NOR. My lord, the enemy is pass'd the marfh; After the battle let George Stanley die. K. RICH. A thoufand hearts are great within my bofom : Advance our standards,3 fet upon our foes; 2 the enemy is pass'd the marsh ;] There was a large marth in Bosworth plain between the two armies. Henry paffed it, and made fuch a difpofition of his forces that it ferved to protect his right wing. By this movement he gained also another point, that his men fhould engage with the fun behind them, and in the faces of his enemies: a matter of great confequence when bows and arrows were in ufe. MALONE. 3 Advance our fiandards, &c.] So again, in The Mirrour of Magifirates; and apparently borrowed from Shakspeare: "Advance then captaines, forward to the fight, "Draw forth your fwords, each man address his theeld; "Hence faint conceites, die thoughts of coward flight, "To heaven your hearts, to fight your valours yeeld: "Behold our foes do brave us in the field. Upon them, friends; the caufe is yours and mine; "Saint George and conqueft on our helmes doth fhine." STEEVENS. So Holinfhed after Hall: "-like valiant champions advance forth your ftandardes, and affay whether your enemies can decide and try the title of battaile by dint of fword; avaunce, I fay again, forward, my captaines.-Now Saint George to borrow, let us fet forward." MALONE. SCENE IV. Another Part of the Field. Alarum: Excurfions. Enter NORFOLK, and Forces; to him CATESBY. CATE. Refcue, my lord of Norfolk, refcue, rescue! His horfe is flain, and all on foot he fights, Daring an oppofite to every danger;] Perhaps the poet wrote: Daring and oppofite to every danger. TYRWHITT. Perhaps the following paffage in Chapman's verfion of the eighth Book of Homer's Odyey may countenance the old reading: 66 a moft dreadful fight "Daring against him." STEEVENS. The old reading is perhaps right. An oppofite is frequently ufed by Shakspeare and the contemporary writers, for adverfary. So, in Twelfth-Night: "your oppofite hath in him what youth, ftrength, ikill, and wrath, can furnish man withal." Again: "and his oppofite the youth, bears in his visage no prefage of cruelty." So, in Blurt Mr. Conftable, a comedy, by Middleton, 1602: "to ftrengthen us against all oppofites." Again, more appofitely, in Marfton's Antonio and Mellida, 1602: Myfelf, myself, will dare all oppofites." 66 The fenfe then should seem to be, that King Richard enacts wonders, daring the adverfary he meets with to every danger attending fingle combat. MALONE. To dare a single oppofite to every danger, is no very wonderful exploit.-I thould therefore adopt Tyrwhitt's amendment, which infers that he flew to oppofe every danger, wherever it was to be found, and read with him, " and oppofite." M. MASON. Alarum. Enter King RICHARD. K. RICH. A horfe! a horfe !5 my kingdom for a horfe! CATE. Withdraw, my lord, I'll help you to a horfe. K. RICH. Slave, I have fet my life upon a caft, And I will ftand the hazard of the die: I think, there be fix Richmonds in the field; Five have I flain to-day, inftead of him :— A horfe! a horfe !] In The Battle of Alcazar, 1594, the Moor calls out in the fame manner : "A horfe, a horfe, villain a horse! "That I may take the river ftraight, and fly! Here is a horfe, my lord, "As fwiftly pac'd as Pegafus." This paffage in Shakspeare appears to have been imitated by feveral of the old writers, if not ftolen. So, Heywood, in the Second Part of his Iron Age, 1632: 66 a horfe, a horse! "Ten kingdoms for a horse to enter Troy." STEEVENS. Marfton feems to have imitated this line in his Satires, 1599: "A man, a man, a kingdom for a man!" MALONE. This line is introduced into Marston's What you will, A& II. fc. i. 4to. 1607: "Ha! he mounts Chirall on the wings of fame. Five have Ilain to-day, instead of him :] Shakspeare had employed this incident with historical propriety in The First Part of King Henry IV. STEEVENS. Shakspeare had good ground for this poetical exaggeration; Richard, according to Polydore Virgil, was determined, if poffible, to engage with Richmond in fingle combat. [See p. 521, Ï. 5.] For this purpose he rode furioufly to that quarter of the field where the Earl was; attacked his standard-bearer, Sir William Brandon, and killed him; then assaulted Sir John Cheny, whom he overthrew having thus at length cleared his way to his an A horfe! a horfe! my kingdom for a horse!" [Exeunt. Alarums. Enter King RICHARD and RICHMOND; and exeunt, fighting. Retreat, and flourish. Then enter RICHMOND, STANLEY, bearing the Crown, with divers other Lords, and Forces. RICHM. God, and your arms, be prais'd, victorious friends; The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead. STAN. Courageous Richmond, well haft thou acquit thee! Lo, here, this long-ufurped royalty, From the dead temples of this bloody wretch 8 tagonist, he engaged in fingle combat with him, and probably would have been victorious, but that at that inftant Sir William Stanley with three thousand men joined Richmond's army, and the royal forces fled with great precipitation. Richard was foon afterwards overpowered by numbers, and fell, fighting bravely to the last moment. MALONE. A horfe! a horfe !] Some inquiry hath been made for the first performers of the capital characters of Shakspeare. We learn, that Burbage, the alter Rofcius of Camden, was the original Richard, from a paffage in the poems of Bishop Corbet; who introduced his hoft at Bofworth defcribing the battle: 8 "But when he would have said king Richard died, FARMER. of this bloody wretch-] It is not neceffary to suppose that Richmond points to the dead body of Richard, when he fpeaks of him. According to an ancient idiom in our language, the demonstrative pronoun is often used instead of the prepofitive article. So, in King Henry IV. P. I : but for thefe vile guns "He would himself have been a foldier." STEEVENS. RICHM. Great God of heaven, fay, amen, to all! But, tell me first, is young George Stanley living? STAN. He is, my lord, and fafe in Leicester town; Whither, if it please you, we may now withdraw us. RICHM. What men of name are flain on either fide? STAN. John duke of Norfolk, Walter lord Ferrers, Sir Robert Brakenbury, and fir William Brandon. RICHM. Inter their bodies as becomes their births. Proclaim a pardon to the foldiers fled, And then, as we have ta'en the facrament,' I 9 But, tell me firft, &c.] The word-firft, was introduced by Sir Thomas Hanmer, to complete the verfe. STEEVENS. as we have taken the facrament,] So, in Holinfhed, p. 745: "The earle himfelfe first tooke a corporall oth on his honor, promifing that incontinent after he fuld 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. 2 All this divided York and Lancaster, Divided, in their dire divifion.] I think the paffage will be fomewhat improved by a flight alteration: |