1 King Edward IV. Edward, Prince of Wales, after wards Edward V. Richard, Duke of York, Sons Sons to Edward IV. George, Duke of Clarence, Brother to Edward IV. A young Son of Clarence. Richard, Duke of Gloster, Brother to Edward IV. afterwards King Richard III. Cardinal Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury. Archbishop of York. Bishop of Ely. Duke of Buckingham. Duke of Norfolk. Earl of Surrey. Earl Rivers, brother to K. Edward's Queen. Marquis of Dorfet, } ber fons. Grey, Earl of Richmond, afterwards King Henry VII. Lord Hastings. Sir Thomas Vaughan. Sir Richard Ratcliff. Lord Lovel. Sir William Catesby. Earl of Oxford. Sir James Blount. Sir Walter Herbert. Sir Robert Brakenbury, Lieutenant of the Tower. Elizabeth, Queen of Edward IV. Sheriff, Pursuivant, Scrivener, Citizens, Ghosts, Soldiers, Enter Richard Duke of Glofter. Glo. Now is the winter of our difcontent Made glorious summer by this fun of York"; 1 And Life and Death of King Richard III.] This tragedy, though it is called the Life and Death of this prince, comprizes, at most, but the last eight years of his time; for it opens with George duke of Clarence being clapped up in the Tower, which happened in the beginning of the year 1477; and closes with the death of Richard at Bosworthfield, which battle was fought on the 22d of August, in the year 1485. THEOBALD. It appears that several dramas on the present subject had been written before Shakspeare attempted it. See the notes at the conclusion of this play, which was first enter'd at Stationers' Hall by Andrew Wife, Oct. 20, 1597, under the title of The Tragedie of King Richard the Third, with the Death of the Duke of Clarence. Before this, viz. Aug. 15th, 1586, was entered, A Tragical report of King Richard the Third, a Baliad. It may be necessary to remark that the words, fong, ballad, book, enterlude and play, were often synonymously used. STEEVENS. 2-this fun of York; Alluding to the cognizance of Edward IV. which was a fun, in memory of the three funs, which are said to have appeared at the battle which he gained over the Lancastrians at Mortimer's Cross. And all the clouds, that lowr'd upon our house, Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths; Our bruised arms hung up for monuments; + Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front; So, in Drayton's Miseries of Queen Margaret: "Three funs were seen that instant to appear, And 1 Ready to buckle as the armies were, Again, in the 22d Song of the Polyolbion : " And thankful to high heaven which of his cause had care, "Three funs for his device still in his ensign bare." Again, in the Wrighte's Play in the Chester Collection. M. S. Harl. 1013, the same prodigy is introduced as attending on a more folemn event: "That day was seene veramente "And torned into one." STEEVENS. 3-merry meetings,] So, in The tragical Life and Death of King Richard the Third, which is one of the metrical monologues in a collection entitled, The Mirrour of Magistrates. The first edition of it appeared in 1575, but the lines quoted on the present as well as future occafions throughout this play, are not found in any copy before that of 1610, so that the author was more probably indebted to Shakspeare than Shakspeare to him: - the battles jought in fields before Were turn'd to meetings of sweet amitie; The war-god's thundring cannons dreadful rore, God Mars laid by his launce, and tooke his lute, And fet his thoughts upon her wanton lookes. STEEVENS. * Grim-vifag'd war, &c.] Shakspeare seems to have had the following paffage from Lyly's Alexander and Campaspe, 1584, before him, when he wrote these lines: "Is the warlike found " of drum and trump turn'd to the soft noise of lyre and lute? " The And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds 5, To the lafcivious pleasing of a lute. jesty, To strut before a wanton ambling nymph, "The neighing of barbed steeds, whose loudness filled the air " with terror, and whose breaths dimned the fun with smoak, "converted to delicate tunes and amorous glances? &c." EDITOR. 5-barbed steeds,] I. Haywarde, in his Life and Raigne of Henry IV. 1599, fays, The duke of Hereford came to the barriers, mounted upon a white courser, barbed with blew and green velvet, &c. So, in Jarvis Markham's English Arcadia, 1607: -armed in a black armour, curiously damask'd with interwinding wreaths of cypress and ewe, his barbe upon his horse, all of black abrosetta, cut in broken hoopes upon curled cypress." Again, in the 2d Part of K. Edward IV. by Heywood, 1626: "With barbed horse, and valiant armed foot." Barbed, however, may be no more than a corruption of barded. Equus bardatus, in the Latin of the middle ages, was a horse adorned with military trappings. I have met with the word barded many times in our ancient chronicles and romances. An instance or two may fuffice. "They mounted him surely upon a good and mighty courser, well barded, &c." Hift. of Helyas Knight of the Swanne, bl. 1. no date, Again, in Barrett's Alvearie, or Quadruple Dictionary, 1580: "Bardes or trappers of horses. Phalera, Lat." Again, Hollinshed speaking of the preparations for the battle of Agincourt: - to the intent that if the barded homes ran fiercely upon them, &c." Again, p. 8oz, he says, that bards and trappers had the same meaning. It is observed in the Turkish Spy, that the German cuirassiers, though armed and barbed, man and horse, were not able to stand against the French cavalry. STEEVENS. 6 He capers) War capers. This is poetical, though a little harsh; if it be York that capers, the antecedent is at fuch a distance, that it is almost forgotten. JOHNSON. 1 * Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,] By dissembling is not meant hypocritical nature, that pretends one thing and does another: but nature that puts together things of a dissimilar kind, as a brave foul and a deformed body. WARBURTON. Dissembling is here put very licentiously for fraudful, deceitful. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnson hath certainly mistaken, and Dr. Warburton rightly explained the word dissembling; as is evident from the following extract: "Whyle thinges stoode in this case, and " that the manner of addyng was sometime too short and fome" time too long, els dissembled and let flip together." Arthur Golding's tranflation of Julius Solinus, 1587. HENLEY. & And descant on mine own deformity :) Descant is a term in mufic, fignifying in general that kind of harmony wherein one part is broken and formed into a kind of paraphrafe on the other. The propriety and elegance of the above figure, without such an idea of the nature of defcant, could not be difcerned. The Sir J. HAWKINS. And therefore, fince I cannot prove a lover,] Shakspeare very diligently inculcates, that the wickedness of Richard proceeded from his deformity, from the envy that rose at the comparison of his own person with others, and which incited him to disturb the pleasures that he could not partake. JOHNSON. And hate the idle pleasures-] Perhaps we might read: 2-inductions dangerous,] Preparations for mischief. The Induction is preparatory to the action of the play. JOHNSON. Marston has put this line, with little variation, into the mouth of Fame': " Plots ha' you laid? inductions dangerous?" : STEEVENS. By |