from being feeble or commonplace. On the contrary, it is conspicuous, among the plays of Marlowe's followers, for its dramatic skill and interest. There doubtless was an existing play on the same subject, when Richard III. appeared on the stage for the first time. The True Tragedie of Richard III., published in 1594, "as it was played by the Queenes Maiesties Players," covers much the same ground as the Shakespearean play; but there is no textual connexion between the two. Possibly the True Tragedie was an earlier play, whose publication as the "only original" Richard III. was intended to steal a march upon its successful younger rival. But, if Shakespeare simply revised an older drama, the text and original sources of that drama have disappeared altogether. The chief argument in favour of the revised play may be found, perhaps, in the words "newly augmented," which were prefixed to Shakespeare's name for the first time in Q 3. It has been shown already that these words are not true, if applied merely to the editions in which they occur. But it is possible that they supply an omission which had been made in the title-pages of the earlier quartos. QI had been printed without the author's name. In Q 2 Shakespeare had been introduced as the author. Four years later, when Q 3 appeared, his true relation to the play may have been discovered; and it is not unlikely that the words "newly augmented" were inserted to rectify the impression, created by Q 2, that he was the original author. Nothing is more probable than that the publisher of an unauthorised edition of the play should be insufficiently informed as to its true authorship. The word "newly," which was continued on the title-pages of the later quartos, might easily be applied to work which had been done some years before the publication of Q 3. In short, Q, from this point of view, may be regarded as the text of an earlier play augmented by Shakespeare. We might even go further, and surmise that many of the roughnesses of Q were left unsmoothed from the original drama, and that the process of augmentation came before that of revision, which eventually was accomplished in the text represented by F. This view would not diminish, but corroborate the im portance of F as the true basis of a text of the play. It is, however, a mere conjecture; and the only conclusions at which we can arrive safely are, that the text as we have it is substantially Shakespeare's, and that either, as in the Henry VI. plays, he embroidered skilfully upon an older text, or wrote an entirely new play in a style to which, by practice, his own was become assimilated. Beside the True Tragedie of Richard the Third, there was a Latin play on the same theme by Thomas Legge, Master of Caius, which had been acted at Cambridge in 1579. But the real source of the material used for Richard III, was Holinshed's Chronicles of England, in which Halle's earlier chronicle and the History of Richard III. by Sir Thomas More were embodied almost literally. A reading at V. iii. 325, which is shared by all the printed editions of the play, shows that the second edition of Holinshed (1586-7) must have been used in the preparation of Richard III.: the passage at IV. ii. 98-115, peculiar to Q, depends on an insertion added to the same edition. It goes without saying that the treatment of the historical sources in Richard III. is free in general, but faithful in minor details. To form a connected action, the events of several years are brought together into a space of time which Mr. Daniel has estimated at eleven days with certain intervals. Thus the imprisonment and death of Clarence (I. i. and iv.) took place in 1478. The events of I. ii., if they were historically possible, would belong to 1471. From II. i. to IV. iv., the events of 1483 follow one another in rapid succession. At the end of IV. iv., the interval between Richmond's separate expeditions of 1483 and 1485 is annihilated, and the drama moves on to its climax at Bosworth. The dramatic convenience of these alterations is obvious: accuracy of date is incompatible, in the space of five acts, with striking presentation of character. The main object of the play is to give bold dramatic relief to the figure of Richard III., whose traits were ready to hand in Holinshed. This is the object of the liberty which is taken with history in the famous scene between Richard and Lady Anne-a scene which has no foundation in fact, but is a most powerful demonstration of the personal influence of the hero on those round him. The interview with the Queen-dowager in IV. iv., where Richard again exercises his faculty of persuasion, is a free deduction from history for the same purpose. Richard's connivance at the death of Clarence, which the historical authorities merely insinuate, becomes in the play a positive fact. The impression of subtlety and wickedness, which is left by the chroniclers, is repeated by Shakespeare in the higher key and more emphatic tone which are required by drama. Now and then, the Shakespearean estimate of a particular character departs slightly from the estimate suggested by Holinshed. The Hastings of the play, vindictive, but gay and imprudent, is a more foolish person than the Hastings of history, who is more closely related to the Shakespearean Buckingham. Even Buckingham is represented as less cautious than he actually was. His bragging, melodramatic words in III. v. 5-11 amount to a confession of imbecility. Hastings and Buckingham, however, are merely dramatic foils to the figure of Richard; and, as such, the depreciation of their characters is unavoidable. Finally, some of the doubtful minor details of history become, where it is necessary in the play, actual facts. This is the case with the confidences of Richard to Buckingham, for which there is only historical probability; while the manner of Clarence's murder is related in accordance with likelihood rather than with ascertained truth. The treatment of history in Richard III. is guided everywhere by loyalty to the traditional principles of tragedy. The irresistible power of Nemesis over-rules the actions of every one of the characters. In the great tragedies of Shakespeare's later life, the misfortunes of the heroes compel our sympathy and regret, while we acknowledge that they are inevitable. But in Richard III. the inevitable nature of the tragedy precludes us from sympathy. We are passionless spectators, standing outside the drama. It is true that the dramatis persona interest us more nearly than any persons in the Henry VI. plays. Richard himself is a powerful study in sustained villainy: Hastings, his credulous dupe, and Buckingham, his short-sighted fellow-conspirator, although they are merely foils to him, are skilfully drawn as such. There is a pathetic humour in the precocious taunts of young York: the lamentations of the women and children whom Richard has bereaved have real pathos beneath their outward formality. But the abiding power of the tragedy lies in its clear presentation of the moral significance of the events which it relates. Raro antecedentem scelestum deseruit pede Pana claudo are words which would suggest themselves as a fit motto for the play, were it not that here vengeance follows at the very heels of crime. Richard has not had time to enjoy his triumph, when the first blow of vengeance strikes him. Hastings, in the moment of exultation at the death of his enemies, finds himself a partaker in their fate. Buckingham hastens his own downfall by hesitating at the last crime by which he can ensure temporary success. The ruin of Rivers and his friends, the helpless misery of the women, are hurried on by their selfish ambition and intrigue. It would be inaccurate to say that the author of Richard III. was profoundly moved by the spectacle of sin and its punishment in history. The doctrine was the conventional foundation of the tragic art which he practised. Expressed with pious conviction or reluctant acquiescence by the great Athenian dramatists, it had been accepted as an artificial principle by the author of the Senecan tragedies. In the dawn of the Renaissance, the "harm of hem that stode in heigh degree" was a favourite theme of prose and poetry, of which, in England, The Myrroure for Magistrates was the crowning example. The frigid atmosphere of that grave poem was the atmosphere of tragedy on the early Elizabethan stage, where Seneca was the formal model of drama. The tragic propriety of Gorboduc stirs no emotion of sympathy or horror, beyond the natural repugnance which we feel towards its fatal catastrophes. The crimes and punishment of Queen Eleanor in Peele's Edward I. are merely grotesque. In Lodge and Greene's Looking-Glass for London, a certain sincerity of feeling underlies the artless machinery of the story. But, in plays like The Wounds of Civil War, Greene's James IV., or the three parts of Henry VI., the tragic groundwork is a matter of course; and our estimate of such works depends on the degree of skill with which their leading principle is developed. The same Salish to bag mase XXV 5 of the thing, allowing for the exceptional horrors of the action, may be said of Titus Andronicus. Richard III. is almost the first tragedy of the school of Marlowe, in which the conventional element, used and developed with great clearness, is invested with a real human interest. The characters are something more than mere stage dolls, moved to and fro as the action of the play prescribes. Yet their sin and fate, if they compel our interest, leave our deeper emotions untouched. They are still matters of course. The dramatist has not won as yet that insight into the springs of human sin and folly which gives Othello or King Lear their eternal pathos. His characters are drawn in simple outline and with uniform colouring. They are good or bad without compensation. They sin without reflection: their punishment is purely mechanical. Richmond, the ultimate avenger, is the most lifeless figure of the play: he is merely the instrument of justice. To the author, in fact, the whole course of such a tragedy was perfectly obvious. It would have been impossible for him, at this date, to make Hastings say, in the hour of his misfortune: As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport. Margaret or Elizabeth could not yet acknowledge that : The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to plague us. Richmond could not yet confess, over the body of his slain adversary: This shows you are above, You justicers, that these our nether crimes So speedily can venge. In Richard III., as in King Lear, the wheel comes full circle; but the dramatist watches its revolution with imperfect experience, and, as a consequence, with little emotion. His artistic sympathy is concentrated on the figure of his hero. Every actor in the story receives his degree of life from association with Richard and contact with his malign influence. But, when we speak of the character of the hero and its effect on the play, we recognise in its design the same simplicity which |