non- 
 sense " which provoked the ridicule of Ben 
 Jonson, to which Drummond refers : — 
 
 " He said that Shakespeare wanted art, and 
 sometimes sense ; for in one of his plays he 
 
36 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 brought in a number of men, saying they had 
 suffered shipwreck in Bohemia, where is no 
 sea near by loo miles." 
 
 To any sense but Primrose-sense it seems 
 " nonsense " for one to put into a drama such 
 a dialogue as this : — 
 
 " Ant. Thou art perfect then, our ship hath touch 'd 
 upon 
 The deserts of Bohemia ? 
 
 Mar. Ay, my lord." 
 
 In ^ Henry VI.' mention is made of Machi- 
 avel, who was but two years old when Henry 
 VI. died. 
 
 It has been charged that it is '^ nonsense " 
 for the dramatist to represent Fortinbras, in 
 the tragedy of ' Hamlet/ as appearing at a 
 certain time in Denmark, and in an hour 
 and a half returning victorious from Poland. 
 And it is equal "nonsense" to represent 
 Othello as passing from Venice to Cyprus 
 in a few moments of time. 
 
 All that Bowdler ehminated from the text of 
 Shakespeare — " those words and expressions 
 . . . which cannot with Propriety be read 
 aloud in a Family" — must be branded as 
 "nonsense." The mixing up of tragedy and 
 comedy in the same play is, by some, con- 
 sidered " nonsense." It would indeed be diffi- 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 37 
 
 cult to mention a species of "nonsense " that 
 may not be found in Shakespeare. But there 
 is hardly one of his plays that has less " non- 
 sense " in it than ^ Richard III.' This is true, 
 whether the "nonsense" be the "nonsense" 
 of vulgarity, of historical inaccuracy, of un- 
 naturalness, or of the violation of the Unities 
 of time and place. And the very criticism 
 which would on the Primrose basis rob Shake- 
 speare of ^Richard III.' would rob him of 
 nearly every one of his great creations. 
 
 It may be of interest to take at least a 
 glance at the suggestion that Shakespeare was 
 so perfect in his poetic art that he could not 
 have written in faulty style, nor in violation 
 of any poetical canon. It is well known that 
 he was admired by his contemporaries and 
 immediate successors as a natural genius rather 
 than as a trained and scholarly artist. 
 
 Ben Jonson, who knew Shakespeare per- 
 sonally, was candid in saying : " Shakespeare 
 wanted Art. . . . His wit was in his owne 
 power ; would the rule of it had been so too." 
 
 Good Thomas Fuller expressed the com- 
 mon sentiment of the seventeenth century 
 when he wrote of Shakespeare : — 
 
 "He was an eminent instance of the truth 
 of that rule, ' Poeta Hon fit, sed iiascitur; ' one 
 
38 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 is not 7nade, but born a poet. Indeed his 
 learning was very little, so that, as Cornish 
 diatnonds are not polished by any Lapidary, 
 but are pointed and smoothed even as they are 
 taken out of the earth, so Nature itself was all 
 the Art which was used upon him." 
 
 Berkenhead, in praising Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, most justly said : — 
 
 " Brave Shakespeare flow'd, yet had his Ebbings too, 
 Often above Himselfe, sometimes below." 
 
 Milton, master of poetic art, with taste and 
 instinct exquisite, implies Shakespeare's defi- 
 ciency in art as he listens to 
 
 "sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, 
 Warble his native wood-notes wild." 
 
 Dryden honestly says of his idol : — 
 
 " I cannot say he is everywhere alike ; were 
 he so, I should do him injury to compare him 
 with the greatest of mankind. He is many times 
 flat, insipid ; his comic wit degenerating into 
 clinches, his serious swelling into bombast." 
 
 As compared with Jonson, this is Dryden's 
 estimate of Shakespeare : — 
 
 " The fatiltless Johnson equally writ well ; 
 
 Shakespeare ma.de/azd^s, but then did more excel." 
 
 Again this noble writer says : — 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 
 
 39 
 
 " Shakespeare, who many times has written 
 better than any poet, in any language, is yet so 
 far from writing wit always^ or expressing that 
 wit according to the dignity of the subject, that 
 he writes, in many places, below the dullest 
 writer of ours, or any precedent age." 
 
 Edward Phillips, the nephew of Milton, in 
 his ^ Theatrum Poetarum,' 1675, says : — 
 
 " Shakespeare, in spight of all his unfiled 
 expressions, his rambling and indigested fancys, 
 the laughter of the Critical, yet must be con- 
 fessed a poet above many that go beyond him 
 in Literature some degree." 
 
 And again : — 
 
 " From an Actor of Tragedies and Comedies 
 he became a Maker; and such a Maker, that 
 though some others may perhaps pretend to 
 a more exact Decoru7n and cEcono7nie, especially 
 in Tragedy, never any express'd a more lofty and 
 tragic height ; never any represented nature 
 more purely to the life, and where the polish- 
 ments of Art are most wanting, as probably his 
 Learning was not extraordinary, he pleaseth 
 with a certain wz'/^and 7iaiive Elegance." 
 
 Pope, with most excellent judgment, wrote 
 in his preface : — 
 
 " It must be owned, that with all these great 
 excellencies, he has almost as great defects; 
 
40 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 and that as he has certainly written better, so 
 he has perhaps written worse, than any other." 
 
 Samuel Johnson made bold to ascribe cer- 
 tain faults to Shakespeare, by saying : — 
 
 " The style of Shakespeare was in itself un- 
 grammatical, perplexed and obscure." 
 
 The criticisms quoted above apply to the 
 nonsense, the faulty style, the defective metre, 
 and the occasional commonplace passages to 
 be found in Shakespeare's works. 
 
 From these criticisms the conclusion is to 
 be drawn that, contrary to the opinion of the 
 Primrose Criticism, Shakespeare wrote non- 
 sense and indulged in defective metre. And 
 this further conclusion is logical, that to reject 
 the Shakespearian authorship of ' Richard III.' 
 on the ground that it contains nonsense and 
 defective metre, would warrant the rejection 
 of nearly every play ascribed to Shakespeare. 
 The faults of ^Richard III.' are not un- 
 Shakespearian. And, with Professor Rich- 
 ardson, all may admit that " this tragedy, 
 like every work of Shakespeare, has many 
 faults." 
 
 It is further implied in the Primrose Criti- 
 cism that as 'Richard III.' is without humor 
 it lacks one of the infallible characteristics of 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 41 
 
 Shakespearian method and genius. Perhaps 
 no play of this original dramatist adheres more 
 closely to the classical standard with regard to 
 its tragical unity than 'Richard III.' It lacks, 
 let it be admitted, the unclassical admixture of 
 comedy. But the play is of such an intensely 
 cruel and tragic nature that it could with less 
 consistency than any other play admit of the 
 introduction of a comic strain. Its very di- 
 abolism seems to forbid any relief to the horror, 
 or the admission of any ray of jest or clownish- 
 ness into the damnable darkness. If, however, 
 by the term " humor " we may include the idea 
 of wit, sarcasm, cunning and adroit play of 
 words, then, certainly, one of the greatest, if 
 grimmest, humorists of Shakespeare's creation 
 is Richard III. There are hnes in the first 
 soliloquy that contain humor. Gloster's woo- 
 ing of Lady Anne, even in the presence of the 
 corpse of Henry VI., is not only most eloquent, 
 but consummately witty, bordering at least on 
 the humorous. The strawberry subterfuge by 
 which the Bishop of Ely is politely invited 
 out of the council in the Tower, is a cheerful 
 incident, if nothing more. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is true that this picture is 
 very sparingly relieved of its sombre character 
 by the comical or even by the humorous. 
 
42 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 This fact, however, cannot rob the tragedy of 
 its Shakespearian character, which is deter- 
 mined by its positive rather than by its nega- 
 tive elements, by what it contains rather than 
 by what it lacks. A few of the great actors 
 have so studied this play as to find in it rays 
 of light, and in their acting they have relieved 
 the play of the monotonous horror by bring- 
 ing out the wit and even humor which they 
 found therein. Kemble, Cooke, and Kean in 
 particular were credited with the abihty to 
 find and to set forth these features of the dark 
 tragedy. It was with difficulty that they 
 succeeded. 
 
 On what grounds the Primrose Criticism 
 insinuates that ^Richard III.' reveals a lack 
 of patriotism in its author it is difficult to de- 
 termine. If to portray reckless, heartless, in- 
 satiable ambition, a love of power which 
 tramples underfoot the laws of God and so- 
 ciety, — if to hold up to the universal gaze for 
 everlasting execration 
 
 " That foul defacer of God's handy-work ; 
 That excellent grand tyrant of the earth," — 
 
 if to record with dramatic force the diaboli- 
 cal intrigues, and the final, just calamities 
 and ruin of a royal assassin and red-handed 
 usurper, — be unpatriotic, then Shakespeare 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 43 
 
 has indeed most successfully and commend- 
 ably proven himself of an unpatriotic spirit. If 
 patriotism means simply loyalty to a " House " 
 or an administration rather than to the coun- 
 try, then of that narrow sort of patriotism 
 Shakespeare, the author of '■ Richard III.,' 
 was not largely and conspicuously possessed. 
 But that great tragedy was written -by a pen 
 which had been inspired with the loftiest pa- 
 triotism, — a love of country and the rights of 
 men. The spirit that wrote the play breathes 
 in the patriotic prayer of Richmond : — 
 
 " 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-faced peace. 
 With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days ! 
 Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord, 
 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 ! " 
 
 Primrose Criticism insinuates that to admit 
 the Shakespearian authorship of this play 
 would be to accuse the poet of therein per- 
 mitting his mind to remain '* at dead low-tide, 
 
44 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 and lay bare all its shallows and its ooze." It 
 is difficult for one to understand Schiller's ad- 
 miration of such a shallow and oozy- minded 
 tragedy. And if these lines are at a poetic 
 and dramatic " dead low- tide," what was 
 " Marlowe's mighty line," when such a schol- 
 arly critic as Chalmers, in turning from Mar- 
 lowe's play, must say : — 
 
 " Certain it is that when we open Shake- 
 speare's Richard III. we seem to mount from 
 the uniform flat, wherein we had been travelling 
 with uncheered steps, to an exalted eminence, 
 from whence we behold around us, an extensive 
 country, diversified by hill and dale, refreshed 
 by many waters, and traversed by roads, lead- 
 ing to hospitable mansions : 
 
 * Glos. Now is the winter of our discontent 
 Made glorious summer by this sun of York.' " 
 
 No " low-tide " performance here, to the 
 mind of the Scotch antiquarian and critic ! 
 
 All men have not been able to detect the 
 shallows and ooze which the Primrose Criti- 
 cism seems to find in ' Richard III.' Hazlitt 
 had certainly seen virtues in this tragedy 
 which escaped the eye of Peter Bell, for he 
 wrote : — 
 
 " The play itself is undoubtedly a very power- 
 ful effusion of Shakespeare's genius. The 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 45 
 
 groundwork of the character of Richard — that 
 mixture of intellectual vigour with moral de- 
 pravity, in which Shakespeare delighted to show 
 his strength — gave full scope as well as temp- 
 tation to the exercise of his imagination." 
 
 Coleridge must have found great excellen- 
 ces in this play; and his keen, critical eye 
 must have overlooked the " shallows " and 
 " ooze/' else he could not have written : — 
 
 " Shakespeare here, as in all his great parts, 
 develops in a tone of sublime morality the 
 dreadful consequences of placing the moral in 
 subordination to the mere intellectual being." 
 
 Let it not be supposed that an attempt 
 is here made to prove the superiority of 
 * Richard III.' to all other Shakespearian pro- 
 ductions. As a literary work it cannot hold 
 rank with ^ Hamlet/ ' Othello/ ' Lear/ and 
 many other plays of this poet. Some may 
 even wonder, with Johnson, Steevens, and 
 Malone, why it has been so universally ad- 
 mired, without doubting its Shakespearian 
 origin. 
 
 Hazlitt pronounces 'Richard HI.' a play 
 for the stage rather than for the study. 
 Others criticise it for its inadaptability to the 
 stage. Possibly the Gibber adaptation of the 
 play was better calculated to produce theatri- 
 
46 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 cal effect than the original, but there can be 
 no question that the ' Richard III.' of Shake- 
 speare is the more perfect and admirable in 
 the study. Indeed, the Gibber adaptation 
 eliminates portions which, in the study and 
 from the literary standpoint, are the finest 
 portions of the play, and rank with the no- 
 blest and most elegant poetic strains of 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 That which would be "dead low-tide," 
 "shallows," "ooze," to the play-goer and to 
 the actor, might be high-tide, ocean deeps, 
 crystalline purity of philosophic thought and 
 poetic form to the student and moralist. 
 
 Let it be admitted that some of the scenes 
 and dialogues would be tedious and devoid of 
 good taste and exciting interest on the stage ; 
 the same admission must be made touching 
 many of Shakespeare's plays. If this fault 
 is un-Shakespearian, surely there is hardly 
 a purely Shakespearian play in existence. 
 There are entire plays of Shakespeare which 
 have never been popular on the stage, and 
 quite a large number of them have entirely 
 disappeared from the repertoire of the Shake- 
 spearian actors. Who of this generation has 
 witnessed a successful and popular perform- 
 ance of 'Timon of Athens,' 'Pericles,' 'Ti- 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 47 
 
 tus Andronicus,' '■ Cymbeline/ ' King John,' 
 ' Henry VI.,' ' Troilus and Cressida,' ' Measure 
 for Measure ' ? 
 
 But the drama is not to be judged and 
 fashioned by the tastes and demands of the 
 theatre alone. Doubtless many have agreed 
 with Charles Lamb that Shakespeare cannot 
 be acted, that the stage is not great enough 
 for his dramatic creations. The theatre de- 
 manded that the original tragedy of ' Richard 
 III.' should be changed ; the change was 
 made, and the play thereby gained popularity 
 for the time being on the stage, but lost popu- 
 larity in the study. 
 
 Colley Gibber almost destroyed the literary 
 identity of the great tragedy when in 1 700 he 
 adapted it to the stage ; yet he made the char- 
 acter of Richard, whose horrible identity he 
 preserved, a great favorite with actors and 
 play-goers. And though Garrick, Gooke, and 
 Kean achieved fame in the performance of 
 this mutilated play, who will say that Shake- 
 speare, in revisiting "the glimpses of the 
 moon," would be willing to adopt the " adap- 
 tation" and applaud Gibber for his pains? 
 Who will acknowledge from the standpoint of 
 literary dramatic criticism that the Gibber 
 adaptation is equal to the original drama? 
 
48 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 Now the argument is this, that a dramatic 
 composition may be of high excellence from 
 a literary and intellectual standpoint which 
 on the stage, from an actor's or the audi- 
 tor's point, would prove too intricate, ob- 
 scure, tame, or even revolting. Such a play, 
 however, does not necessarily reveal the 
 " shallows " and " ooze " and " dead low- 
 tide " of its author's mind ; it may show the 
 greater heights, depths, powers, and splendors 
 of it. 
 
 Astonishment increases when this new Prim- 
 rose Criticism makes the remarkable discovery 
 that 'Richard III." is devoid of eloquence, 
 and is not therefore of Shakespearian origin. 
 It must be a very uncommon taste that is 
 deaf to the eloquence of Richard's soHloquies, 
 of Clarence's dream, of Margaret's curses, of 
 Richmond's orations and prayers. Did not 
 Gloster woo Lady Anne most eloquently? 
 What can exceed the beauty and pathos of 
 Edward's eulogy of his brother? 
 
 " K. Edw. Have I a tongue to doom my brother's 
 death, 
 And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave? 
 My brother kill'd no man, his fault was thought, 
 And yet his punishment was bitter death. 
 Who sued to me for him ? who, in my wrath, 
 Kneel'd at my feet, and bade me be advis'd.^ 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 49 
 
 Who spoke of brotherhood ? who spoke of love ? 
 Who told me, how the poor soul did forsake 
 The mighty Warwick, and did fight for me ? 
 Who told me, in the field at Tewksbury, 
 When Oxford had me down, he rescu'd me, 
 And said, Dear brother, live, and be a king? 
 Who told me, when we both lay in the field, 
 Frozen almost to death, how he did lap me 
 Even in his garments ; and did give himself, 
 All thin and naked, to the numb-cold night ? ' 
 All this from my remembrance brutish wrath 
 Sinfully pluck'd, and not a man of you 
 Had so much grace to put it in my mind. 
 But when your carters or your waiting-vassals 
 Have done a drunken slaughter, and defac'd 
 The precious image of our dear Redeemer, 
 You straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon; 
 And I, unjustly too, must grant it you : — 
 But for my brother, not a man would speak, — 
 Nor I (ungracious) speak unto myself 
 For him, poor soul. — The proudest of you all 
 Have been beholden to him in his life ; 
 Yet none of you would once plead for his life. — 
 O God! I fear, thy justice will take hold 
 On me, and you, and mine, and yours, for this. — 
 Come, Hastings, help me to my closet. O, poor 
 Clarence ! " 
 
 Is such an eloquence unworthy of Shake- 
 speare's pen? 
 
 In reading Queen Ehzabeth's farewell to 
 the Tower which holds ''those tender babes," 
 and in reading Tyrrel's description of the 
 "ruthless butchery," one joins with Hazhtt in 
 
 4 
 
50 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 pronouncing them "some of those wonder- 
 ful bursts of feeling, done to the life, to the 
 very height of fancy and nature, which our 
 Shakespeare alone could give." 
 
 Has ever an actor in the noble character of 
 Richmond doubted that he was pronoun- 
 cing an eloquence equal to that of Henry V. 
 before Harfleur, when on famous Bosworth 
 field he harangued his troops, closing with 
 the spirited and thrilling words : — 
 
 " Then, in the name of God, and all these rights, 
 Advance your standards, draw your willing swords : 
 For me, the ransom of my. bold attempt 
 Shall be this cold corpse on the earth's cold face ; 
 But if I thrive, the gain of my attempt 
 The least of you shall share his part thereof. 
 Sound, drums and trumpets, boldly and cheerfully ; 
 God, and Saint George ! Richmond, and victory ! " 
 
 Not only the actions, but the very words of 
 Richard on that fatal field were eloquent : — 
 
 ** Fight, gentlemen of England ! fight, bold yeomen ! 
 Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head ! 
 Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood ; 
 Amaze the welkin with your broken staves ! " 
 
 " A thousand hearts are great within my bosom : 
 Advance our standards, set upon our foes ; 
 Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint George, 
 Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons 1 
 Upon them ! Victory sits on our helms." 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 51 
 
 As Garrick acted the part, throwing into it 
 the highest spirit of gallantry, what stirring 
 eloquence was Richard's in the scene : — 
 
 " K. Rich. A horse ! a horse ! my kingdom for a 
 
 horse ! 
 Catesby. Withdraw, my lord, I '11 help you to a 
 
 horse. 
 K. Rich. Slave, I have set my life upon a cast, 
 And I will stand the hazard of the die ; 
 I think, there be six Richmonds in the field ; 
 Five have I slain to-day, instead of him : — 
 A horse ! a horse ! my kingdom for a horse ! " 
 
 If eloquence be the test, 'Richard III.' is 
 Shakespeare's. 
 
 The Primrose Criticism cannot suppress its 
 mirth at the appearance of the ghosts on 
 Bosworth field, and intimates that the scene 
 is unworthy of Shakespeare, and hence was 
 not his creation. Why Peter Bell does not 
 laugh at the whole tribe of dramatic ghosts 
 and every other sort of ghosts, is not apparent. 
 
 The ghosts in ' Hamlet,' ' Macbeth,' and 
 ' Julius Csesar ' are as open to criticism, and 
 are as provocative of mirth as the ghosts in 
 ' Richard III.' Why Banquo's ghost should 
 appear to Macbeth, and the ghost of the 
 Royal Dane to Hamlet, and the ghost of 
 Caesar to Brutus, without challenging the 
 
52 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 criticism of Peter Bell, while the appearance 
 of the ghosts of Richard's victims on Bos- 
 worth field should be thought laughable, is 
 perhaps unworthy of serious inquiry. Whether 
 any ghost scene be pleasing or not to the 
 reader of this age, there is a seriousness of 
 mind in which to study the dramatic re- 
 quirements and necessities of an earlier age, 
 which the Primrose Criticism does not seem 
 to cultivate. There is at least a philosophical 
 dignity, which should ever accompany criti- 
 cism, to be found in Schlegel's remarks 
 on the ghost scene in ' Richard III.' In 
 explanation of Richard's heroic death, he 
 says : — 
 
 " He fights at last against Richmond like a 
 desperado, and dies the honorable death of a 
 hero on the field of battle. Shakespeare could 
 not change this historical issue, and yet it is by 
 no means satisfactory to our moral feelings, as 
 Lessing, when speaking of a German play on 
 the same subject, has very judiciously remarked. 
 How has Shakespeare solved this difficulty? 
 By a wonderful invention he opens a prospect 
 into the other world, and shows us Richard in 
 his last moments already branded with the stamp 
 of reprobation. We see Richard and Rich- 
 mond in the night before the battle sleeping in 
 their tents : the spirits of the murdered victims 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 53 
 
 of the tyrant ascend in succession, and pour 
 out their curses against him, and their bless- 
 ings on his adversary. These apparitions are 
 properly but the dreams of the two generals 
 represented visibly. It is no doubt contrary 
 to probability that their tents should only be 
 separated by so small a space ; but Shake- 
 speare could reckon on poetical spectators who 
 were ready to take the breadth of the stage for 
 the distance between two hostile camps, if for 
 such indulgence they were to be recompensed 
 by beauties of so sublime a nature as this series 
 of spectres and Richard's awakening soliloquy. 
 The catastrophe of Richard the Third is, in 
 respect to the external event, very like that 
 of Macbeth ; we have only to compare the 
 thorough difference of handling them to be con- 
 vinced that Shakespeare has most accurately 
 observed poetical justice in the genuine sense 
 of the word, that is, as signifying the relation 
 of an invisible blessing or curse which hangs 
 over human sentiments and actions." 
 
 It is certainly refreshing to turn from the 
 Primrose sneer to such a philosophical criti- 
 cism as this, which, if it serve no other end, 
 may suggest the value of German seriousness 
 above much American flippancy. 
 
 But why should Shakespeare be ridiculed 
 for dramatizing tradition and history? The 
 subject matter of the ghost scene was not 
 
54 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 invented by Shakespeare. The dramatist 
 could not eliminate that part of Richard's 
 experience. The historians told it all before 
 the poet adapted it to the stage. The horri- 
 ble dreams, the appearance of ghosts and 
 even devils to the tormented mind of Richard 
 on the eve of battle, are in the records. Let 
 the Primrose Criticism attempt to dramatize 
 this experience less ludicrously \ let it under- 
 take to do it more grandly and impressively. 
 
 Any criticism that overlooks the principal 
 character of a drama must be logically defec- 
 tive if not scientifically worthless, however 
 charmingly and elegantly it may be presented. 
 Where criticism contents itself with pointing 
 out the mote that dances in the beam of 
 light, the withered leaf that hangs on the 
 branch of the oak, the broken feather that 
 still clings to the pinion of the eagle, the 
 stain on the sail of the noble ship, the spot 
 on the face of the glorious sun, the justice 
 of the method may be seriously questioned. 
 One of the most remarkable exhibitions of 
 criticism ever witnessed was the recent nota- 
 ble Primrose study of the play of ^ Rich- 
 ard III.' with Richard left out. Defective 
 metre ; poverty of style ; lack of eloquence, 
 humor, and patriotism ; superfluity of ghost ; 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 55 
 
 intellectual " dead low-tide," " shallows," 
 *'ooze;" and deliberate nonsense, — were 
 dwelt upon with elegance and subtlety of 
 assertion ; but what of the character Rich- 
 ard III.? Nothing, absolutely nothing ! And 
 yet there is no other play of Shakespearian 
 authorship that is so completely concentrated 
 in one character as this. There is no other char- 
 acter that has become popular for the stage in 
 which all the interests of the tragedy in which 
 it is cast centre so completely. The play of 
 ' Richard III.' leaves stamped upon the ima- 
 gination and memory but one impression — 
 Richard. 
 
 In a study of Shakespeare's other tragedies 
 we find, for instance, that Hamlet, Othello, 
 and Macbeth severally share with one or two 
 other characters the interest of the play in 
 which they appear. But Richard is himself 
 alone. He is the whole play. And as he 
 would not share the honors of the kingdom 
 with another, but tyrannically demanded all 
 and all the power usurped; so will he not 
 share the interest of a dramatic plot with an- 
 other : the play is his, the stage is his, as the 
 kingdom is his alone. " Richard is the soul, 
 or rather the dsemon, of the whole tragedy." 
 However defective the metre, however lame 
 
56 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 the style, however tame the dialogue in cer- 
 tain parts, however dreary and even revolting 
 some of the events and scenes in this tragedy, 
 there stands a character which no pen but 
 Shakespeare's could have delineated. 
 
 The most characteristic quality of Shake- 
 speare's plays is the wonderful, unparalleled 
 delineation of character to be found in them. 
 Shakespeare was pre-eminent in his power 
 '^ to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature ; 
 to show virtue her own feature, scorn her 
 own image, and the very age and body of the 
 time his form and pressure." It is not the 
 metre of the tragedy of ' Hamlet ' that distin- 
 guishes it, and secures the immortality of its 
 popularity, but the delineation of the char- 
 acter of Hamlet. It is not the absence of 
 "nonsense," but the character of Shylock, 
 that keeps up the world's interest in the 
 ^ Merchant of Venice.' It is not the literary 
 style of the play of ^ King Lear ' that has 
 placed it above all other modern tragedies ; 
 that is accomplished by the character of Lear. 
 Neither the " patriotism " nor the " humor " 
 of ^ Macbeth,' but the character of Macbeth 
 himself, as therein set forth, makes the trag- 
 edy great in literature and on the stage. So 
 is it with the tragedy of ' Richard III. j ' it is 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 57 
 
 great because therein the characterization of 
 Richard is great. No dramatic person that 
 Shakespeare's mighty pen ever drew is more 
 worthy of his genius. No character has won 
 greater fame and popularity on the stage. 
 No character, with the possible exception of 
 Lear, demands in its representation the exer- 
 cise of greater histrionic genius. There have 
 been but four great Richards on the English 
 stage, and they are the acknowledged greatest 
 geniuses of the stage. If another hand than 
 Shakespeare's drew this wonderful character, 
 then let not Greene, Marlowe, Jonson, or 
 Fletcher share the fame of the " Bard of 
 Avon," but let the unknown author and crea- 
 tor of 'Richard III.' be partner in the pos- 
 session of the greatest fame in dramatic 
 literature. 
 
 Are we certain that Swift ^\Tote the ' Tale 
 of a Tub,' and Scott 'The Antiquary,' be- 
 cause nobody else could do it? Then Shake- 
 speare drew the dramatic character of Richard 
 III. because nobody else could do it. Yes, 
 " there is a gait that marks the mind as well 
 as the body ; " and if not in the metre nor 
 the literary style, in the great, impressive, ter- 
 rible character of Richard III. may be de- 
 tected the infallible, unmistakable mental gait 
 
58 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 of Shakespeare. It is submitted whether the 
 Shakespearian character of any play in ques- 
 sion is not to be determined rather from a 
 study of the persons than of the prosody of 
 the play. 
 
 Primrose Criticism will condescendingly ad- 
 mit that Shakespeare may have adapted the 
 play to the stage, " making additions some- 
 times longer, sometimes shorter." But let it 
 be noticed that the true author of the original 
 play is not mentioned. No attempt is made 
 to prove that the play had an existence in lit- 
 erature before 1597, when Shakespeare pub- 
 lished it. Primrose Criticism is not wanting 
 in antiquarian knowledge ; let it therefore 
 mention for the world's information just the 
 play, with its title, date of publication, author's 
 name, and dramatic plan, which Shakespeare 
 laid his cunning if not thievish hand upon, 
 and appropriated to himself Will Primrose 
 Criticism claim that it was Marlowe's play? 
 or "A Tragical Report of King Richard, a 
 Ballad," published in 1586? If so, there is 
 an opportunity for candid comparison and 
 argument. 
 
 George Steevens tells us — what many an 
 antiquarian well knows — that several dramas 
 on the present subject had been written 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 59 
 
 before Shakespeare attempted it. If Shake- 
 speare's attempt was not a new, an original, 
 and a genuine production, then, in the name 
 of critical fairness, it is unjust to charge 
 Shakespeare with literary theft until it has 
 been proven who else did write the play, or 
 that it had a previous existence. 
 
 With all the poems and plays on this sub- 
 ject before them, after careful study and com- 
 parison, no editor, commentator, antiquarian, 
 or critic has been able to find the original 
 play or poem which Primrose Criticism ac- 
 cuses Shakespeare of stealing, revamping, and 
 publishing in his own name. Common sense 
 and common fairness suggest that there never 
 existed such a play or poem, and that, until 
 it is produced, Shakespeare is entitled to the 
 honor and glory of having been the author of 
 'Richard III.' 
 
 That Shakespeare made his honey from the 
 flowers that were blooming about him ; that 
 he did not create the silk and gold which he 
 wove into the rich tapestries of his fancy; 
 that he hewed from existing quarries the 
 blocks out of which he constructed his gor- 
 geous dramatic palaces, will be admitted. 
 Not a play of his unquestioned authorship 
 exists that does not bear proofs of his indebt- 
 
6o RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 edness to poets, historians, roman cists, and 
 translators, of his own and of preceding times. 
 It is well known that there were already in 
 existence and in common circulation the 
 stories, poems, and chronicles which inspired 
 or suggested the plots of Shakespeare's great- 
 est plays. The stories of ' Hamlet,' ' Mer- 
 chant of Venice,' 'Romeo and Juliet,' 'King 
 Lear,' ' Macbeth,' ' Othello,' etc., were not 
 original with Shakespeare ; they were only 
 modified and dramatized by him. This is 
 the work and mission of the dramatist. In 
 such a sense the tragedy of ' Richard III.' 
 was a dramatization of an historical time and 
 person. 
 
 For the historical basis of this tragedy 
 Shakespeare depended upon others. He did 
 not evolve his historical plays from his inter- 
 nal consciousness. That he received sugges- 
 tions from poets, novehsts, and dramatists 
 who had written upon the same subject, is as 
 probable as that he obtained necessary infor- 
 mation from sober and learned historians. 
 But detecting Plutarch, Boccaccio, Sir Thomas 
 More, HoHnshed, Hall, Grafton, Painter, 
 Florio, and other authors and translators, in 
 the dramatic works of Shakespeare does not 
 justify the insinuation that he was a plagiarist. 
 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 6 1 
 
 Nor will a scientific criticism attempt on 
 such ground to base an argument for 
 the un-Shakespearian character and style of 
 
 * Richard III.' 
 
 Having noticed what seem to be some of 
 the defects of the Primrose Criticism in its 
 discussion of the Shakespearian authorship of 
 
 * Richard HI.' it may not be unprofitable for 
 us to turn to a short study of the sources 
 from which Shakespeare drew the subject- 
 matter of his tragedy. 
 
PART II. 
 » 
 
 THE HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD III, 
 
 " My villainy they have upon record." 
 
i'--* t..>" '^ 
 
THE HISTORICAL BASIS OF 
 RICHARD III. 
 
 OETHE placed Shakespeare before 
 all other poets for power of invention 
 and for variety and originality of 
 characterization. Yet he knew that the dram- 
 atist seldom, if ever, invented the subject 
 matter of his plays. The jealousy of Greene 
 has not biassed the judgment of fair-minded 
 critics in determining Shakespeare's merit for 
 originality. The author of ' Groats-worth of 
 Wit ' assailed Shakespeare after this fashion : 
 
 " There is an upstart Crow, beautified with 
 our feathers, that with his Tygers heart wrapt 
 ill a Players hide, supposes he is well able to 
 bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you : 
 and being an absolute Johannes factotum is in 
 his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a 
 countrie. O, that I might entreate your rare wits 
 
 5 
 
66 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 to be employed in more profitable courses : and 
 let those Apes imitate your past excellence, and 
 never more acquaint them with your admired 
 inventions." 
 
 It would take more than a groat's worth 
 of such wit to convince the world that the 
 * sweet Swan of Avon/ with borrowed or with 
 stolen wings, made 
 
 "... those flights upon the banks of Thames 
 That so did take Eliza and our James." 
 
 Few have had the temerity to charge Shake- 
 speare with aping the excellences of superior 
 wits. It was not necessary for that 
 
 " Soule of the Age " 
 
 to depend upon the invention or originality 
 of any other genius of his time ; 
 
 " Nature her selfe was proud of his designs, 
 And joy'd to weare the dressing of his lines ! " 
 
 Though Shakespeare, in common with all 
 great dramatic poets, has borrowed the foun- 
 dation material of his plays from history, fable, 
 classic lore, and romance, yet his power of 
 invention and his originality of genius are not 
 to be questioned. His invention is shown, 
 not in the creation of the figures of his plays, 
 
HISTORICAL BASIS OF ' RICHARD IIi: 67 
 
 but in the elevation and transformation of 
 them into poetic and dramatic characters. 
 This, to the philosophical mind of Ulrici, " is 
 proof of greater force and intensity of genius, 
 greater truth and depth of intellect, than if he 
 had himself invented the subject matter of his 
 dramas." 
 
 For the subject matter of the historical 
 tragedy of ' Richard III.,' Shakespeare was 
 indebted to several sources, — historical and 
 poetical. The principal sources were Holin- 
 shed, Grafton, Hall, Sir Thomas More, Mar- 
 lowe, ' The True Tragedy of Richard III.,' 
 and the * Mirour for Magistrates.' If, as Wal- 
 pole claims, the Shakespearian ' Richard ' is 
 not true to historical facts, then the blame of 
 it must lie at the door of the historian rather 
 than of the dramatist. It is beyond question, 
 that the world bases its conception of Richard's 
 character on Shakespeare's play, and that the 
 dramatist has done more than any other to 
 prejudice the world's opinion to the theory of 
 the unmitigated diabolism of this infamous 
 tyrant and usurper. But it will be found that 
 the historians approach Shakespeare in the 
 darkness of their representations ; they ap- 
 proach him as nearly as sober, dispassionate 
 history may approach impassioned drama. 
 
68 RICHARD THE THIRD, 
 
 The physical deformities of Richard, on 
 which the poet makes him frequently solilo- 
 quize, both in ^ Henry VI.' and ' Richard III.,' 
 are minutely described by the historians. 
 Several of the obscure or seemingly trifling 
 passages of the play are suggested by Holin- 
 shed and More, and they appear in the play 
 in almost the identical language of the histo- 
 rians. In illustration of these points reference 
 is now made to the corresponding passages 
 and descriptions found in the play, and the 
 historical authorities on which the drama is 
 based. 
 
 In the first soliloquy of Richard occur the 
 lines : — 
 
 " But I, — that am not shap'd for sportive tricks, 
 Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass ; 
 I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's maj- 
 esty, 
 To strut before a wanton ambling nymph ; 
 I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion, 
 Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, 
 Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time 
 Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, 
 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." 
 
HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD IW 69 
 
 After his wooing of Lady Anne he again 
 refers to his bodily deformity : — 
 
 • " And will she yet abase her eyes on me, 
 
 That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince, 
 And made her widow to a woful bed ? 
 On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety ? 
 On me, that halt, and am mis-shapen thus ? " 
 
 Lady Anne refers to Richard's physical 
 condition when she cries: — 
 
 " Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity." 
 
 Again, spitting upon him and wishing her 
 spittle were poison, she says : — 
 
 " Never hung poison on a fouler toad. 
 Out of my sight ! thou dost infect mine eyes." 
 
 Queen Margaret's bitter curse contained 
 the words : — 
 
 " Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog ! 
 Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity 
 The slave of nature, and the son of hell ! 
 Thou slander of thy mother's heavy womb I 
 Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins I 
 Thou rag of honour ! " 
 
 Again she cries : — 
 " Sin, death, and hell, have set their marks on him." 
 
 In the third part of ^ Henry VI.,' Gloster 
 soliloquizes : — 
 
70 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 " Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb ; 
 And, for I should not deal in her soft laws, 
 She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe 
 To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub ; 
 To make an envious mountain on my back, 
 Where sits deformity to mock my body ; 
 To shape my legs of an unequal size ; 
 To disproportion me in every part, 
 Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp, 
 That carries no impression like the dam." 
 
 In the eyes of King Henry, Gloster was 
 
 " an indigest deformed lump." 
 
 There seems to be no exaggeration of Rich- 
 ard's physical deformities in Shakespeare's 
 descriptions. The historian gives him no 
 better aspect than the dramatist./ The ' His- 
 tory of King Richard the Third/ written by 
 Master Thomas More about the year 15 13, 
 contains the following description of Richard, 
 in comparing him with his brothers Edward 
 and Clarence : — 
 
 " Richarde the third sonne, of whom we 
 nowe entreate, was in witte and courage egall 
 with either of them, in bodye and prowesse 
 farre under them bothe, little of stature, ill 
 fetured of limmes, croke backed, his left shoul- 
 der much higher than his right, hard favoured 
 of visage." 
 
HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD III: 71 
 
 Holinshed drew largely upon Sir Thomas 
 More and Grafton for his material. Shake- 
 speare obtained his information directly from 
 Holinshed rather than from More or Grafton. 
 From the second edition of Holinshed's 
 Chronicles, published in 1586, the following 
 description of Richard is transcribed : — 
 
 "As he was small and little of stature, so was 
 he of bodie greatlie deformed; the one shoulder 
 higher than the other; his face was small, but 
 his countenance cruell, and such, that at the 
 first aspect a man would judge it to savour and 
 smell of malice, fraud, and deceit. 
 
 " When he stood musing, he would bite and 
 chew busilie his nether lip ; as who said that 
 his fierce nature in his cruell bodie alwaies 
 chafed, stirred and was ever unquiet." 
 
 So much for Shakespeare's historical accu- 
 racy in his description of Richard's physical 
 defects. 
 
 When Shakespeare makes Richard say, — 
 
 " I am determined to prove a villain," 
 
 and in * Henry VI.' puts into his mouth the 
 terrible self-imprecation, — 
 
 " Then since the heavens have shap'd my body so, 
 Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it," 
 
72 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 then draws a picture of Richard which car- 
 ries out his determination into blackest deeds 
 of villany and most hellish crookedness of 
 mind, there is justification for it all in the 
 historic records. 
 
 Sir Thomas More represents Richard's 
 moral nature to be as deformed as his phys- 
 ical : — 
 
 " He was malicious, wrathfull, envious, and 
 from afore his birth ever f orwarde. , . . Hee was 
 close and secrete, a deepe dissimuler, lowlye of 
 counteynaunce, arrogant of heart, outwardly 
 coumpinable where he inwardly hated, not let- 
 ting to kisse whome hee thoughte to kyll : dis- 
 pitious and cruell, not for evill will alway, but 
 after for ambicion, and either for the suretie or 
 encrease of his estate. Frende and foo was 
 muche what indifferent, where his advauntage 
 grew, he spared no mans deathe, whose life 
 withstoode his purpose." 
 
 Holinshed wrote in the same strain : — 
 
 " Now when his death was knowne, few la- 
 mented, and manie rejoiced. The proud brag- 
 ging white bore (which was his badge) was 
 violentlie rased and plucked downe from everie 
 signe and place where it might be espied : so ill 
 was his life, that men wished the memorie of 
 him to be buried with his carren corps. He 
 
HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD III: 73 
 
 reigned two yeers, two moneths and one daie 
 (too long by six and twentie months, and foure 
 and twentie houres in most mens opinions, to 
 whome his name and presence was as sweet and 
 delectable, as his dooings princelie and his per- 
 son amiable). . . . The dagger which he ware, 
 he would (when he studied) with his hand plucke 
 up and downe in the sheath to the midst, never 
 drawing it fullie out : he was of a readie, preg- 
 nant, and quicke wit, wilie to feine, and apt to 
 dissemble : he had a proud mind, and an arro- 
 gant stomach, the which accompanied him even 
 to his death, rather choosing to suffer the same 
 by dint of sword, than being forsaken and left 
 helplesse of his unfaithfull companions, to pre- 
 serve by cowardlie flight such a fraile and un- 
 certaine life, which by malice, sicknesse, or 
 condigne punishment was like shortlie to come 
 to confusion. Thus ended this prince his mor- 
 tall life with infamie and dishonor, which never 
 preferred fame or honestie before ambition, 
 tyrannic and mischiefe." 
 
 In the above estimate of Richard's charac- 
 ter, Holinshed has quoted freely from Grafton, 
 an earlier chronicler. 
 
 It is singular that Malone should have been 
 of the opinion that Shakespeare was not in- 
 debted to ' The Mirour for Magistrates ' in 
 the composition of this tragedy. He says : 
 "The Legend of King Richard III., by 
 
74 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 Francis Seagars, was printed in the first edi- 
 tion of The Mirrour for Magistrates, 1559, 
 and in that of 1575 and 1587; but Shake- 
 speare does not appear to be indebted to it. 
 In a subsequent edition of that book printed 
 in 1 6 10 the old legend was omitted, and a 
 new one inserted by Richard Niccols, who 
 has very freely copied the play before us." 
 A perusal of the edition of * The Mirour for 
 Magistrates ' published in 1587, ten years 
 before Shakespeare's play was published, will 
 reveal almost as much material for a tragedy 
 of ' Richard III.' as may be found in More, 
 Grafton, or Holinshed. It is sufficient to 
 quote from the table of contents to show how 
 fully the reign of Richard III. is therein 
 treated. The work contains poems under 
 the following titles : — 
 
 " 60. How King Henry the Sixt, a vertuous 
 Prince, was after many other miseryes, cruelly 
 murdered in the Tower of London, the 22. of 
 May. Anno. 1471. 
 
 "61. How George Plantagenet, thyrd sonne 
 of the Duke of Yorke, was by his brother King 
 Edward wrongfully imprysoned, and by his 
 brother Richard miserably murdered, the 11. 
 of January. Anno 1478. 
 
 *'64. How the Lord Hastings was betrayed 
 by trusting too much to his evill Councellour 
 
HISTORICAL BASIS OF ' RICHARD III: 75 
 
 Catesby, and villanously murdered in the Towre 
 of London, by Richard Duke of Glocester, the 
 13. of June. Anno 1483. 
 
 " 66. The complaynt of Henry Stafford, Duke 
 of Buckingham. 
 
 ^'■6'j. How Collingbourne was cruelly exe- 
 cuted for making a foolish rime. 
 
 "68. How Richard Plantagenet Duke of 
 Glocester, murdered his brothers children, 
 usurping the Crowne : and in the 3. yeare of 
 his raigne, was most worthely deprived of life 
 and Kingdome in Basworth plaine, by Henry 
 Earle of Richmond, after called King Henry 
 the Seaventh : the 22. of August. 1485. 
 
 " 73. How Shores wife. King Edward the 
 fourths concubine, was by King Richard de- 
 spoyled of all her goods, and forced to doe open 
 penaunce." 
 
 Here would seem to be a rich field of 
 resources for the dramatist, as all the per- 
 sons figuring in the poems mentioned above 
 are to be found in Shakespeare's tragedy of 
 'Richard HI.' 
 
 In these poems the same character is given 
 to Richard that may be found in More, 
 Grafton, Holinshead, and Shakespeare. 
 
 In the poem on Lord Rivers occur the 
 lines : — 
 
 " The Duke of Glocester that incarnate devill 
 Confedred with the Duke of Buckingham, 
 
76 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 With eke Lord Hastings, hasty both to evill 
 To meete the King in mourning habit came, 
 (A cruell Wolfe though clothed like a Lambe.) " 
 
 In the poem on ' The complaynt of Henry 
 Stafford, Duke of Buckingham/ that con- 
 spirator is made to say : — 
 
 " For having rule and riches in our hand 
 Who durst gaynesay the thing that wee averd ? 
 Will was wisedome, our lust for law did stand. 
 In sort so straunge, that who was not afeard. 
 When hee the sounde but of King Richard heard ? 
 So hatefull waxt the hearing of his name, 
 That you may deeme the residue of the same. 
 
 So cruell seemde this Richard third to mee, 
 That loe myselfe now loathde his cruelty." 
 
 The poem on ' Richard Plantagenet, Duke 
 of Glocester/ is prefaced with the remark of 
 the supposititious story-teller : — 
 
 " I have here King Richards tragedy. . . . 
 For the better understanding whereof, imagine 
 that you see him tormented with Dives in the 
 deepe pit of Hell, and thence howHng this 
 which followeth. 
 
 ' What heart so hard, but doth abhorre to heare 
 The ruf ull raigne of me the third Richard ? ' " etc. 
 
 The poem represents Richard as confess- 
 ing his cruelties; acknowledging that he 
 
HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD Hi: 77 
 
 "right did not regard," that in him *' trust 
 turned to treason," and 
 
 *' Desire of a Kingdom forgetteth all kindred." 
 
 He says : — 
 
 " For right through might I cruelly defaced." 
 
 His crimes, he admits, brought the curses 
 of men and God upon him, — 
 
 " For which I was abhorred both of yong and olde, 
 But as the deede was odious in sight of God and 
 
 man, 
 So shame and destruction in the end I wan." 
 
 At the close of the poem the reader of it 
 is made to say : — 
 
 " When I had read this, we had much talke 
 about it. For it was thought not vehement 
 enough for so violent a man as King Richard 
 had been." 
 
 In defending the uncertain and broken 
 metre of the poem, the reader says : — 
 
 " It is not meete that so disorderly and un- 
 naturall a man as King Richard was, should 
 observe any metricall order in his talke : which 
 notwithstanding in many places of his oration 
 is very well kepte : it shall passe therefore even 
 as it is though too good for so evill a person." 
 
78 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 /Thus, in all these old authors, the villa- 
 nous, diabolical character of Richard is set 
 forth with most vigorous language. 
 
 Shakespeare seems completely justified in 
 painting his dramatic portrait with the darkest 
 colors, and on the authority of the historians 
 he holds, "as 't were, the mirrour up to 
 nature." 
 
 History justifies the bitter warning of Queen 
 Margaret : -— 
 
 " O Buckingham, beware of yonder dog ; 
 Look, when he fawns, he bites ; and when he bites. 
 His venom tooth will rankle to the death : 
 Have not to do with him, beware of him ; 
 Sin, death, and hell, have set their marks on him; 
 And all their ministers attend on him." 
 
 Richard's mother, the Duchess of York, was 
 historically justified in heaping upon the head 
 of her cruel son the following accusations : — 
 
 *' thou know'st it well, 
 
 Thou cam'st on earth to make the earth my hell. 
 A grievous burden was thy birth to me ; 
 Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy ; 
 Thy school-days frightful, desperate, wild and 
 
 furious ; 
 Thy prime of manhood, daring, bold, and venturous ; 
 Thy age confirm'd, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody, 
 More mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred : 
 What comfortable hour canst thou name, 
 That ever grac'd me in thy company ? " 
 
HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD Hi: 79 
 
 The very conscience of Richard, as Shake- 
 speare represents it, accords with tlie verdict 
 of history : — 
 
 " My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, 
 And every tongue brings in a several tale, 
 And every tale condemns me for a villain. 
 Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree ; 
 Murder, stern murder, in the dir'st degree ; 
 All several sins, all us'd in each degree. 
 Throng to the bar, crying all, — Guilty! guilty!" 
 
 Richmond's estimate of Richard is that of 
 history : — 
 
 " A bloody tyrant, and a homicide ; 
 One rais'd in blood, and one in blood establish'd ; 
 One that made means to come by what he hath. 
 And slaughter'd those that were the means to 
 
 help him ; 
 A base foul stone, made precious by the foil 
 Of England's chair, where he is falsely set ; 
 One that hath ever been God's enemy." 
 
 It must appear conclusive that Shakespeare 
 did not depart from history in depicting the 
 character of Richard III., but that in the 
 darkest, most diabolical aspect of it he was 
 supported by truth and fact. 
 
 It is interesting to trace to their sources 
 the obscure references and seemingly far- 
 fetched incidents which appear quite fre- 
 
8o RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 quently in Shakespeare's lines, and have an 
 historical basis. 
 
 In Richard's first soliloquy .reference is 
 made to a certain prophecy : — 
 
 " 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 
 About a prophecy, which says — that G 
 Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be. 
 Dive, thoughts, down to my soul ! here Clarence 
 comes. 
 
 {Enter CLARENCE, guarded, with Brakenbury.) 
 
 Brother, good day : What means this armed guard, 
 That waits upon your grace ? 
 
 Clar. His majesty. 
 
 Tendering my person's safety, hath appointed 
 This conduct to convey me to the Tower. 
 
 Glos. Upon what cause ? 
 
 Clar. Because my name is — George. 
 
 Glos. Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours ; 
 He should, for that, commit your godfathers : — 
 O, belike, his majesty hath some intent, 
 That you shall be new christen'd in the Tower. 
 But what 's the matter, Clarence ? may I know .'' 
 
 Clar. Yea, Richard, when I know ; for, I protest, 
 As yet I do not : But, as I can learn, 
 He hearkens after prophecies, and dreams ; 
 And from the cross-row plucks the letter G, 
 And says — a wizard told him, that by G 
 His issue disinherited should be ; 
 And, for my name of George begins with G, 
 It follows in his thought, that I am he. 
 
HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD III: 8 1 
 
 These, as I learn, and such like toys as these. 
 Have mov'd his highness to commit me now." 
 
 In ' The Mirour for Magistrates ' may be 
 found these lines, put mto the mouth of the 
 Duke of Clarence : — 
 
 " For by his Qvieene two Princelyke sonnes he had, 
 Borne to be punisht for their parents synne : 
 Whose Fortunes balked made the father sad, 
 Such wofull haps were found to be therein : 
 Which to avouch, writ in a rotten skin 
 A prophesie was found, which sayd a G, 
 Of Edwards children should destruction bee. 
 
 " Mee to bee G, because my name was George 
 My brother thought, and therefore did mee hate. 
 But woe be to the wicked heads that forge 
 Such doubtfull dreames to breede unkinde debate : 
 For God, a Gleve, a Gibbet, Grate, or Gate, 
 A Gray, a Griffeth, or a Gregory, 
 As well as George are written with a G." 
 
 In the poem on Lord Rivers, in the same 
 book, reference is made to this prophecy, but 
 with a different interpretation. 
 
 " Sir Thomas Vaughan chafing cryed still : 
 This tyrant Glocester is the gracelesse G 
 That will his brothers children beastly kyll." 
 
 Holinshed mentions this prophecy in his 
 ' Life of Edward IV. : ' — 
 
 " Some have reported, that the cause of this 
 noble mans death rose of a foolish prophesie, 
 
 6 
 
82 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 which was, that after K. Edward one should 
 reigne, whose first letter of his name should be 
 a G. Wherewith the king and queene were 
 sore troubled, and began to conceive a greevous 
 grudge against the duke and could not be in 
 quiet till they had brought him to his end. And 
 as the divell is woont to incumber the minds 
 of men which delite in such divehsh fantasies, 
 they said afterward, that that prophesie lost not 
 his effect, when after king Edward, Glocester 
 usurped his kingdome." 
 
 In the remarkable dialogue of the wooing 
 scene between Lady Anne and Gloster, point- 
 ing to the corpse of Henry VI., Anne cries : 
 
 "O, gentlemen, see, see ! dead Henry's wounds 
 Open their congeal'd mouths, and bleed afresh ! 
 Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity ; 
 For 't is thy presence that exhales this blood 
 From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells ; 
 Thy deed, inhuman and unnatural, 
 Provokes this deluge most unnatural." 
 
 This incident in the drama is based not 
 only on the superstition that it was supposed 
 the wounds of the victim bled afresh at the 
 approach of the murderer, but also upon this 
 record found in Holinshed's Chronicle : — 
 
 "The dead corps on the Ascension even was 
 conveied with billes and glaves pompouslie (if 
 you will call that a funerall pompe) from the 
 
HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD III.' St, 
 
 Tower to the church of saint Paule, and there 
 laid on a beire or coffen barefaced, the same in 
 presence of the beholders did bleed ; where it 
 rested the space of one whole dale. From 
 thence he was caried to the Black-friers, and 
 bled there likewise : and on the next daie after, 
 it was conveied in a boat, without priest or 
 Gierke, torch or taper, singing or saieng, unto 
 the monasterie of Chertsie, distant from London 
 fifteene miles, and there was it first buried." 
 
 In Act II. Scene 3, a citizen is made to 
 cry,— 
 
 *' Woe to that land that 's govern'd by a child ! " 
 
 Sir Thomas More records these words in 
 the oration of the Duke of Buckingham in the 
 "yeld hall in London." Buckingham is ha- 
 ranguing the people in the interest of Richard, 
 and dwelling upon his merits for the Jiigh 
 office which he seeks, — 
 
 " Which roume I warne you well is no childes 
 office. And that the greate wise manne well per- 
 ceived. When hee sayde : Veh regno citjus rex 
 puer est. Woe is that Realme, that hathe a 
 chylde to theyre Kynge." 
 
 Reference is here made to Ecclesiastes 
 X. 16 : — 
 
 "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a 
 child." 
 
84 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 Shakespeare, however, must have found 
 this thought in More's ' Life of Richard III.,' 
 or in Hohnshed, who has transcribed the 
 same oration from More or Hall into his own 
 * Life of Edward V.' 
 
 At a council held in the Tower (Act IIL 
 Scene 4) there are present Buckingham, Stan- 
 ley, Hastings, the Bishop of Ely, Catesby, 
 Lovel, Gloster, and others. For some un- 
 known reason Gloster sends the Bishop of 
 Ely from the Council on a very singular er- 
 rand in these words : — 
 
 " Glos. My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn, 
 I saw good strawberries in your garden there ; 
 I do beseech you send for some of them. 
 
 Ely. Marry, and will, my lord, with all my heart." 
 
 The Bishop retires, and after a short time 
 re-enters with, — 
 
 " Where is my lord protector ? I have sent for 
 these strawberries." 
 
 There seems to be very little, if any, sense 
 in this strawberry incident, yet it was not 
 invented by Shakespeare. It occurs in More 
 and Holinshed in the following language : — 
 
 "These lordes so syting togyther comoning 
 of thys matter, the protectour came in among 
 them, fyrst aboute IX. of the clock, saluting 
 
HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD Hi: 85 
 
 them curtesly, and excusying himself that he 
 had ben from them so long, saieng merely that 
 he had bene a slepe that day. And after a little 
 talking with them, he sayd unto the Bishop of 
 Elye : My lord, you have very good strawberies 
 at your gardayne in Holberne, I require you 
 let us have a messe of them. Gladly my lord 
 quod he, woulde god I had some better thing 
 as redy to your pleasure as that. And ther- 
 with in al the hast he sent hys servant for a 
 messe of strawberies." 
 
 Gloster withdraws from the Council for 
 about an hour and returns. As he re-enters 
 the Council with Buckingham the following 
 dialogue takes place : — 
 
 " Glos. I pray you all, tell me what they deserve, 
 That do conspire my death with devilish plots 
 Of damned witchcraft ; and that have prevail'd 
 Upon my body with their hellish charms ? 
 
 Hast. The tender love I bear your grace, my lord, 
 Makes me most forward in this noble presence 
 To doom the offenders : Whosoe'er they be, 
 I say, my lord, they have deserved death. 
 
 Glos, Then be your eyes the witness of their evil, 
 Look how I am bewitch'd ; behold mine arm 
 Is like a blasted sapling, wither'd up : 
 And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch. 
 Consorted with that harlot, strumpet Shore, 
 That by their witchcraft thus have marked me. 
 
 Hast. If they have done this deed, my noble lord, — 
 
 Glos. If ! Thou protector of this damned strumpet, 
 Talk'st thou to me of ifs .? — Thou art a traitor : — 
 
86 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 Off with his head : — now, by Saint Paul I swear, 
 I will not dine until I see the same. — 
 Love], and Catesby, look, that it be done ; 
 The rest that love me, rise, and follow me/' 
 
 The original version of this incident as 
 given by More, and transcribed into the 
 Chronicles of Hall and Holinshed has been 
 very closely followed by Shakespeare, as will 
 appear by the following, taken from More's 
 ' Life of Richard III. :' — 
 
 " The protectour sette the lordes fast in com- 
 oning, and therupon praying them to spare hym 
 for a little while, departed thence. And sone 
 after one hower betwene X. and XI. he returned 
 into the chamber among them, al changed with a 
 wonderful soure angrye countenaunce, knitting 
 the browes, frowning and froting and knawingon 
 hys lippes, and so sat him downe, in hys place : 
 al the lordes much dismaied and sore merveil- 
 ing of this maner of sodain chaunge, and what 
 thing should him aile. Then when he had 
 sitten still a while, thus he began : What were 
 they worthy to have, that compasse and ymagine 
 the distruccion of me, being so nere of blood 
 unto the king and protectour of his riall person 
 and his realme. At this question, al the lordes 
 sat sore astonied, musyng much by whome thys 
 question should be ment, of which every man 
 wyst himself e clere. Then the lord chamberlen, 
 as he that for the love betwene them thoughte 
 
HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD IIi: Sj 
 
 he might be boldest with him, aunswered and 
 sayd, that thai wer worthy to bee punished as 
 heighnous traitors whatsoever they were. And 
 al the other affirmed the same. . . . Then said 
 the protectour : ye shal al se in what wise that 
 sorceres and that other witch of her coun- 
 sel Shoris wife with their affynite, have by 
 their sorcery and witchcraft wasted my body. 
 And therwith he plucked up hys doublet sieve 
 to his elbow upon his left arme, where he 
 shewed a werish withered arme and small, 
 as it was never other. And therupon every 
 mannes mind sore misgave them, well per- 
 ceiving that this matter was but a quarel. . . . 
 Netheles the lorde Chamberlen aunswered and 
 sayd: certainly my lorde if they have so hei- 
 nously done, thei be worthy heinouse punish- 
 ment. What quod the protectour thou servest 
 me I wene with iffes and with andes, I tel the 
 thei have so done, and that I will make good 
 on thy body traitour. And therwith as in a 
 great anger, he clapped his fist upon the borde 
 a great rappe. At which token given, one cried 
 treason without the chambre. . . . And anon 
 the protectour sayd to the lorde Hastings: I 
 arest the traitour. What me my Lorde quod he. 
 Yea the traitour, quod the protectour. . . . 
 Then were they al quickly bestowed in divers 
 chambres, except the lorde Chamberlen, whom 
 the protectour bade spede and shryve hym a 
 pace, for by saynt Poule (quod he) I wil not to 
 dinner til I se thy hed of." 
 
SS RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 In Act III. Scene 2, the following dialogue 
 occurs : — 
 
 ^^ Hast. Cannot thy master sleep these tedious 
 nights ? 
 
 Mess. So it should seem by that I have to say. 
 First, he commends him to your noble lordship. 
 
 Hast. And then, — 
 
 Mess. And then he sends you word, he dreamt 
 To-night the boar had rased off his helm." 
 
 In the fourth scene Hastings is made to 
 say : — 
 
 " Woe, woe, for England ! not a whit for me ; 
 For I, too fond, might have prevented this : 
 Stanley did dream, the boar did rase his helm ; 
 But I disdain'd it, and did scorn to fly. 
 Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble, 
 And startled, when he look'd upon the Tower, 
 As loath to bear me to the slaughter-house." 
 
 More and Holinshed are Shakespeare's au- 
 thorities for the subject matter of the above- 
 mentioned incidents. 
 
 More writes : - — 
 
 "A marveilouse case is it to here, either the 
 warnings of that he shoulde have voided, or 
 the tokens of that he could not voide. For 
 the self night next before his death, the lord 
 Stanley sent a trustie secret messenger unto 
 him at midnight in al the hast, requiring hym to 
 rise and ryde away with hym, for he was dis- 
 
HISTORICAL BASIS OP 'RICHARD Hi: 89 
 
 posed utterly no longer to bide : he had so fereful 
 a dreme, in which him thoughte that a bore with 
 his tuskes so raced them both bi the heddes, 
 that the blood ranne aboute both their shoul- 
 ders. And forasmuch as the protector gave 
 the bore for his cognisaunce, this dreme made so 
 fereful an impression in his hart, that he was 
 thoroughly determined no longer to tary, but 
 had his horse redy, if the lord Hastinges wold 
 go with him to ride so far yet the same night, 
 that thei shold be out of danger ere dai . . . 
 
 " Certain it is also, that in the riding toward 
 the tower, the same morning in which he was be- 
 hedded, his horse twise or thrise stumbled with 
 him almost to the falling, which thing albeit 
 ache man wote wel daily happeneth to them to 
 whom no such mischaunce is toward : yet hath 
 it ben of an olde rite and custome, observed as a 
 token often times notably foregoing some great 
 misfortune." 
 
 Holinshed follows More word for word in 
 recording the above incidents. 
 
 Gloster urges Buckingham to appear before 
 the people to shake their confidence in the 
 legitimacy of Edward and Clarence (Act III. 
 Scene 5) : — 
 
 " Glos. Go, after, after, cousin Buckingham. 
 The mayor towards Guildhall hies him in all post : — 
 There, at your meetest vantage of the time, 
 Infer the bastardy of Edward's children: 
 
90 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 Buck. Doubt not my lord ; I '11 play the orator, 
 As if the golden fee, for which I plead, 
 Were for myself : and so, my lord, adieu. 
 
 Glos. If you thrive well, bring them to Baynard's 
 castle ; 
 "Where you shall find me well accompanied. 
 With reverend fathers, and well-learned bishops." 
 
 They meet again in the court of Baynard's 
 castle (Act III. Scene 7) : — 
 
 *' Glos. How now, how now ? What say the citizens ? 
 
 Buck. Now by the holy mother of our Lord, 
 The citizens are mum, say not a word. 
 
 Glos. Touch'd you the bastardy of Edward's chil- 
 dren ? 
 
 Buck. I did ; . . . 
 
 I bade them that did love their country's good, 
 Cry — God save Richard, England's royal king ! 
 
 Glos. And did they so ? 
 
 Buck. No, so God help me, they spake not a word ; 
 But, like dumb statuas, or breathing stones, 
 Star'd on each other, and look'd deadly pale. 
 Which when I saw, I reprehended them ; 
 And ask'd the mayor, what meant this wilful silence ; 
 His answer was, — the people were not us'd 
 To be spoke to, but by the recorder. 
 Then he was urg'd to tell my tale again ; — 
 Thus saith the duke, thus hath the duke infei'red ; 
 But nothing spoke in warrant from himself. 
 When he had done, some followers of mine own, 
 At lower end o' the hall, hurl'd up their caps. 
 And some ten voices cried, God save king Richard! 
 And thus I took the vantage of those few, — 
 
HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD III: 91 
 
 Thanks, gentle citizens, and friends, quoth I ; 
 This general applause, and cheerful shotct 
 Argues your wisdom, and your love to Richard: 
 And even here brake off, and came away." 
 
 Sir Thomas More gives in full Bucking- 
 ham's oration, which was historically spoken 
 for the very purpose indicated by Shakespeare 
 in the drama. More has also left on record 
 the effect of the oration on the people : — 
 
 " When the duke had saied, and looked that 
 the people whome he hoped that the Mayor had 
 framed before, shoulde after this proposicion 
 made, have cried, king Richarde, king Rich- 
 arde : all was husht and mute, and not one 
 word aunswered thereunto. . . . And by and by 
 somewhat louder, he rehersed them the same 
 matter againe in other order and other wordes. 
 . . . But were it for wonder or feare, or that 
 eche looked that other shoulde speake fyrste : 
 not one woorde was there aunswered of all the 
 people that stode before, but al was as styl as 
 the midnight, . . . when the Mayor saw thys 
 he wyth other pertners of that counsayle, drew 
 aboute the duke and sayed that the people had 
 not ben accustomed there to be spoken unto 
 but by the recorder. ... At these wordes the 
 people began to whisper among themselves 
 secretly, that the voyce was neyther loude nor 
 distincke, but as it were the sounde of a swarme 
 of bees, tyl at the last in the nether ende of the 
 
92 RICHARD THE THIRD, , 
 
 hal, a bushement of the dukes servants and 
 Nashef eldes and other longing to the protectour, 
 with some prentises and Jaddes that thrust into 
 the hal amonge the prese, began sodainely at 
 mennes backes to crye owte as lowde as their 
 throtes would gyve : king Richarde kinge Rich- 
 arde, and threwe up their cappes in token of joye. 
 And they that stode before, cast back theyr 
 heddes mervaileling thereof, but nothing they 
 sayd. And when the duke and the Maier saw 
 thys maner, they wysely turned it to theyr pur- 
 pose. And said it was a goodly cry and a joyfull 
 to here, every man with one voice no manne 
 sayeng nay." 
 
 In this matter Holinshed transcribes literally 
 from Sir Thomas More. 
 
 When, in Act IV. Scene 2, Richard pro- 
 poses to Buckingham to make way with Ed- 
 ward, the Duke hesitates, and asks for time 
 to consider the matter. This angers Richard, 
 who descended from his throne, gnawing his 
 lip and muttering : — 
 
 " K. Rich. I will converse with iron-witted fools, 
 And unrespective boys ; none are for me, 
 That look unto me with considerate eyes ; — 
 High reaching Buckingham grows circumspect. — 
 Boy, 
 
 Page. My lord. 
 
 K. Rich. Know'st thou not any whom corrupting 
 gold 
 Would tempt unto a close exploit of death ? 
 
HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD III.' 93 
 
 Page. I know a discontented gentleman, 
 Whose humble means match not his haughty mind : 
 Gold were as good as twenty orators, 
 And will, no doubt, tempt him to anything. 
 
 K. Rich. What is his name ? 
 
 Page. His name, my lord, is Tyrrel. 
 
 K. Rich. I partly know the man : Go, call him 
 hither, boy." 
 
 The page brings Tyrrel into the presence 
 of Richard, who engages him to make way 
 
 with 
 
 "... those bastards in the Tower." 
 
 This incident is based upon, but is a slight 
 modification of, the historical record to be 
 found in Holinshed and More. It appears 
 that Richard sent one John Grene with a 
 letter to Sir Robert Brakenbury, constable 
 of the Tower, requesting him to put the 
 princes to death. Brakenbury refused to 
 commit the murder. Grene returned with 
 the refusal to Richard, — 
 
 "wherwith he toke such displeasure and 
 thought, that the same night, he said unto a 
 secrete page of his : Ah whome shall a man 
 trust? those that I have broughte up myself e, 
 those that I had went would most surely serve 
 me, even those fayle me, and at my commannde- 
 mente wyll do nothyng for me. Sir quod his 
 page there lyeth one on your paylet without, 
 
94 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 that I dare well say to do your grace pleasure, 
 the thyng were right harde that he wold refuse, 
 meaning this by sir James Tyrell, which was 
 a man of right goodlye personage, and for 
 natures gyftes, woorthy to have served a muche 
 better prince, if he had well served god, and 
 by grace obtayned as muche trouthe and good 
 wil as he had strength and witte. . . . For upon 
 this pages wordes king Richard arose, and 
 came out into the pallet chamber, on which he 
 found in bed sir James and sir Thomas Tyrels, 
 of parson like and brethren of blood, but noth- 
 ing of kin in condicion. Then said the king 
 merely to them : What ? sirs, be ye in bed so 
 soone, and calling up syr James, brake to him 
 secretely his mind in this mischievous matter. 
 In whiche he founde him nothing strange," etc. 
 
 In Act IV. Scene 4, Margaret speaks of 
 Richard as 
 
 " That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes, 
 To worry lambs, and lap their gentle blood." 
 
 And the Duchess of York, addressing Rich- 
 ard, says : — 
 
 " A grievous burden was thy birth to me." 
 
 In 'Henry VL' the King addresses Gloster 
 with the reproachful words : — 
 
 " Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain, 
 And yet brought forth less than a mother's hope ; 
 
HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD Hi: 95 
 
 Teeth had'st thou in thy head, when thou wast born, 
 To signify, — thou cam'st to bite the world." 
 
 After stabbing the King, Gloster solilo- 
 quizes : — 
 
 "Indeed, 't is true, that Henry told me of; 
 For I have often heard my mother say, 
 I came into the world with my legs forward ; 
 
 The midwife wonder'd ; and the women cried, 
 O, Jes2is bless us, he is born ivith teeth I " 
 
 More and Holinshed give the historical ba- 
 sis for these incidents of the birth of Richard 
 referred to in Shakespeare's drama : — 
 
 "It is for trouth reported, that the Duches 
 his mother had so muche a doe in her travaile, 
 that shee coulde not bee delivered of hym un- 
 cutte : and that hee came into the worlde with 
 the feete forwarde, as menne bee borne out- 
 warde, and (as the fame runneth) also not 
 untothed." 
 
 In Act IV. Scene 4, Richard entreats 
 Queen Elizabeth to plead his suit with her 
 daughter. 
 
 «^. Rich. Then in plain terms tell her my loving 
 
 tale. 
 Q. Eliz. Plain and not honest, is too harsh a style. 
 K, Rich. Your reasons are too shallow and too 
 
 quick. 
 
.g6 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 Q. Eliz. O, no, my reasons are too deep and 
 
 dead ; — 
 Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves. 
 K. Rich. Harp not on that string, madam ; that is 
 
 past. 
 Q. Eliz. Harp on it still shall I, till heart-strings 
 
 break." 
 
 As the figure " Harp not on that string " 
 occurs in More's ' Life of Richard III.,' it is 
 reasonable to suppose, though it had long 
 7^*^' been a common expression, that Shakespeare 
 
 borrowed it from More or from Holinshed, 
 though he uses it in a different connection 
 and puts it into the mouth of a different 
 person. 
 
 The Lord Cardinal engages in a discussion 
 with Queen Elizabeth on the use and abuse 
 of sanctuary, in which Lord Howard joins. 
 The latter by an indiscreet remark brings a 
 mild rebuke upon himself. Sir-Thomas More 
 writes : — 
 
 " The Cardinall made a countinance to the 
 other Lord, that he should harp no more upon 
 that string." 
 
 In the histories these words are spoken in 
 the presence of Elizabeth, but are addressed 
 by the Cardinal to Lord Howard ; in the 
 drama they are addressed to Elizabeth by 
 
HISTORICAL BASIS OP 'RICHARD HI.' 97 
 
 Richard. It is very probable that Shake- 
 speare found the suggestion in the history. 
 
 On the eve of the day of battle Richard, 
 having made arrangements for the conflict, 
 proceeds to his tent with, — 
 
 " So, I am satisfied. Give me a bowl of wine : 
 I have not that alacrity of spirit, 
 Nor cheer of mind, that I was wont to have." 
 
 This corresponds with the historical record 
 as found in Holinshed : — 
 
 " His heart being almost damped, he prog- 
 nosticated before the doubtfull chance of the 
 battell to come ; not using the alacritie and 
 mirth of mind and countenance as he was ac- 
 customed to doo before he came toward the 
 battell." 
 
 The ghost scenes and the troubled dreams 
 of Richard on the eve of battle, so vividly 
 represented by the masterly pen of Shake- 
 speare, were not purely imaginary and created 
 for dramatic effect ; they were based on his- 
 tory or tradition, and belonged to the life and 
 experience of Richard. 
 
 No less than eleven ghosts rise to predict 
 disaster for Richard in the approaching battle ; 
 they are the ghosts of his murdered victims, 
 
 7 
 
98 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 and their appearance fills him with terror. 
 As they vanish he starts firom his dream, 
 with, — 
 
 *' Give me another horse, — bind up my wounds, — 
 Have mercy, Jesu ! — Soft ; I did but dream, 
 
 coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me ! 
 The lights burn blue. — It is now dead midnight. 
 Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh. 
 What do I fear ? Myself ? there 's none else by : 
 Richard loves Richard ; that is, I am I. 
 
 Is there a murderer here ? No ; — Yes ; I am : 
 Then fly, — What, from myself ? Great reason : 
 
 Why? 
 Lest I revenge. What ? Myself on myself ? 
 Alack ! I love myself. Wherefore ? for any good, 
 That I myself have done unto myself ? 
 O, no : alas, I rather hate myself, 
 For hateful deeds committed by myself. 
 
 1 am a villain : Yet I lie, I am not. 
 
 Fool, of thyself speak well : — Fool, do not flatter. 
 My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, 
 And every tongue brings in a several tale. 
 And every tale condemns me for a villain. 
 Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree; 
 Murder, stern murder, in the dir'st degree ; 
 All several sins, all us'd in each degree, — 
 Throng to the bar, crying all, — Guilty ! guilty ! 
 I shall despair. — There is no creature loves me ; 
 And, if I die, no soul will pity me ; — 
 Nay, wherefore should they .'* since that I myself 
 Find in myself no pity to myself. 
 Methought, the souls of all that I had murder'd 
 Came to my tent : and every one did threat 
 To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard." 
 
HISTORICAL BASIS OP 'RICHARD III." 99 
 
 On the morning of the fatal day, Ratcliff 
 enters Richard's tent, when the trembling 
 King says : — 
 
 ** O Ratcliff, I have dream'd a fearful dream ! — 
 What thinkest thou ? Will our friends prove all true ? 
 
 Rat. No doubt, my lord. 
 
 K. Rich. Ratcliff, I fear, I fear, — 
 
 Rat. Nay, good my lord, be not afraid of shadows. 
 
 K. Rich. By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night 
 Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard, 
 Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers. 
 Armed in proof, and led by shallow Richmond." 
 
 The historical basis for such dramatic rep- 
 resentation as the above may be found in the 
 following passages from More, Grafton, and 
 Hohnshed. More says : — 
 
 " I have heard by credible report of such 
 as war secrete with his chamberers, that after 
 this abbominable deede done, he never hadde 
 quiet in his minde, hee never thought himself 
 sure. Where he went abrode, his eyen whirled 
 about, his body privily fenced, his hand ever on 
 his dager, his countenance and maner like one 
 alway ready to strike againe, he toke ill rest a 
 nightes, lay long wakyng and musing, sore weried 
 with care and watch, rather slumbered than slept, 
 troubled wyth feareful dreames, sodainly somme 
 tyme sterte up, leape out of his bed and runne 
 about the chamber, so was his restles herte 
 continually tossed and tumbled with the tedious 
 
100 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 impression and stormy remembrance of his 
 abominable dede." 
 
 Holinshed moralizes on the disturbed con- 
 dition of Richard's mind : — 
 
 " Than the which there can be no greater 
 torment. For a giltie conscience inwardlie ac- 
 cusing and bearing witnesse against an offender, 
 is such a plague and punishment, as hell itself 
 (with all the feends therein) can not affoord one 
 of greater horror and affliction." 
 
 In Grafton's Chronicles it is written : — 
 
 " In the meane season, Kyng Richarde . . . 
 marched to a place meete for two battayles to 
 encounter by a Village called Bosworth, not 
 farre from Leycester, and there he pitched hys 
 fielde, refreshed hys souldyours and toke his 
 rest. The fame went that he had the same 
 night a dreadfull and a terrible dreame, for it 
 seemed to him beyng a sleepe that he sawe 
 dyvers ymages like terrible Devils which pulled 
 and haled him, not suffering him to take any 
 quiet or rest. The which straunge vision not 
 so sodainly strake his hart with a sodaine feare, 
 but it stuffed his head and troubled his minde 
 with many dreadfull and busie imaginations. 
 . . . And least that it might be suspected that 
 he was abashed for feare of his enemies, and for 
 that cause looked so pitteously, he recyted and 
 declared to his familiar friends in the morning 
 
HISTORICAL BASIS OP 'RICHARD Hi: lOl 
 
 his wonderful vision and terrible dreame. But 
 I think this was no dreame, but a punction and 
 prick of his sinnefull conscience, for the con- 
 science is so much more charged and aggravate 
 as the offence is greater and more heynous in 
 degree." 
 
 Holinshed adds to Grafton's words his own 
 moralizing : — 
 
 " So that king Richard, by this reckoning, 
 must needs have a woonderfull troubled mind, 
 because the deeds that he had doone, as they 
 were heinous and unnaturall, so did they excite 
 and stirre up extraordinarie motions of trouble 
 and vexations in his conscience." 
 
 Now, if the Primrose Criticism would laugh 
 ^yhen ghosts rise before the tent of Richard, 
 let it laugh at Sir Thomas More, Grafton, Hol- 
 inshed, tradition, and history; not at Shake- 
 speare, who merely dramatized the incident. 
 
 The orations of Richard and Richmond 
 on the field of battle Shakespeare has con- 
 densed from Grafton's and Holinshed's 
 Chronicles, where they appear in full. The 
 dramatist has preserved the ideas expressed, 
 and, in many cases, the language and figures 
 used by the historians. So closely do the 
 speeches of Richard and Richmond, as they 
 appear in Shakespeare, follow those found in 
 
I02 RICHARD THE THIRD, 
 
 Holinshed, that they would be considered 
 plagiarisms if put into the mouths of other 
 persons. 
 
 In the historic oration Richard speaks of 
 the "beggarly Britons" and "faynt harted 
 Frenchmen " who come against them. In 
 the play he calls them 
 
 " A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways, 
 A scum of Bretagnes and base lackey peasants ; " 
 
 and he cries : — 
 
 " Let 's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again ; 
 Lash hence these over-weening rags of France ; 
 These famished beggars weary of their lives." 
 
 In speaking of Richmond, in the historic 
 oration, he says : — 
 
 "And to begin with the erle of Richmond, 
 capteine of this rebellion, he is a Welsh milke- 
 sop, a man of small courage, and of lesse ex- 
 perience in martiall acts and feats of warre, 
 brought up by my moothers meanes and mine, 
 like a captive in a close cage in the court of 
 Franncis duke of Britagne ; and never saw ar- 
 mie," etc. (Holinshed.) 
 
 In the dramatic oration Richard says : — 
 
 " And who doth lead them, but a paltry fellow. 
 Long kept in Bretagne at our mother's cost "i 
 
HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD Hi: 103 
 
 A milk-sop, one that never in his life 
 Felt so much cold as overshoes in snow ? " 
 
 Richmond says, in his historic oration : — 
 
 " I doubt not but God wil rather aide us (ye 
 and fight for us). . . . Ourcauseis so justthatno 
 enterprise can be of more vertue, both by the 
 lawes divine and civile." (Grafton.) 
 
 In the play he says : — 
 
 " God, and our good cause, fight upon our side.'* 
 
 Again, the Chronicles put these words into 
 Richmond's mouth : — 
 
 " What can be more honest, goodly, or godly 
 quarrell than to fight against a Captayne, being 
 an homicide, and a murderer of his owne blood, 
 and progenie? 
 
 "Who will spare yonder tirant, Richard Duke 
 of Glocester untruly calling himself king, con- 
 sidering that he hath violated, and broken both 
 the lawe of God and man, what vertue is in 
 him, which was the confusion of his brother, 
 and murtherer of his Nephewes?" 
 
 In the play Richmond says : — 
 
 " For what is he they follow ? truly, gentlemen, 
 A bloody tyrant, and a homicide ; 
 One rais'd in blood, and one in blood establish'd ; 
 One that made means to come by what he hath, 
 
104 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 And slaughter'd those that were the means to help 
 
 him ; 
 A base foul stone, made precious by the foil 
 Of England's chair, where he is falsely set ; 
 One that hath ever been God's enemy : " etc. 
 
 This interesting comparison of the speeches 
 of the play with the speeches of the chroni- 
 cle might be followed still further ; but enough • 
 has been done to show that the drama does 
 not vary from history in the substance of these 
 battle harangues. 
 
 It is acknowledged that this short chapter 
 cannot, even as a whole, claim to be an ex- 
 haustive comparison of the play of * Richard 
 III.' with the historical authorities on which it 
 is based. There are many other incidents in 
 the play the origin of which might easily be 
 traced to tradition and history ; but a sufficient 
 number of illustrations have been produced to 
 indicate beyond all question the true sources 
 of the subject matter of '■ Richard III.' 
 
 It may be found in several instances that 
 Shakespeare has written nonsense, for which 
 critics hold him responsible, when the non- 
 sense is the result of the historian's mistakes 
 or weaknesses. Historical accuracy is one of 
 the merits of this tragedy of ' Richard III.,' 
 "wherein," says Milton, "the Poet us'd not 
 
HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD Hi: 105 
 
 much Licence in departing from the truth of 
 History, which delivers him a deep Dis- 
 sembler, not of his affections only, but of 
 Religion." 
 
 The Richard of Shakespeare is the Richard 
 of History. 
 
PART III. 
 
 THE HISTRIONIC RICHARDS. 
 
 "Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; 
 with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the 
 modesty of nature : for anything so overdone is from the 
 purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, 
 was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirrour up to nature: 
 to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and 
 the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure." 
 
THE HISTRIONIC RICHARDS. 
 
 HE stage is not the best interpreter 
 of Shakespeare. It has been the 
 most efficient corrupter of that su- 
 preme dramatist. The mutilations of the 
 original text, the interpolations and elimina- 
 tions, which have rendered it almost impossi- 
 ble to determine what Shakespeare originally 
 wrote, have originated in the theatre. Very- 
 few of the actors of the English stage have 
 been scholars, though many of them have 
 ranked with men of highest native intellect- 
 uality and taste. 
 
 Many a genius has been able to catch the 
 spirit of Shakespeare's characters, and to pre- 
 sent upon the stage thrilling and captivating 
 performances, who has lacked the knowledge, 
 learning, critical acumen, and literary taste 
 necessary to a thorough and scientific study 
 
no RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 of Shakespeare as a literature. It is well 
 known that Kemble, Cooke, Kean, and 
 J. B. Booth made some of their most telling 
 " points " by glaring misinterpretations of 
 Shakespeare's thought. It has not infre- 
 quently transpired that the actor has given to 
 a Shakespearian character an interpretation 
 which, while it stamped the performance with 
 the actor's genius or eccentricity, almost de- 
 stroyed its Shakespearian identity. The stu- 
 dent and scholar of to-day owe more to 
 Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, Johnson, Steevens, 
 Malone, Ulrici, Goethe, Gervinus, Collier, 
 Halliwell-Phillipps, and Richard Grant White, 
 for present light on everything that is Shake- 
 spearian in literature, than to all the actors 
 that have strutted the stage from the days of 
 Burbage to the age of Salvini, Irving, and 
 Edwin Booth. Actors have not enriched the 
 theme by any valuable restorations to the 
 text, any wise verbal criticism, any antiqua- 
 rian research and discovery, any etymological 
 or grammatical elucidations, any historical or 
 classical illustrations of importance. For all 
 these important helps to the study and com- 
 prehension of Shakespeare we are indebted 
 to men of letters and of the academic gown 
 rather than to men of the sock and buskin. 
 
THE HISTRIONIC RICHARDS. iii 
 
 It is nevertheless interesting to consider 
 the merits of those great actors who by com- 
 mon consent have been the finest interpreters 
 of Shakespeare on the stage. In calling to 
 our attention the greatest Richards of the 
 theatre it is not surprising that we are com- 
 pelled to summon before us the greatest actors, 
 the most conspicuous histrionic geniuses that 
 have graced the English stage. No mean 
 actor has ever been able to worthily represent 
 Richard III., which fact must add peculiar 
 lustre to the fame of its author. 
 
 The first, the original Richard, was a friend 
 and a fellow actor of Shakespeare, and 
 doubtless studied the great character in the 
 light of its author's instruction. This was 
 Richard Burbage, '' England's great Roscius." 
 He was born in 1566, two years after the 
 great poet, and died in 16 19, surviving his 
 illustrious friend but three years. The name 
 of this renowned actor appears second in the 
 list of Principal Actors, of which Shake- 
 speare's is first, printed in the first foHo edi- 
 tion of the poet's works. Reference has 
 already been made to the Tooley anecdote, 
 in which both Burbage and Shakespeare as- 
 sume the name of Richard III. The story 
 would indicate that Burbage was as univer- 
 
112 
 
 RICHARD THE THIRD. 
 
 sally recognized to be the actor of the charac- 
 ter as Shakespeare was to be the author of it. 
 
 In a play performed at one of the Uni- 
 versities, while Burbage was performing this 
 tragedy and making fame in the character of 
 Richard, the actor is represented as teaching 
 an apt pupil how to perform the part ; which 
 would also seem to intimate that he was 
 recognized to be the Richard of his day, and 
 the authority on the subject so far as the 
 theatrical representation of the character was 
 concerned. In the literature of his day, 
 Burbage is perhaps more conspicuously and 
 . .Jogistically identified with this than with any 
 other character which he assumed. Bishop 
 Corbet represents that when he visited Bos- 
 worth field his host confounded Burbage with 
 Richard in describing the battle, showing what 
 a profound impression the actor had made 
 in this character. 
 
 " Besides what of his knowledge he could say, 
 He had authentic notice from the play, 
 Shown chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, 
 That he mistook a player for a King ; 
 For when he should have said, here Richard died 
 And called * a horse, a horse ' — he Burbadge 
 cried." 
 
 Burbage must have resembled Garrick in 
 universality and versatility of genius, as he 
 
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