alterations without the sanction of the author, and, perhaps, during his temporary absence. Shakespeare assures us in Hamlet (iii. 2. 42– 50) that he had a very great objection to what is technically known as "gagging." But everyone, who has had any practical experience of theatres, knows how difficult it is to prevent the actors either slightly changing the words of the text, or boldly inserting words of their own. Indeed the text of some plays of comparatively modern date, notably those of Sheridan, which have held the stage for some time, have suffered considerably from these unauthorized alterations. If we bear in mind these circumstances, and remember at the same time that Richard III. was, undoubtedly, one of Shakespeare's earliest plays, and had, perhaps, longer and more continued popularity than any other of his dramatic works; that it must have been revised and amended by him from time to time; and that these revisions and amendments were not to be obtained, otherwise than surreptitiously, by the printer of any of the Quartos, we shall cease to wonder at the very numerous discrepancies which occur between the texts of Q.1 and F. 1. After examining the analysis of these discrepancies we must come to the conclusion, in the absence of any direct evidence to the contrary, that the text published by the editor of F. 1 bears a closer resemblance to the real text of Shakespeare than the copy which the enterprising Mr. Andrew Wise managed to get hold of in the year 1597. To sum up the suggestions here put forward: (1) It will be seen, from what is said further on as to the date of this play, that it is uncertain how long before 1597 it was acted, but that it was one of Shakespeare's earliest plays. We know it to have been Shakespeare's custom to revise his earliest plays when he considered it worth the trouble. He revised and made additions to Love's Labour's Lost, The Taming of the Shrew, and Romeo and Juliet. We may therefore be pretty certain that, in the case of so popular a play as Richard III., he would revise and, perhaps, re-revise it. (2) Neither Q.1 nor F. I represents the original play of Richard III.; but both represent amended versions; the alterations and additions, in both cases, having, to a very great extent, been made by the author himself. (3) The publishers of the various Quartos before 1623 could not obtain the greater portion of the amendments and alterations made from time to time by the author. These were to be found only in the theatrecopy of the play-what we should call the stage-manager's copy-and F. 1 was, substantially, transcribed from this last copy with a few mistakes of the transcriber and of the printer. (4) The tattered condition into which the playhouse copy fell, owing to constant use, necessitating as it did portions of the MS. being recopied from time to time, accounts for some of the errors in F. 1. As to the sources from which Shakespeare derived Richard III., it may be said that he owed nothing to the old play of Richardus Tertius, and very little if anything to The True Tragedy of Richard III. (See note 204.) For his historical material Shakespeare was indebted to Holinshed, who, in his turn, copied almost word for word from Hall; and he, on his part, "conveyed" the history of the greater part of the reign of Richard III. from that written by Sir Thomas More. We have, as a rule, given the quotations from the original source, viz. the last-mentioned history. Shakespeare himself appears to have used the second edition of Holinshed, as he has copied a mistake which occurs only in that edition. note 647.) He also, very probably, referred to The Mirror for Magistrates; but he does not seem to have derived thence any particular incidents or expressions. (See What is supposed to be the earliest allusion to Richard III. occurs in a collection of epigrams by John Weever, the title-page of which says that it was Printed by V. S. for Thomas Bushell, and are to be sold at his shop at the great north doore | of Paules 1599 | (See Shakspere Allusion-Books, Pt I. 1874, pp. 181, 182). This is described by the editor (ut supra, p. 181) as a second edition; but there is nothing to indicate this fact on the original title-page, nor is the existence of any earlier edition known. As Drake points out (vol. ii. p. 371): "The book in question, in the collection of Mr. Comb, of Henley, and supposed to be a unique, was published in 1599, at which period, according to the date of the print of him prefixed by Cecill, the author was twenty-three years old; but Weever tells us, in some introductory stanzas, that when he wrote the poems which compose this volume, he was not twenty years old; that he was one That twenty twelve months yet did never know, consequently, these Epigrams must have been written in 1595, though not printed before 1599." The epigram contains fourteen lines, of which we give the following: THE FOURTH WEEKE. Epig. 22. Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare. Honie-tong'd Shakespeare, when I saw thine issue, I swore Apollo got them and none other, Rose-checkt Adonis with his amber tresses, Prowd lust-stung Tarquine seeking still to proue her; It will be observed that this is no direct evidence of the fact of Richard III. having been played at this time; for though the allusion most probably is to that play, still it might be to Richard II. The first Quarto of this play was entered at Stationers' Hall, 20th October, 1597; while Richard II. was registered on 29th August of the same year. Another early reference to Richard III. has been pointed out by Simpson in his Introduction to A Warning for Fair Women. In the Induction to that play Comedy has a speech beginning: How some damn'd tyrant to obtain a crown This is the more curious, as occurring in a play acted by the company to which Shakespeare himself belonged, viz. The Lord Chamberlain's Servants. The Warning to Fair Women was printed in 1599. We do not know how long it had been acted before. As to other references, there are five quotations from this play in England's Parnassus, 1600.1 There are other contemporary allusions, but none which need be mentioned here. As far then as direct external evidence goes, we know that this play must have been produced before 1597, or at least early in that year; the title-page of Q. 1 not containing any statement which implies that it had been acted for any length of time previous to its publication. On the question of the date of this play Mr. Collier, in his Bibliographical Account of English Literature (vol. ii. pp. 262, 263), has pointed out an allusion which seems indirectly to show that Shakespeare's play of Richard III. was not in existence in 1593. The article is on a rare book, the title-page of which is "LICIA | or | POEMES OF LOVE, IN HO- | nour of the admirable | and singular vertues of his Lady, to the imitation of the best | Latin poets, and others. | Whereunto is added the Rising to the Croune of RICHARD | the third." There are only two copies of this work known. It has been reprinted in Grosart's Miscellanies of the Fuller's Worthies' Library (vol. iii. pp. 76–145), and is by him attributed to Giles Fletcher, whether rightly or wrongly it is not for us here to inquire. There is no date on the title-page of the work; but the letter "to Ladie Mollineux,” which precedes the poem, is dated 8th September, 1593. The poem on Richard III. by the same author (ut supra, pp. 146-159) is absolutely devoid of any poetic merit, and does not contain a single passage or phrase which would seem to have been suggested by Shakespeare's play. Richard, who is supposed to speak in his own person, complains that whereas Shore's wife, Fair Rosamond and Elstred (see Locrine) have all had their sorrows treated on the stage, he and his reverse of fortune have been neglected. The first four lines are: The Stage is set, for Stately matter fitte, Three partes are past, which Prince-like acted were, To play the fourth, requires a kingly witte, Els shall my muse, their muses not come nere. 1 Except in one passage, in which there is a mistake of the printer, these passages seem to be quoted from Q. 1 or Q. 2, though in two of the quotations there are important variations in the text from those both of Qq. and Ff. After speaking of the three heroines above mentioned, he says in the sixth stanza: Nor weepe He then goes on to relate his own reverse of fortune. Certainly this would seem to infer that the writer was not aware of any play on the subject of Richard III. then being acted on the stage; yet we know that the so-called True Tragedy of Richard III., published in 1594, was acted by "the Queenes Maiesties Players;" and it is generally supposed that this was an old play which was published on account of the then popularity of Shakespeare's play; a conjecture which would certainly imply that Shakespeare's play was acted early in 1594, if not in 1593. But it may be that the enterprising publisher of The True Tragedy of Richard III. brought out that somewhat effete work, because he heard that Shakespeare was preparing a play on the subject; or, again, it may have been published independently, or in consequence of the recent productions of the two last parts of Henry VI. We do not find in Henslowe's Diary any mention of a representation of Shakespeare's Richard III. or of any play of that name. It would appear that on 12th June, 1602 (p. 223), Henslowe lent £10 to "bengemy Johnsone, at the apoyntment of E. Alleyn and Wm. Birde, the 24 of June 1602, in earneste of a boocke called Richard crockbacke." If Ben Jonson ever wrote this play it must have perished, for nothing is known of it. There is an undated entry in Chettle's handwriting, being a receipt for forty shillings "in earnest of the Booke of Shoare, now newly to be written for the Earl of Worcesters players at the Rose" (p. 214). This must have been some time before the accession of James I. (see note 2, same page). On the 9th May, 1603, there is an entry of a loan "at the apoyntment of Thomas hewod" (Heywood) “and John Ducke unto harry Chettell in earneste of a playe wherein Shores wiffe is writen." It is not known to what plays these two several entries refer. Possibly Chettle assisted Heywood in revising his play of Edward IV. mentioned below. But we get no help from Henslowe's Diary in determining the date of Shakespeare's Richard III. The internal evidences of the play itself, such as the long passages in Erixoμvoia, and the constant tendency to a bombastic style, certainly point to its having been written at an immature period of Shakespeare's career; but the metrical tests do not exactly tally with so early a date. However, it must be remembered that the play was undoubtedly revised, probably more than once, by the author. As has been said above, the present shape, in which we have it, is certainly not that in which it first left his hand. Of plays on the same subject there were two Latin ones; one by Thomas Legge, acted at St. John's College, Cambridge, 1579, of which MS. copies existed in the University Library and in that of Emmanuel College; and another, on the same subject, which Halliwell describes as a poor imitation of this, by Henry Lacey, and which was acted at Trinity College, 1586. It is possible that Shakespeare knew little and troubled himself less about these two Latin plays. What attracted his attention to the subject was, probably, ‘The True Tragedy of Richard III.' We may conclude that this had been played, more or less frequently, for two or three years before it was printed. The following is the title-page: "The True Tragedie of Richard the Third: Wherein is showne the death of Edward the fourth, with the smothering of the two yoong Princes in the Tower: With a lamentable ende of Shores wife, an example for all wicked women. And lastly the coniunction and ioyning of the two noble Houses, Lancaster and Yorke. As it was playd by the Queenes Maiesties Players. London Printed by Thomas Creede, and are to be sold by William Barley, at his shop in Newgate Market, neare Christ Church doore, 1594." About this play, already alluded to, nothing is known as to its authorship or stage-history. The most interesting play by one of Shakespeare's contemporaries, in which Richard III. figures as a character, is Hey wood's Second Part of Edward IV. In this play Richard is by no means the hero; the tragical end of Jane Shore forming the principal subject, in the pathetic description of whose death the author has foreshadowed the last scene of his best-known play, A Woman Killed With Kindness. Both parts of Heywood's Edward IV. should be read by all students of Shakespeare along with III. Henry VI. and Richard III. Heywood's play was printed in 1600, the title being "THE SECOND | PART OF KING EDWARD THE FOURTH. | Containing his iourney into France, for the obtaining of his right there: | The trecherous falshood of the Duke of Burgundie and the Constable of France | vsed against him, and his returne home | againe. | Likewise the prosecution of the historie of M. | Shoare and his faire wife | Concluding with the lamentable death of them | both." Both parts were published together, and, as is stated on the title-page, they had "diuers times beene publiquely played by the Right Honourable the Earle of Derbie his seruants;" so that they probably must have been produced some time before that date: they could scarcely have preceded Richard III. There is no sign of either author having copied from the other; though, of course, interesting resemblances may be found between some of Richard's speeches in both plays. The pieces in The Mirror for Magistrates,1 before the period of this play, are, in The Third Part of that work, number 73, George Plantagenet, attributed to Baldwin; 74, King Edward the Fourth, by Skelton; 75, Lord Rivers, attributed to Baldwin; 76, Lord Hastings, by Dolman; 77, The Complaynt of Henry Duke of Buckingham, by Sackville; 79, Richarde Plantagenet Duke of Glocester, by Segar; 84, Shore's Wife, by Churchyard; this last one was included in a collection of poems, 1593, called Churchyard's Challenge, and is the same poem that appeared in the original edition of The Mirror for Magistrates, augmented by twenty-one stanzas. By a curi 1 The numbers attached to the various pieces are taken from the reprint of this well-known work by Joseph Hazlewood, 1815, and will be found in vols. ii. and iii. respectively. ous mistake Stokes, in his Chronological Order of Shakespeare's Plays, refers to this as a play, and calls it Churchyard's (p. 29). Finally, there are two pieces in Pt. IV. by Richard Niccols: 95, The lamentable lives and deaths of the two young Princes, Edward the fifth and his brother Richard Duke of York; and 96, The tragicall life and death of King Richard the third. These were written after the appearance of Shakespeare's play. The most interesting parallel passages in these poems and Richard III. will be found quoted in the notes. There is rather a striking resemblance between a passage in Richard III.'s first soliloquy (i. 1. 12-15) and a poem included in the first issue of Epigrammes and Elegies by J. D. and C. M. and headed Ignoto: I am not fashion'd for these amorous times, (See Dyce's Marlowe, 1876, p. 366.) It may be remarked that this poem does not appear in the subsequent editions, which are both undated; but, on the authority of Ritson, the date of the first edition is generally assigned to 1596 (ut supra, Preface, p. xxxviii.). The resemblance is not very exact, but there is sufficient similarity of expression to suggest that the one author might have had the other's lines in his mind at the time. Perhaps this passage may be held by some to bear on the question whether this play is by the same authors as The Contention and The True Tragedy, and was only revised by Shakespeare. It would be interesting to analyse the language of Richard III., and to see how many peculiar or characteristic phrases and words are common to that play and to the Second and Third Parts of Henry VI. There are certainly passages in Richard III. which are suggestive of Marlowe's inflated style; but whether these passages were due simply to the fact of Shakespeare being, in the earlier part of his career, consciously or unconsciously, an imitator of the older dramatist, or whether they were due to Marlowe's open co-operation, we probably never shall know. If concordances could be made to the works of the Elizabethan dramatists, they would be of infinite assistance in determining the question as to the supposed joint-authorship of some of Shakespeare's plays. For instance, if we find that in the Second and Third Parts of Henry VI. and in Richard III. there are many peculiar words used, and used only in these plays by Shakespeare, which words are also characteristic of, if not peculiar to Marlowe, it would be a considerable piece of presumptive evidence that he assisted Shakespeare in the composition of all three plays. Mr. P. A. Daniel has no doubt that this play is "the work of the author or authors of the Henry VI. series of plays" (ut supra, p. iv.). But until we have some very much stronger evidence than has yet been offered of the work of any other writer in this play, we shall not attempt to rob Shakespeare of the fame which belongs to the author of Richard III. STAGE HISTORY. Although so popular and so frequently acted, as this play must have been between 1595 and 1630, very little has come down to us with regard to the stage history of Richard III. during this period; but there are several contemporary allusions. How closely Burbage was associated with the part of Richard III. appears from the well-known passage in Bishop Corbet's Iter Boreale (written about 1618), in which he mentions that his host rode with him part of the way, on his journey from Nuneaton to Coventry, when they passed close to Bosworth Field: See yee yon wood? There Richard lay, But cheifly by that one perspicuous thing, For when he would have sayd, King Richard dyed, In the journal of John Manningham, 1601, under date 2d February and 13th March, there is an anecdote- we cannot quote it herein which Burbage is even more strongly identified with Richard III. In the Third Part of The Return from Parnassus (1601) Burbage (who is introduced as a character) says to Philomusus: "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. Phil. Now is the winter of our discontent, Made glorious summer by the sonne of Yorke." (Macray's Reprint, 1886, pp. 140, 141.) The numerous quotations and imitations of the well-known line A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse are given in note 655. The earliest absolute mention of the performance of the play is found in Sir Henry Herbert's Diary, in which it is stated that "Richarde the Thirde was acted by the K. players at St. James, wher the king and queene were present, it being the first play the queene sawe since her M.tys delivery of the Duke of York. 1633." As we have already said, there is no mention of this play in Henslowe, and none in Pepys. Betterton does not seem ever to have played Shakespeare's Richard III., though he represented the character of Richard III. in The English Princess, by Caryll, in 1667. In fact, we can find no record of the performance of this play till Cibber's hybrid composition was produced, when "it seems to have been printed without the names of the performers to the D. P." (Genest, vol. ii. p. 195). This version, to the eternal discredit of the national intelligence and taste, held the stage for over one hundred and fifty years. As we purpose giving a reprint of Cibber's version, with an analysis of its several component parts, it is not necessary, at this point, to say anything more about it. It would be impossible to go through the list of the many celebrated actors who have, more or less, made their mark in the part of Richard. Among the most celebrated names are those of Quin, Ryan, Barry, Sheridan, Henderson, Kemble, and Kean. Garrick, as is well known, made his first appearance at Good |