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We will unite the white rose and the red:-
Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction,

That long hath frown'd upon their enmity!-
What traitor hears me, and says not, -amen?
England hath long been mad, and scarr'd herself;
'The brother blindly shed the brother's blood,
The father rafhly flaughter'd his own fon,
The fon, compell'd, been butcher to the fire:
7 All this divided York and Lancaster,
Divided, in their dire division.--
O, now, let Richmond and Elizabeth,
The true succeeders of each royal house,
By God's fair ordinance conjoin together!
And let their heirs, (God, if thy will be fo)
Enrich the time to come with smooth-fac'd peace,
With fmiling plenty, and fair profperous 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 encrease,
That would with treason wound this fair land's peace!
Now civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again;
That the may long live here, God say-Amen!

[Exeunt.

honor, promifing that incontinent after he shuld be possessed of the crowne and dignitie of the realme of England, he would be conjoined in matrimonie with the ladie Elizabeth daughter to king Edward the fourth." STEEVENS.

All this divided York and Lancaster,
Divided, in their dire division.-]

:

I think the passage will be somewhat improved by a flight alteration:

All that divided York and Lancaster,
Divided in their dire division,

O now let Richmond and Elizabeth,
The true fucceeders of each royal house,

By God's fair ordinance conjoin together.

Let them unite all that York and Lancaster divided. JOHNSON, • This is one of the most celebrated of our authour's performances; yet I know not whether it has not happened to him as to others, to be praised most, when praise is not most deserved. That this play has scenes noble in themselves, and very well contrived to strike in the exhibition, cannot be denied. But fome parts are trifling, others shocking, and some improbable.

JOHNSON.

THE Life and Death of King Richard the Third.] The oldest known edition of this tragedy is printed for Andrew Wife, 1597: but Harrington, in his Apologie of Poetrie, written 1590, and.. prefixed to the translation of Ariosto, says, that a tragedy of Richard the Third, had been acted at Cambridge. His words are, "For tragedies, to omit other famous tragedies, that which was played at St. John's in Cambridge, of Richard the Third, would move, I think, Phalaris the tyrant, and terrifie all tyrannous minded men, &c." He most probably means Shakspeare's; and if so, we may argue, that there is some more antient edition of this play than what I have mentioned; at least this shews how early Shakspeare's play appeared; or if some other Richard the Third is here alluded to by Harrington, that a play on this subject preceded our author's. WARTON.

It appears from the following passage in the preface to Nashe's Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, 1596, that a Latin tragedy of K. Rich. III. had been acted at Trinity college, Cambridge: "-or his fellow codshead, that in the Latine tragedie of King Richard, cried Ad urbs, ad urbs, ad urbs, when his whole part was no more than-Urbs, urbs, ad arma, ad arma." STEEVENS.

The play on this subject mentioned by fir John Harrington in his Apologie for Poetrie, 1591, and fometimes mistaken for Shakfpeare's, was a Latin one, written by Dr. Legge; and acted at St. John's in our university, some years before 1588, the date of the copy in the Museum. This appears from a better MS. in our library at Emmanuel, with the names of the original performers.

A childish imitation of Dr. Legge's play was written by one Lacy, 1583; which had not been worth mentioning, were they not confounded by Mr. Capell. FARMER.

Heywood, in his Actor's Vindication, mentions the play of K. Rich. III. "acted in St. John's Cambridge, so essentially, that had the tyrant Phalaris beheld his bloody proceedings, it had mollified his heart, and made him relent at fight of his inhuman massacres." And in the bookes of the Stationers' Company, June 19, 1594, Thomas Creede made the following entry. "An enterlude, intitled the tragedie of Richard the Third, wherein is shown the deathe of Edward the Fourthe, with the finotheringe of the twoo princes in the Tower, with the lamentable ende of Shore's wife, and the contention of the two houses of Lancafter and Yorke." This could not have been the work of Shakspeare, unless he afterwards dismissed the death of Jane Shore, as an unnecessary incident, when he revised the play. Perhaps, however, it might be some tranflation of Lacey's play, at the end of the

the first act of which is, "The showe of the procession. f. Tipstaffe. 2. Shore's wife in her petticote, having a taper burning in her hande. 3. The Verger. 4. Queristers. 5. Singing6. Prebendary. 7. Bishoppe of London. 8. Citizens. There is likewise a Latin song fung on this occafion in MS. Harl. 24128 STEEVENS

men.

I shall here fubjoin two Dissertations, one by Dr. Warburton, and one by Mr. Upton, upon the Vice.

ACT III. SCENE Ι.

THUS like the formal vice, Iniquity, &c.] As this corrupt reading in the common books hath occafioned our faying fomething of the barbarities of theatrical representations amongst us before the time of Shakspeare, it may, not be improper, for a better apprehenfion of this whole matter, to give the reader some general account of the rife and progress of the modern stage.

The first form in which the drama appeared in the west of Europe, after the destruction of learned Greece and Rome, and that a calm of dulness had finished upon letters what the rage of barbarism had begun, was that of the Mysteries. These were the fashionable and favourite diversions of all ranks of people both in France, Spain, and England. In which last place, as we learn by Stow, they were in use about the time of Richard the second and Henry the fourth. As to Italy, by what I can find, the first rudiments of their stage, with regard to the matter, were prophane subjects, and, with regard to the form, a corruption of the ancient mimes and attellanes: by which means they got fooner into the right road than their neighbours; having had regular plays amongst them wrote as early as the fifteenth century.

As to these mysteries, they were, as their name fpeaks them, a representation of some scripture-story, to the life: as may be seen from the following passage in an old French history, intitled, La Chronique de Metz composée par le curé de St. Euchaire; which will give the reader no bad idea of the surprising absurdity of these trange representations: s: "L'an 1437 le 3 Juillet (Says the bonest Chronicler) fut fait le Jeu de la Passion de N. S. en la plaine de Veximiel. Et fut Dieu un fire appellé Seigneur Nicolle Dom Neufchastel, lequel etoit Curé de St. Victour de Metz, lequel fut presque mort en la Croix, s'il ne fût eté secourus; & convient qu'un autre Prêtre fut mis en la Croix pour parfaire le Personnage du Crucifiment pour ce jour; & le lendemain le dit Curé de St. Victour parfit la Resurrection, et fit trés hautement fon personage; & dura le dit Jeu Et autre Prêtre qui s'appelloit Mre. Jean de Nicey, qui estoit Chapelain de Metrange, fut Judas: lequel fut presque mort en pendant, car le cuer li faillit, et fut bien hâtivement dependu & porté en Voye. Et etoit la bouche bouche d'Enfer tres-bien faite; car elle ouvroit & clooit, quand les Diables y vouloient entrer & iffer; & avoit deux gross Culs d'Acier, &c." Alluding to this kind of representations arch. bishop Harsnet, in his Declaration of Popish Impostures, p. 71. fays, "The little children were never so afraid of Hell-mouth in the old plays, painted with great gang teeth, staring eyes, and foul bottle nose." Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, gives a fuller description of them in these words, "The Guary Miracle, in English a Miracle Play, is a kind of interlude compiled in Cornish out of some scripture history. For representing it, they raise an earthen amphitheatre in some open field, having the diameter of an inclosed playne, some 40 or 50 foot. The country people flock from all fides many miles off, to fee and hear it. For they have therein devils and devices, to delight as well the eye as the ear. The players conne not their parts without book, but are prompted by one called the ordinary, who followeth at their back with the book in his hand, &c. &c." There was always a droll or buffoon in these mysteries, to make the people mirth with his fufferings or abfurdities: and they could think of no better a personage to sustain this part than the devil himself. Even in the mystery of the Passion mentioned above, it was contrived to make him ridiculous. Which circumstance is hinted at by Shakspeare (who has frequent allufions to these things) in the Taming of the Shrew, where one of the players asks for a little vinegar, (as a property) to make the devil roar. For after the spunge with the gall and vinegar had been employed in the representation, they used to clap it to the nose of the devil; which making him roar, as if it had been holy water, afforded infinite diversion to the people. So that vinegar in the old farces, was always afterwards in use to torment their devil. We have divers old English proverbs, in which the devil is represented as acting or fuffering ridiculously and absurdly, which all arose from the part he bore in these mysteries, as in that, for instance, of Great cry and little wool, as the devil faid when he sheered bis hogs. For the sheep-fhearing of Nabal being represented in the mystery of David and Abigail, and the devil always attending Nabal, was made to imitate it by shearing a hog. This kind of absurdity, as it is the propereft to create laughter, was the subject of the ridiculous in the ancient mimes, as we learn from these words of faint Austin: Ne faciamus ut mimi folent, & optemus à libero aquam, à lymphis vinum *.

These mysteries, we fee, were given in France at first, as well as in England fub dio, and only in th provinces. Afterwards we find them got into Paris, and a company established in the Hôtel de Bourgogne to represent them. But good letters and religion beginning to make their way in the latter end of the reign

* Civ. D. live

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of

of Francis the first, the stupidity and prophaneness of the mysteries made the courtiers and clergy join their interest for their fuppreffion. Accordingly, in the year 1541, the procureur-general, in the name of the king, presented a request against the company to the parliament. The three principal branches of his charge against them were, that the representation of the Old Testament stories inclined the people to Judaism; that the New Testament stories encouraged libertinism and infidelity; and that both of them lessened the charities to the poor: It seems that this profecution succeeded; for, in 1548, the parliament of Paris confirmed the company in the possession of the Hôtel de Bourgogne,. but interdicted the representation of the mysteries. But in Spain, we find by Cervantes, that they continued much longer; and held their own, even after good comedy came in amongst them : as appears from the excellent critique of the canon, in the fourth book, where he shows how the old extravagant romances might be made the foundation of a regular epic (which, he says, tambien puede escriverse en profa como en verso * ;) as the mystery-plays might be improved into artful comedy. His words are Pues que fi venimos à las comedias divinas, que de milagros falsos fingen en ellas, que de cofas apocrifas, y mal entendidas, attribueyendo a un Santo los milagros de otro †; which made them so fond of miracles that they introduced them into las comedias humanas, he calls them. To return:

Upon this prohibition, the French poets turned themselves from religious to moral farces. And in this we foon followed them: the public taste not fuffering any greater alteration at first, though the Italians at this time afforded many just compofitions for better models. These farces they called moralities. Pierre Gringore, one of their old poets, printed one of these maralities, intitled La Moralité de l'Homme Obstiné. The perfons of the drama are l'Homme Obstiné-Pugnition DivineSimonie-Hypocrifie-and Demerites-Communes. The Homme Obftiné is the atheilt, and comes in blafpheming, and determined. to perfist in his impieties. Then Pugnition Divine appears, fitting on a throne in the air, and menacing the atheist with punishment. After this scene, Simonie, Hypocrifie, and DemeritesCommunes appear and play their parts. In conclufion, Pugnition Divine returns, preaches to them, upbraids them with their crimes, and, in short, draws them all to repentance, all but the Homme Obstiné, who perfists in his impiety, and is destroyed for an example. To this fad serious subject they added, though in a feparate representation, a merry kind of farce called Sottie, in which there was un Paysan [the Clown] under the name of Sot-Commun [or Fool.) But we, who borrowed all these delicacies from the French, blended the Moralité and Sottié toge

* B. iv. 6, 201

† Ib. 214

thera

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