May fright the hopeful mother at the view; Wherefore, only those lines which contained a decided change of sense have been included, in the table, as additions due to CIBBER, which is perhaps as near as can be attained in any attempt to disentangle the various threads in a network thus intricate. It is, however, well to remember that CIBBER'S Version held supreme sway on the stage for over one hundred years (from 1700 until 1845)— longer, indeed, than SHAKESPEARE's own play (1593 to 1700). CIBBER'S Richard was truer to the Richard of the Chronicles than SHAKESPEARE'S; he was a villainous usurper, keeping the rightful sovereign from the throne. But it is, I think, not without significance that, while on the stage, CIBBER'S Richard received an applause denied to SHAKESPEARE, the editors of Shakespeare altogether ignored CIBBER's Version, beyond a contemptuous reference by WARBURTON to a change made in the text, and STEEVENS'S words of praise for certain of Cibber's omissions. It is with great pleasure that I acknowledge my gratitude to those who have shown much courtesy to me in the work of preparing these pages-first and foremost, to him who has ever been my most patient guide and counsellor, I can but echo the words of Duncan: 'More is thy due than more than all can pay.' To Mr CHARLES E. Dana, for many valuable references to Heraldry and Armour; to DR MORRIS JASTROW, Jr., Librarian of the University of Pennsylvania; to MR GEORGE M. ABBOT and his efficient assistant, MR D. C. KNOBLAUCH, of the Philadelphia Library, for unfailing attention to many demands. September, 1908 H. H. F., Jr. Dramatis Perfonæ KING Edward IV. Edward, Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward V. Sons to Ed Richard, Duke of York, George, Duke of Clarence, Brother to Edward IV. 1. Dramatis Persona] First given by Rowe. 5. George... Clarence] Om. Cib. 5 2. King Edward IV.] STUBBS (iii, 219): Edward IV. was not perhaps quite so bad a man or so bad a king as his enemies have represented; but even those writers who have laboured hard to rehabilitate him, have failed to discover any conspicuous merits. With great personal courage he may be freely credited; he was, moreover, eloquent, affable, and fairly well educated. He was as a man, vicious far beyond anything that England had seen since the days of John; and more cruel and blood-thirsty than any king she had ever known. There had been fierce deeds of bloodshed; cruel and secret murders under former kings; but Edward IV. far outdid all that his forefathers and his enemies together had done. The death of Clarence was but the summing up and crowning act of an unparalleled list of judicial and extra-judicial cruelties which those of the next reign supplement but do not surpass.-RAMSAY (ii, 453): Edward IV. was a man of much the same type as the Fastolfs, and Pastons, and Plumptons, who have left us their portraits in their private correspondence: hard, narrow, unscrupulous; and endowed with the iron will and relentless purpose necessary to keep the men he had to rule in order. But these characteristics were not developed in a day. Twenty-two years of government turned him from the most trustful to the most suspicious of men; yet he was always true to those who served him well. With the middle and lower classes he appears to have been distinctly popular to the last; his convivial habits and easy accessible manners would account for that. The Londoners might well like a king who lived and moved so much among them. What the gentry thought of him is more doubtful; but Lancastrian opposition had died out, partly through Edward's consistent efforts at conciliation. His private life was more irregular than that of any king since John; but he never imported the royal prerogative of might into love-affairs, always working his way through blandishment and largess. His intrigues seem to have been mostly carried on with women not of the highest position. 5. George, Duke of Clarence] MARSHALL: Shakespeare has invested the character of this worthless scion of the House of York with an interest which, as far as history shows, he did not deserve. He had all the vices of his two brothers, without their courage. The enmity between him and Richard dated from the time when the latter proposed, soon after the murder of her youthful husband, I I Richard, Duke of Gloucester, Brother to Edward IV, afterwards King Richard III. Cardinal, Archbishop of York. Duke of Buckingham. 8. Cardinal] Thomas Rotheram... Steev. et seq. 6 9 to marry the widow of Edward, Prince of Wales. Richard's object was to obtain some portion of the great wealth which the king-maker had left and which Clarence had coolly appropriated without a thought. This quarrel began as early as 1472. In December, 1476, Clarence's wife died. For some time before that event he had withdrawn from court and held very little communication with his elder brother. Scarcely was his wife consigned to the tomb when Clarence solicited the hand of Mary, only daughter of Charles the Bold. The opposition of Edward to this match made the breach between the brothers still wider. 6. Richard] WRIGHT: In the first year of his reign (1461) Edward IV. created his two younger brothers dukes. As Richard was born October 2, 1452, he was not nineteen years old when Henry VI. was murdered and could not have fought at the battle of St. Alban's in 1455, or at Wakefield in 1460, or at Mortimer's Cross in 1461, as is represented in 2 and 3 Henry VI.; still less could he have taken part in the scene immediately after the death of Cade in 1450.-J. C. Collins (p. 270): It is scarcely necessary to say that in this drama Shakespeare has immortalised a portrait and a career as purely fictitious as the popular representation of Machiavelli. In truth, More's account of Richard is as purely a figment of the imagination as his Utopia. Whether he or Cardinal Morton is to be held responsible for it, grosser, and in all probability more baseless, calumnies have never been circulated about an English prince. When Shakespeare adopted them they had passed into tradition, and, even if he suspected them to be fiction, he would probably have had little scruple in giving currency to a fiction so acceptable to his audience and to Queen Elizabeth. 8. Cardinal, Archbishop of York] FRENCH (p. 217): According to some writers the real name of this prelate was Scot, but being born in 1423 at Rotherham county, York, he is said to have assumed the name of his birthplace in lieu of his own patronymic. But in Cooper's Athena Cantabrigienses he is called 'the son of Sir Thomas Rotheram, Knight and Alice his wife.' Thomas Rotheram was 'a lance' in the retinue of Lord Ros at Agincourt, and he was probably the Bishop's father. [See also CAMPBELL, Lives of the Chancellors, i, pp. 369-374.] 9. Duke of Buckingham] OECHELHAÜSER (Einführungen, i, 149) sees in the character of Buckingham, as drawn by Shakespeare, ‘a mere puppet of Richard with whose cleverness Buckingham's is placed in direct contrast; somewhat the same relation as in the characters of Wagner and Faust. Richard is the type of an intellectual hypocrite, while Buckingham is that of a soft-hearted hypocrite, he hesitates for a moment at the murder of Edward's sons, and this hesitation is his destruction. But, throughout, Buckingham stands more closely to Richard than the others of Richard's party,-Catesby, Ratcliffe, and Lovel,—who are merely his implements,—Buckingham is his confidant. Moreover, his royal blood should be evident both in his bearing and dress. These points being considered and the rôle interpreted by a clever actor, the part will gain a significance greater than heretofore.' |