cannot be denied. But some parts are trifling, others shocking, and some improbable. JOHNSON.

I agree entirely with Dr. Johnson in thinking that this play from its first exhibition to the present hour has been estimated greatly beyond its merit. From the many allusions to it in books of that age, and the great number of editions it passed through, I suspect it was more often represented and more admired than any of our author's tragedies. Its popularity perhaps in some measure arose from the detestation in which Richard's character was justly held, which must have operated more strongly on those whose grand-fathers might have lived near his time; and from its being patronized by the Queen on the throne, who probably was not a little pleased at seeing King Henry VII. placed in the only favourable light in which he could have been exhibited on the scene. MALONE.

I most cordially join with Dr Johnson and Mr. * Malone in their opinions; and yet perhaps they have overlooked one cause of the success of this tragedy. The part of Richard is, perhaps, beyond all others variegated, and consequently favourable to a judicious performer. It comprehends, indeed, a trait of almost every species of character on the stage. The hero, the lover, the statesmam, the buffoon, the hypocrite, the hardened and repenting sinner, &c. are to be found within its compass. No wonder therefore, that the discriminating powers of a Burbage, a Garrick, and a Henderson, should at different periods have given it a popularity beyond other dramas of the same author.

Yet the favour with which this tragedy is nỌW received, must also in some measure be imputed to Mr. Cibber's reformation of it, which, gene- rally considered, is judicious for what modera

audience would patiently listen to the narrative of Clarence's Dream, his subsequent expostulation with the murderers, the prattle of his children, the soliloquy of the Scrivener, the tedious dialogue of the citizens, the ravings of Margaret, the gross terms thrown out by the Duchess of York on Richard, the repeated progress to execution, the superfluous train of spectres, and other undramatick incumbrances, which must have prevented. the more valuable parts of the play from rising into their present effect and consequence? The expulsion of langour therefore must atone for such remaining want of probability as is inseparable from an historical drama into which the events of fourteen years are irregularly compressed.

STEEVENS. The oldest known edition of this tragedy is printed for Andrew Wise, 1597: but Harrington, in his Apologie for 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 terrific 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 shows 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. T. WARTON.

"

It appears from the following passage in the preface to Nashe's Have with you to Saffron Wal den, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, 1596,

that a Latin tragedy of King Richard III. had been acted at Trinity college, Cambridge:

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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 "" ad arma. Urbs, urbs, ad arma,

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STEEVENS. The play on this subject mentioned by Sir John Harrington in his Apologie for Poetrie, 1591, and sometimes, mistaken for Shakspeare'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 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, 1585; which had not been worth mentioning, were they not confounded by Mr. Capell, FARMER.

Henry

The Latin play of King Richard III. (Mss. Harl. n. 6926, has the author's name, Lacey, and is dated-1586. TYRWHITT.

Heywood, in his Actor's Vindication, mentions the play of King Richard 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 sight of his inhuman massacres. And in the bookes of the Stationers' Company, June 19, 1594, Thomas Creede made the following entry. enterlude, intitled the tragedie of Richard the Third, wherein is shown the deathe of Edward the Fourthe, with the smotheringe of the two princes in the Tower, with the lamentable ende of Shore's wife, and the contention of the two houses of Lancaster and Yorke." This could not

"AB

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 translation of Lacey's play, at the end of the first act of which is, "The showe of the procession. 1. Tipstaffe. 2. Shore's wife in her petticote, having a taper burning in her hande. 3. The Verger. 4. Queristers. 5. Singing-men. 6. Prebendary. 7• Bishoppe of London. 8. Citizens." There is likewise a Latin song sung on this occasion, in MS. Harl, 2412. STEEVENS.

The English King Richard III. which was entered on the Stationers' books in 1594, and which, it may be presumed, had been exhibited some years before, was probably written by the author of The Contention of the two houses of Yorke and Lan caster. MALONE.

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

ACT III. SCENE I.

Thus like the formal vice, Iniquity, &c.] As this corrupt reading in the common books hath occasioned our saying something of the barbarities of theatrical representations amongst us before the time of Shakspeare, it may not be improper, for a better apprehension of this whole matter, to give the reader some general account of the rise 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 sooner 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 speaks them, a representation of some scripturestory, 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 strange representations: "L'an 1437 le 3 Juillet (says the honest Chronicler) fut fait le Jeu de la Passion de N, S. en la plaine de Veximiel. Et fut Dieu un sire appellé Seigneur Nicolle Dom Neufchastel, lequel etoit Curé de St. Victour de Metz, lequel fut presque mort en la Croix, s'il ne fût ete 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 tres hautement son personage; & dura le dit Jeu autre Prêtre qui s'appelloit Mre, Jean de Nicey, qui estoit Chapelain de Metrange, fut Judas: lequel fut presque mort en pendent, car le cuer li faillit, et fut bien hâtivement dependu & porté en Voye, Et etoit la bouche d'Enfer tres-bien faite;

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