I'll to the king; and signify to him Fare you well. [Exit BRAKENBURY. 2 Murd. What, shall we stab him as he sleeps? 1 Murd. No; he 'll say 't was done cowardly, when he wakes. 2 Murd. Why, he shall never wake until the great judgment day. 1 Murd. Why, then he'll say we stabb'd him sleeping. well endeavours to trust to himself, and live without it. 1 Murd. It is now even at my elbow, persuading me not to kill the duke. 2 Murd. Take the devil in thy mind, and believe him not: he would insinuate with thee, but to make thee sigh. 1 Murd. I am strong fram'd, he cannot pre vail with me. 2 Murd. Spoken like a tall fellow that respects his reputation. Come, shall we fall to work? 1 Murd. Take him on the costard with the hilts of thy sword, and then throw him into the 2 Murd. The urging of that word, judgment, malmsey-butt, in the next room. hath bred a kind of remorse in me. 1 Murd. What? art thou afraid? 2 Murd. Not to kill him, having a warrant; but to be damn'd for killing him, from the which no warrant can defend me. 1 Murd. I thought thou hadst been resolute. 2 Murd. So I am, to let him live. 1 Murd. I'll back to the duke of Gloster, and tell him so. 2 Murd. Nay, I prithee, stay a little: I hope this passionate humour of mine will change: it was wont to hold me but while one tells twenty. 1 Murd. How dost thou feel thyself now? 2 Murd. Some certain dregs of conscience are yet within me. 1 Murd. Remember our reward, when the deed's done. 2 Murd. Come, he dies; I had forgot the reward. 1 Murd. Where's thy conscience now? our reward, thy conscience flies out. 2 Murd. "T is no matter; let it go; there's few, or none, will entertain it. 1 Murd. What, if it come to thee again? himself in a chair." This direction is founded upon the line 2 Murd. O excellent device! and make a sop of him. 1 Murd. Soft! he wakes. 2 Murd. Strike. 1 Murd. No, we 'll reason with him. Clar. Where art thou, keeper? give me a cup of wine. 1 Murd. You shall have wine enough, my lord, anon. Clar. In God's name, what art thou? 1 Murd. A man, as you are. 1 Murd. Nor you, as we are, loyal. Clar. Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble. 1 Murd. My voice is now the king's, my looks mine own. Clar. How darkly, and how deadly dost thou speak! Your eyes do menace me: Why look you pale? Who sent you hither? Wherefore do you come? 2 Murd. To, to, to Clar. To murther me? Clar. You scarcely have the hearts to tell me So, And therefore cannot have the hearts to do it. 1 Murd. Offended us you have not, but the Clar. I shall be reconcil'd to him again. Clar. Are you drawn forth among a world of In the previous dialogue between the two murderers, we have adhered to the text of the folio. There are several minute differences between this text and that of the quartos which it is scarcely necessary to point out. We print this line as in the folio. The first quarto reads, "Are you call'd forth from out a world of men." Johnson proposed to read cull'd. To slay the innocent? What is my offence? To threaten me with death is most unlawful. 1 Murd. What we will do we do upon com- 2 Murd. And he that hath commanded is our king. Clar. Erroneous vassal! the great King of Hath in the table of his law commanded, 2 Murd. And that same vengeance doth he hurl on thee, For false forswearing, and for murther too: 1 Murd. And, like a traitor to the name of God, Didst break that vow; and with thy treacherous blade Unrip'dst the bowels of thy sovereign's son. 2 Murd. Whom thou wast sworn to cherish and defend. 1 Murd. How canst thou urge God's dreadful law to us, When thou hast broke it in such dear degree? Clar. Alas! for whose sake did I that ill deed? For Edward, for my brother, for his sake: 1 Murd. Who made thee then a bloody minister, When gallant-springing, brave Plantagenet, That princely novice, was struck dead by thee? A line is here omitted in the folio, which it is unnecessary to retain in a modern text. It was properly omitted under the statute of James, as introducing the most sacred things unnecessarily into a work of imagination. quartos read "I charge you, as you hope to have redemption By Christ's dear blood shed for our grievous sins." The Clar. My brother's love, the devil, and my rage. 1 Murd. Thy brother's love, our duty, and thy faults, Provoke us hither now to slaughter thee. Clar. If you do love my brother, hate not me; I am his brother, and I love him well. If you are hir'd for meed, go back again, And I will send you to my brother Gloster; Who shall reward you better for my life Than Edward will for tidings of my death, 2 Murd. You are deceiv'd, your brother Gloster hates you. Clar. O, no; he loves me, and he holds me dear; Go you to him from me. Bless'd his three sons with his victorious arm, He little thought of this divided friendship : Bid Gloster think on this, and he will weep. 1 Murd. Ay, mill-stones; as he lesson'd us to O, if thine eye be not a flatterer, If two such murtherers as yourselves came to you, Would not entreat for life,-as you would beg Were you in my distress?" 2 Murd. Look behind you, my lord. I'll drown you in the malmsey-butt within. [Exit, with the body. 2 Murd. A bloody deed, and desperately despatch'd! How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands Of this most grievous murder! Re-enter first Murderer. 1 Murd. How now? what mean'st thou, that thou help'st me not? 1 Murd. Take that, and that; if all this will By heaven, the duke shall know how slack you • The arrangement here, in the folio, is entirely different from that of the ordinary text. We prefer, of course, to follow the folio, instead of adopting the arbitrary regulations' of the modern editors, who, taking six additional lines which they find in the folio, have transposed them after their own fashion. The text of the quartos is as follows: "Clar. Relent, and save your souls. 1 M. Relent! 'tis cowardly and womanish. Clar. Not to relent, is beastly, savage, and devilish. My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks; O, if thine eye be not a flatterer, Come thou on my side and entreat for me: A begging prince what beggar pities not ?" have been. 2 Murd. I would he knew that I had sav'd his brother! Take thou the fee, and tell him what I say; [Exit. 1SCENE II." Come now, toward Chertsey with your holy load." THE monastery of Chertsey, to which, after resting a day at St. Paul's, the corpse of Henry VI. was carried to be interred, exhibits scarcely any trace of its former state. The old building shown in the above view stands upon its site; and a few mouldering walls indicate that the men of other days have here abided. 2SCENE II.— — "dead Henry's wounds Open their congeal'd mouths, and bleed afresh!" Drayton has stated the popular superstition to which this passage refers: "If the vile actors of the heinous deed Near the dead body happily be brought, Oft 't hath been prov'd the breathless corpse will bleed." In the very interesting collection of English Causes Célèbres,' edited and illustrated with equal spirit and accuracy by Mr. Craik, the belief is shown to have been so universally established in Scotland, as late as 1688, that the crown council, Sir George Mackenzie, in the remarkable trial of Philip Standsfield, thus alludes to a fact sworn to by several witnesses on that trial:-" God Almighty himself was pleased to bear a share in the testimonies which we produce. That Divine Power which makes the blood circulate during life has ofttimes, in all nations, opened a passage to it after death upon such occasions, but most in this case; for after all the wounds had been sewed up, and the body designedly shaken up and down, and, which is most wonderful, after the body had been buried for several days, which naturally occasions the blood to congeal, upon Philip's touching it the blood darted and sprung out, to the great astonishment of the chirurgeons themselves, who were desired to watch this event; whereupon Philip, astonished more than they, threw down the body, crying, O God! O God! and, cleansing his hand, grew so faint that they were forced to give him a cordial." IT has not been our design, in these illustrations, to advance the knowledge of the real facts of history, and to show the proper dependence of one fact upon another, for the purpose of correcting the poetical view of any series of events; far less have we endeavoured to enter upon disputed points, and to place conflicting evidence, for the most part derived from the more accurate researches of modern times, in opposition to the details of the old historical authorities. It is our business simply to show the foundations upon which our poet built;-to trace the relations between his dramatic situations and the narratives with which he was evidently familiar. In the great drama before us Shakspere fell in with the popular view of the character of Richard III.;-preserving all the strong lineaments of his guilty ambition, as represented by Sir Thomas More, and the Chroniclers who followed the narrative of that illustrious man, with marvellous subservience to his own wonderful conception of the high intellectual supremacy of this usurper. We are not about to inquire whether the Richard of History has had justice done to him, but whether the Richard of Shak spere accords with the Richard of the old annalists. We shall quote invariably from Hall, because his narrative is more literally copied from More and the contemporary writers than that of Holinshed, who is never so quaint and vigorous; and further, because we wish to show that the nonsense which has been uttered by Malone and others, that Shakspere knew no other historian than Holinshed, is disproved in the clearest manner by the accuracy with which in some scenes he follows the older Chronicler. We first give Hall's description (from More) of Richard's person and character: "Richard duke of Gloster was in wit and courage equal with the others (his brothers Edward and George), but in beauty and lineaments of nature far underneath both; for he was little of stature, evil-featured of limbs, crook-backed, the left shoulder much higher than the right, hard favoured of visage, such as in estates is called a warlike visage and among common persons a crabbed face. He was malicious, wrathful, and envious, and, as it is reported, his mother the duchess had much |