We will unite the white rofe and the red :- O, now, let Richmond and Elizabeth, [Exeunt honor, promifing that incontinent after he fhuld be poffeffed 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, I think the paffage will be fomewhat improved by a flight alte ration: All that divided York and Lancaster, ✪ now let Richmond and Elizabeth, 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 moft, when praife is not most deserved. That this play has fcenes noble in themfelves, and very well con trived to ftrike in the exhibition, cannot be denied. But fome parts are trifling, others fhocking, and fome improbable. JOHNSON. THE Life and Death of King Richard the Third.] The oldeft known edition of this tragedy is printed for Andrew Wife, 1597: but Harrington, in his Apologie of Poetrie, written 1590, and.. prefixed to the tranflation of Arifto, fays, 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 moft probably means Shakfpeare's; and if fo, we may argue, that there is fome more antient edition of this play than what I have mentioned; at least this fhews how early Shakspeare's play appeared; or if fome other Richard the Third is here alluded to by Harrington, that a play on this fubject preceded our author's. WARTON. It appears from the following paffage 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 ar Trinity college, Cambridge: "or his fellow codfhead, 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 miftaken for Shakfpeare's, was a Latin one, written by Dr. Legge; and acted at St. John's in our university, fome years before 1588, the date of the copy in the Mufeum. 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, fo effentially, that had the tyrant Phalaris beheld his bloody proceedings, it had mollified his heart, and made him relent at fight of his inhuman maffacres." 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 fhown the deathe of Edward the Fourthe, with the fmotheringe of the twoo princes in the Tower, with the lamentable ende of Shore's wife, and the contention of the two houfes of Lancaster and Yorke." This could not have been the work of Shakspeare, unless he afterwards difmiffed the death of Jane Shore, as an unneceffary incident, when he revised the play. Perhaps, however, it might be some tranflation of Lacey's play, at the end of the า the first act of which is, "The fhowe of the proceflion. f. Tiptaffe. 2. Shore's wife in her petticote, having a taper burning in her hande. 3. The Verger. 4. Querifters. 5. Singing men. 6. Prebendary. 7. Bifhoppe of London. 8. Citizens." There is likewife a Latin fong fung on this occafion in MS. Harl. 2412 STEEVENS. I fhall here fubjoin two Differtations, 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 occafioned our faying fome thing of the barbarities of theatrical reprefentations amongst us before the time of Shakspeare, it may, not be improper, for a better apprehenfion of this whole matter, to give the reader fome general account of the rife and progrefs of the modern stage. The first form in which the drama appeared in the weft of Europe, after the deftruction of learned Greece and Rome, and that a calm of dulnefs had finished upon letters what the rage of barbarifm had begun, was that of the Mysteries. These were the fashionable and favourite diverfions of all ranks of people both in France, Spain, and England. In which laft place, as we learn by Stow, they were in ufe about the time of Richard the fecond 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 fubjects, 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 thefe myfteries, they were, as their name fpeaks them, a representation of fome fcripture-ftory, to the life: as may be feen from the following paffage 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 abfurdity of these Atrange reprefentations: "L'an 1437 le 3 Juillet (Says the boneft Chronicler) fut fait le Jeu de la Paffion de N. S. en la plaine de Veximiel. Et fut Dieu un fire appellé Seigneur Nicolle Dom Neufchaftel, lequel etoit Curé de St. Victour de Metz, lequel fut prefque mort en la Croix, s'il ne fût eté fecourus; & convient qu'un autre Prêtre fut mis en la Croix pour parfaire le Perfonnage du Crucifiment pour ce jour; & le lendemain le dit Curé de St. Victour parfit la Resurrection, et fit trés hautement fou perfonage; & dura le dit Jeu-Et autre Prêtre qui s'appelloit Mre. Jean de Nicey, qui eftoit Chapelain de Metrange, fut Judas: lequel fut prefque 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 reprefentations archbishop Harfnet, in his Declaration of Popish Impoftures, p. 71. fays, The little children were never fo afraid of Hell-mouth in the old plays, painted with great gang teeth, ftaring eyes, and foul bottle nofe." Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, gives a fuller defcription of them in thefe words," The Guary Miracle, in English a Miracle Play, is a kind of interlude compiled in Cornish out of fome fcripture hiftory. For reprefenting it, they raise an earthen amphitheatre in fome open field, having the diameter of an inclofed playne, fome 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 perfonage to fuftain this part than the devil himself. Even in the mystery of the Paffion 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 afks for a little vinegar, (as a property) to make the devil For after the fpunge with the gall and vinegar had been employed in the reprefentation, they ufed to clap it to the nofe of the devil; which making him roar, as if it had been boly water, afforded infinite diverfion to the people. So that vinegar in the old farces, was always afterwards in ufe to torment their devil. We have divers old English proverbs, in which the devil is reprefented as acting or fuffering ridiculously and abfurdly, which all arofe from the part he bore in thefe myfteries, as in that, for instance, of Great cry and little wool, as the devil faid when he fheered bis hogs. For the fheep-fhearing of Nabal being reprefented in the mystery of David and Abigail, and the devil always attending Nabal, was made to imitate it by hearing a bag. This kind of abfurdity, as it is the propereft to create laughter, was the fubject of the ridiculous in the ancient mimes, as we learn from thefe words of faint Auftin: Ne faciamus ut mimi folent, & optemus à libero aquam, à lymphis vinum *. roar. Thefe myfteries, we fee, were given in France at first, as well as in England fub dio, and only in the provinces. Afterwards we find them got into Paris, and a company established in the Hôtel de Bourgogne to reprefent them. But good letters and religion beginning to make their way in the latter end of the reign * Civ. D. l. iv. of of Francis the firft, the ftupidity and prophaneness of the myfteries made the courtiers and clergy join their intereft for their fuppreffion. Accordingly, in the year 1541, the procureur-general, in the name of the king, prefented a request against the company to the parliament. The three principal branches of his charge against them were, that the reprefentation of the Old Testament ftories inclined the people to Judaifm; that the New Teftament ftories encouraged libertinifm and infidelity; and that both of them leffened the charities to the poor: It feems that this profecution fucceeded; for, in 1548, the parliament of Paris confirmed the company in the poffeffion of the Hôtel de Bourgogne,. but interdicted the reprefentation 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 fhows how the old extravagant romances might be made the foundation of a regular epic (which, he fays, tambien puede efcriverse en profa como en verfo* ;) as the mystery-plays might be improved into artful comedy. His words are Pues que fi venimos à las comedias divinas, que de milagros falfos fingen en ellas, que de cofas apocrifas, y mal entendidas, attribueyendo a un fanto los milagres de otro t; which made them fo 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 tafte not fuffering any greater alteration at firft, 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 Obftiné. The perfons of the drama are l'Homme Obftiné-Pugnition DivineSimonie-Hypocrifie-and Demerites-Communes. The Homme Obfiné is the atheilt, and comes in blafpheming, and determined to perfift in his impieties. Then Pugnition Divine appears, fitting on a throne in the air, and menacing the atheist with punishment. After this fcene, 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 Obftiné, who perfifts in his impiety, and is deftroyed for an example. To this fad ferious fubject they added, though in a feparate reprefentation, a merry kind of farce called Sottie, in which there was un Parfan [the Clown] under the name of Set-Commun [or Fool.] But we," who borrowed all thefe delicacies from the French, blended the Moralité and Sottie toge ހ |