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1 SCENE I." Welcome, sweet prince, to London, to your chamber."

AN extract from Ben Jonson's Part of King James's Entertainment in passing to his Coronation,' will explain this passage:-" The scene presented itself in a square and flat upright, like to the side of a city: the top thereof, above the vent and crest, adorned with houses, towers, and steeples, set off in prospective. Upon the battlements in a great capital letter was inscribed

LONDINIUM:

.... Beneath that, in a less and different character, was written

CAMERA REGIA,

which title immediately after the Norman Conquest it began to have; and, by the indulgence of succeeding princes, hath been hitherto continued In the frieze over the gate it seemeth to speak this verse:

PAR DOMUS HEC CELO,

SED MINOR EST DOMINO,

taken out of Martial, and implying, that though this city (for the state and magnificence) might by hyperbole be said to touch the stars, and reach up to heaven, yet was it far inferior to the master thereof, who was His Majesty; and in that respect unworthy to receive him. The highest person advanced therein

was

MONARCHICA BRITANNICA;

and fitly; applying to the above-mentioned title of the city, The King's Camber, and therefore here placed as in the proper seat of the empire."

2 SCENE I." Thus, like the formal Vice Iniquity." In an Illustration of Henry IV., Part II., Act III., we have given a brief notice of the Vice of the old drama. Gifford has thus described him, with his usual good sense; and his description may spare our readers the trouble of wading through the elaborate dissertations which generally accompany the passage before us:-"He appears to have been a perfect counterpart of the Harlequin of the modern stage, and had a twofold office; to instigate the hero of the piece to wickedness, and, at the same time, to protect him from the devil, whom he was permitted to buffet and baffle with his wooden sword, till the process of the story required that both the protector and the protected should be carried off by the fiend; or the latter driven roaring from the stage by some miraculous interposition in favour of the repentant offender." This note is appended to a passage in the first scene of Ben Jonson's The Devil is an Ass.' We learn from this scene that there were Vices of various ranks, which had their proper appellations:

"Sat. What Vice?

What kind wouldst thou have it of?
Pug. Why any: Fraud,

Or Covetousness, or Lady Vanity,
Or old Iniquity."

We have here then the very personage to which
Richard refers; and Jonson brings him upon the
scene to proclaim his own excellencies, in a style of
which the following is a specimen :-
:-

"What is he calls upon me, and would seem to lack a Vice? Ere his words be half spoken, I am with him in a trice: Here, there, and everywhere, as the cat is with the mice: True Vetus Iniquitas. Lack'st thou cards, friend, or dice?

I will teach thee to cheat, child, to cog, lie, and swagger,
And ever and anon to be drawing forth thy dagger:
To swear by Gogs-nowns, like a lusty Juventus,
In a cloak to thy heel, and a hat like a pent-house."

the connexion of Richard III. with Crosby House.* It was the mansion of Sir John Crosby, an eminent citizen, who was sheriff in 1470. The temporary occupation of this splendid house by Richard was

Satan, however, will have nothing to do with Iniquity, probably owing to the favour in which he was held

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That are received now upon earth, for Vices;

Stranger and newer: and changed every hour."

In The Staple of News' there is a sort of Chorus

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or Intermean' between each act, in which the previous scenes are remarked upon. We learn again from this that the Vice had become obsolete in Jonson's time. The Vices of the play are explained to be the vicious characters; but Tattle, one of the performers in the Intermean, objects to this; which Mirth, another performer, defends :—

"Tat. But here is never a fiend to carry him away. Besides, he has never a wooden dagger! I would not give a rush for a Vice that has not a wooden dagger to snap at everybody he meets.

"Mirth. That was the old way, gossip, when Iniquity came in like Hokos Pokos, in a juggler's jerkin, with false skirts, like the Knave of Clubs; but now they are attired like meu and women of the time, the Vices male and female."

Iniquity, then, was no doubt a character whose attributes were always essentially the same; who was dressed always according to one fashion; who constantly went through the same round of action; who had his own peculiar cant words;-something, in fact, very similar to that most interesting relic of antiquity, Punch, who, in spite of meddling legislation, still beats his wife and still defies the devil. It is to this fixed character of the "Vice Iniquity" that we think Shakspere alludes when he calls him "the formal Vice,"-the Vice who conducts himself according to a set form. It was his custom, no doubt,

to

"Moralize two meanings in one word."

It is to this formal character that Hamlet alludes:"A vice of kings

A cutpurse of the empire and the rule;
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket!"

"A king

Of shreds and patches."

3 SCENE I.-" At Crosby-house there shall you find us both."

No historical fact can be better ascertained than

in the city, where he had many zealous, and, no doubt, conscientious partisans. This fine specimen of the domestic architecture of the fifteenth century has been singularly fortunate in partially escaping the accidents of time, and the more ruthless devastation of modern improvement. What remains to us has been judiciously restored; and we have no doubt that the national love of whatever is connected with the name of Shakspere has thus secured to us one of the most interesting places associated with his immortal

scenes.

SCENE IV." My lord of Ely, when I was last in
Holborn,

I saw good strawberries in your garden there;
I do beseech you send for some of them.”

Sir Thomas More, no doubt, had this circumstance, of the remarkable scene which preceded the death of Hastings, from some well-authenticated report. It was not a thing to be invented.† Ely Place, a century afterwards, was surrounded with fields and gardens; and in the time of Richard III. strawberries were an article of ordinary consumption in London. In Lydgate's poem of London Lyckpeny' we have the following lines:

"Theu unto London I dyde me hye,

Of all the land it bearyeth the pryse ;
'Gode pescode,' owne began to cry—
⚫ Strabery rype, and cherrys in the ryse.'"

5 SCENE V." If you thrive well bring them to Baynard's castle."

Baynard's Castle, which stood on the bank of the river in Thames-street, has been swept away by the commercial necessities of London. The dingy barge is moored in the place of the splendid galley; and porters and carmen squabble on the spot where princes held their state. The Baynard's Castle of the time of Richard III. was built by Humphrey Duke of Gloster; and it was subsequently granted by Henry VI. to Richard's father, the Duke of York.

It is called Crosby House in the folio edition; Crosby Place in the quartos. + See Historical Illustration.

HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATION.

SIR THOMAS MORE'S Tragical History of Richard III.' (otherwise called The History of the pitiful Life and unfortunate Death of King Edward V.') ought to be regarded with veneration, for it has given to Shakspere the materials for some of the most spirited of these scenes. Hall copied More verbatim; and in that he showed his good sense. The scenes described by More have a wonderful air of truth,

probably, in great part, from the notice of little incidents that could only have been derived from actual observation. It is supposed that he obtained these minute particulars from Morton Bishop of Ely,the same bishop who had very good strawberries in his garden at Holborn. However the transactions of the reign of Richard may have been coloured, the colouring must remain. The scenes which More

has recorded, and Shakspere rendered perpetual, must continue to be received as true. They may not be the literal truth,--but they involve, there can be little doubt, the higher general truth, with reference to the mysterious events of this turbulent period. We have little more to do here than indicate the connexion between the old narrative and the action of this drama.

The following is the foundation of the first scene of this act :

"When the cardinal and the other lords had received the young duke, they brought him into the Star Chamber, where the protector took him into his arms and kissed him with these words: Now welcome, my lord, with all my very heart; and he said in that of likelihood even as he inwardly thought, and thereupon forthwith brought him to the king his brother into the bishop's palace at Paul's, and from thence through the city honourably into the Tower, out of which after that day they never came abroad. When the protector had both the children in his possession, yea, and that they were in a sure place, he then began to thirst to see the end of his enterprise. And to avoid all suspicion he caused all the lords which he knew to be faithful to the king to assemble at Baynard's castle to commune of the order of the coronation, while he and other of his complices and of his affinity at Crosby's-place contrived the contrary, and to make the protector king: to which counsel there were adhibit very few, and they very secret."

With what skill Shakspere has caught the dramatic situation of the old History may be seen by a comparison of the following extract from Hall with Scene II. :

"A marvellous case it is to hear, either the warnings that he should have voided, or the tokens of that he could not void. For the next night before his death the Lord Stanley sent to him a trusty messenger at midnight in all the haste, requiring him to rise and ride away with him, for he was disposed utterly no longer for to abide, for he had a fearful dream, in the which he thought that a boar with his tusks so rased them both by the heads that the blood ran about both their shoulders; and for as much as the protector gave the boar for his cognizance, he imagined that it should be he. This dream made such a fearful impression in his heart, that he was thoroughly determined no longer to tarry, but had his horse ready, if the Lord Hastings would go with him; so that they would ride so far that night that they should be out of danger by the next day. Ah! good lord (qd* the Lord Hastings to the messenger): leaneth my lord thy master so much to such trifles, and hath such faith in dreams, which either his own fear phantasieth, or do rise in the night's rest by reason of the day's thought? Tell him it is plain witchcraft to believe in such dreams, which, if they were tokens of things to come, why thinketh he not that we might as likely make them true by our going, if we were caught and brought back (as friends fail fliers), for then had the

q, quoth.

boar a cause likely to rase us with his tusks, as folks that fled for some falsehood, wherefore either is there peril, nor none there is deed, or if any be it is rather in going than abiding. And if we should needs fall in peril one way or other, yet had I liefer that men should say it were by other men's falsehood, than think it were either our own fault or faint feeble heart; and therefore go to thy master and commend me to him, and say that I pray him to be merry and have no fear, for I assure him I am assured of the man he wotteth of, as I am sure of mine own hand. God send grace (qd the messenger); and so departed. Certain it is also that in riding toward the Tower the same morning in which he was beheaded, his horse that he accustomed to ride on stumbled with him twice or thrice almost to the falling; which thing, although it happeth to them daily to whom no mischance is toward, yet hath it been as an old evil token observed as a going toward mischief. Now this that followeth was no warning, but an envious scorn. The same morning, ere he were up from his bed, there came to him Sir Thomas Haward, son to the Lord Haward (which lord was one of the priviest of the lord protector's council and doing), as it were of courtesy to accompany him to the council, but of truth sent by the lord protector to haste him hitherward.

"This Sir Thomas, while the Lord Hastings staid a while communing with a priest whom he met in the Tower-street, brake the lord's tale, saying to him merely, What, my lord! I pray you come on; wherefore talk you so long with that priest? you have no need of a priest yet: and laughed upon him, as though he would say, You shall have need of one soon. But little wist the other what he meant (but or night these words were well remembered by them that heard them); so the true Lord Hastings little mistrusted, and was never merrier, nor thought his life in more surety in all his days, which thing is often a sign of change: but I shall rather let anything pass me than the vain surety of man's mind so near his death; for upon the very Tower wharf, so near the place where his head was off so soon after as a man might well cast a ball, a pursuivant of his own, called Hastings, met with him, and of their meeting in that place he was put in remembrance of another time in which it happened them to meet before together in the place, at which time the Lord Hastings had been accused to King Edward by the Lord Rivers, the queen's brother, insomuch that he was for a while, which lasted not long, highly in the king's indignation. As he now met the same pursuivant in the same place, the jeopardy so well passed, it gave him great pleasure to talk with him thereof, with whom he had talked in the same place of that matter, and therefore he said, Ah, Hastings, art thou remembered when I met thee here once with an heavy heart? Yea, my lord, (qd he,) that I remember well, and thanked be to God they gat no good nor you no harm thereby. Thou wouldest say so (qa he) if thou knewest so much as I do, which few know yet, and more shall shortly. That meant he, that the Earl Rivers and the Lord Richard and Sir

Thomas Vaughan should that day be beheaded at Pomfret, as they were indeed; which act he wist well should be done, but nothing ware that the axe hung so near his own head. In faith, man, (qd he,) I was never so sorry, nor never stood in so great danger of my life, as I did when thou and I met here; and lo! the world is turned now; now stand mine enemies in the danger, as thou mayest hap to hear more hereafter, and I never in my life merrier, nor never in so great surety. I pray God it prove so (q Hastings). Prove! (q he:) doubtest thou that? nay, nay, I warrant thee. And so in manner displeased he entered into the Tower."

So, more especially, with the great scene (Scene Iv.) of the arrest of Hastings:

"The lord protector caused a council to be set at the Tower on the Friday the thirteenth day of June, where was much communing for the honourable solemnity of the coronation, of the which the time appointed approached so near that the pageants were a making day and night at Westminster, and victual killed which afterward was cast away. "These lords thus sitting communing of this matter, the protector came in among them about nine of the clock, saluting them courteously, excusing himself that he had been from them so long, saying merely that he had been a sleeper that day; and after a little talking with them he said to the Bishop of Ely, My lord, you have very good strawberries in your garden at Holborn, I require you let us have a mess of them. Gladly, my lord, (qa he,) I would I had some better thing as ready to your pleasure as that: and with that in all haste he sent his servant for a dish of strawberries. The protector set the lords fast in communing, and thereupon prayed them to spare him a little, and so he departed, and came again between ten and eleven of the clock into the chamber all changed, with a sour angry countenance, knitting the brows, frowning, and fretting, and gnawing on his lips, and so set him down in his place. All the lords were dismayed, and sore marvelled of this manner and sudden change, and what thing should him ail. When he had sitten a while, thus he began: What were they worthy to have that compass and imagine the destruction of me, being so near of blood to the king, and protector of this his royal realm ? At which question all the lords sat sore astonished, musing much by whom the question should be meant, of which every man knew himself clear.

"Then the Lord Hastings, as he that for the familiarity that was between them thought he might be boldest with him, answered and said, That they were worthy to be punished as heinous traitors, whatsoever they were: and all the other affirmed the same. That is (qd he) yonder sorceress my brother's wife, and other with her: meaning the queen. At these words many of the lords were sore abashed which favoured her; but the Lord Hastings was better content in his mind that it was moved by her than by any other that he loved better, albeit his heart grudged that he was not afore made of counsel of this matter, as well as he was of the taking of her kindred, and of their

putting to death, which were by his assent before devised to be beheaded at Pomfret this self-same day, in the which he was not ware that it was by other devised that he himself should the same day be beheaded at London. Then, said the protector, in what wise that sorceress and other of her counsel, as Shore's wife with her affinity, have by their sorcery and witchcraft thus wasted my body: and therewith plucked up his doublet-sleeve to his elbow on his left arm, where he showed a wearish withered arm, and small as it was never other. And thereupon every man's mind misgave them, well perceiving that this matter was but a quarrel, for well they wist that the queen was both too wise to go about any such folly, and also, if she would, yet would she of all folk make Shore's wife least of her counsel, whom of all women she most hated as that concubine whom the king her husband most loved.

"Also, there was no man there but knew that his arm was ever such sith the day of his birth. Nevertheless the Lord Hastings, which from the death of King Edward kept Shore's wife, whom he somewhat doted in the king's life, saying, it is said, that he forbare her for reverence toward his king, or else of a certain kind of fidelity toward his friend; yet now his heart somewhat grudged to have her whom he loved so highly accused, and that as he knew well untruly; therefore he answered and said, Certainly, my lord, if they have so done they be worthy of heinous punishment. What! (qd the protector,) thou servest me, I ween, with if and with and: I tell thee they have done it, and that will I make good on thy body, traitor: and therewith (as in a great anger) he clapped his fist on the board a great rap; at which token given, one cried treason without the chamber, and therewith a door clapped, and in came rushing men in harness, as many as the chamber could hold; and anon the protector said to the Lord Hastings, I arrest thee, traitor! What, me, my lord? qa be. Yea, the traitor, qa the protector; and one let fly at the Lord Stanley, which shrunk at the stroke, and fell under the table, or else his head had been cleft to the teeth, for as shortly as he shrank yet ran the blood about his ears. Then was the Archbishop of York, and Doctor Morton Bishop of Ely, and the Lord Stanley, taken, and divers other, which were bestowed in divers chambers, save the Lord Hastings (whom the protector commanded to speed and shrive him apace), For by Saint Paul (q he) I will not dine till I see thy head off. It booted him not to ask why, but heavily he took a priest at a venture and made a short shrift, for a longer would not be suffered, the protector made so much haste to his dinner, which might not go to it till this murther were done for saving of his ungracious oath. So was he brought forth into the green beside the chapel within the Tower, and his head laid down on a log of timber that lay there for building of the chapel, and there tyrannously stricken off, and after his body and head were interred at Windsor by his master, King Edward the Fourth, whose souls Jesu pardon. Amen."

The scene upon the Tower walls, where Gloster and Buckingham appear in "rotten armour, marvellous ill favoured," has its origin in the following description of their practice upon the credulity of the citizens, showing themselves in "old evil-favoured briganders, such as no man would ween that they would have vouchsafed to have put on their backs, except some sudden necessity had constrained them: "

"Now flew the fame of this lord's death through the city and farther about, like a wind in every man's ear; but the protector immediately after dinner, intending to set some colour upon the matter, sent in all the haste for many substantial men out of the city into the Tower, and at their coming himself with the Duke of Buckingham stood harnessed in old evil-favoured briganders, such as no man would ween that they would have vouchsafed to have put on their backs, except some sudden necessity had constrained them. Then the lord protector showed them that the Lord Hastings and other of his conspiracy had contrived to have suddenly destroyed him and the Duke of Buckinghamn there the same day in counsel, and what they intended farther was yet not well known; of which their treason he had never knowledge before x of the clock the same forenoon, which sudden fear drave them to put on such haruess as came next to their hands for their defence, and so God help them! that the mischief turned upon them that would have done it, and thus he required them to report. Every man answered fair, as though no mau mistrusted the matter, which of truth no man believed."

The seventh scene, one of the most skilfully conducted of the whole play, may be traced in very minute particulars to the graphic historian :

"When the duke had said, and looked that the people, whom he hoped that the mayor had framed before, should, after this flattering proposition made, have cried King Richard! King Richard! all was still and mute, and not one word answered to; wherewith the duke was marvellously abashed, and taking the mayor near to him, with other that were about him privy to the matter, said unto them softly, What meaneth this that the people be so still? Sir, quod the mayor, percase they perceive you not well. That shall we amend, quod he, if be that will help; and therewith somewhat louder rehearsed the same matter again, in other order and other words, so well and ornately, and nevertheless so evidently and plain, with voice, gesture, and countenance so comely and so convenient, that every man much marvelled that heard him, and thought that they never heard in their lives so evil a tale so well told. But were it for wonder, or fear, or that each looked that other should speak first, not one word was there answered of all the people that stood before; but all were as still as the midnight, not so much rouning among them, by which they might seem once to commune what was best to do. When the mayor saw this, he, with other partners of the counsel, drew about the duke, and said that the people had not been accustomed there to

* To roun, or round, is to speak privately.

be spoken to but by the recorder, which is the mouth of the city, and haply to him they will answer. With that the recorder, called Thomas Fitz William, a sad man and an honest, which was but newly come to the office, and never had spoken to the people before, and loth was with that matter to begin, notwithstanding, thereunto commanded by the mayor, made rehearsal to the commons of that which the duke had twice purposed himself; but the recorder so tempered his tale that he showed everything as the duke his words were, and no part of his own: but all this no change made in the people, which alway after one stood as they had been amazed. Whereupon the duke rouned with the mayor, and said, This is a marvellous obstinate silence; and therewith turned to the people again, with these words: Dear friends, we come to move you to that thing which peradventure we so greatly needed not, but that the lords of this realm and commons of other parts might have sufficed, saying such love we bear you, and so much set by you, that we would not gladly do without you that thing in which to be partners is your weal and honour, which as to us seemeth you see not or weigh not; wherefore we require you to give us an auswer, one or other, whether ye be minded, as all the nobles of the realm be, to have this noble prince, now protector, to be your king? And at these words the people began to whisper among themselves secretly, that the voice was neither loud nor base, but like a swarm of bees, till at the last, at the nether end of the hall, a bushment of the duke's servants, and one Nashfield, and other belonging to the protector, with some prentices and lads that thrusted into the hall amongst the press, began suddenly at men's backs to cry out as loud as they could, King Richard! King Richard! and then threw up their caps in token of joy, and they that stood before cast back their heads marvelling thereat, but nothing they said. And when the duke and the mayor saw this manner, they wisely turned it to their purpose, and said it was a goodly cry and a joyful to hear every man with one voice, and no man saying nay. Wherefore friends, (quod the duke,) sith we perceive that it is all your whole minds to have this noble man for your king, whereof we shall make his grace so effectual report that we doubt not but that it shall redound to your great wealth and commodity. We therefore require you that to-morrow ye go with us, and we with you, to his noble grace, to make our humble petition and request to him in manner before remembered.

"Then on the morrow the mayor and aldermen and chief commoners of the city, in their best manner apparelled, assembling them together at Paul's, resorted to Baynard's castle, where the protector lay, to which place also, according to the appointment, repaired the Duke of Buckingham, and divers nobles with him, besides many knights and gentleAnd thereupon the duke sent word to the lord protector of the being there of a great honourable company to move a great matter to his grace. Whereupon the protector made great difficulty to come down to them, except he knew some part of their errand, as though he doubted, and partly mis

men.

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