the third Act; and with Queen Elizabeth, Queen Margaret, and the Duchess, in the fourth; we shall see that Shakespeare simply develops what More, Hall, and Holinshed describe or suggest. In his fidelity, indeed, to this portrait he has even given Richard an extra coating of blacking, for there is nothing in either More, Hall or Holinshed to warrant the representation of Clarence being murdered by Richard's orders.

Among Shakespeare's most remarkable deviations from the Chronicles are, besides what has just been mentioned, the introduction of Anne at the funeral of Henry VI; the introduction of Margaret of Anjou, who was never at Edward's Court, and who was, at this time, in France; and the privity of Buckingham to the murder of the young princes. Among Shakepeare's most characteristic additions are the second scene of the first Act, where Richard stops the funeral and woos Anne; the third scene of the same Act where Margaret intervenes; the details of Clarence's last hours and murder in the scene which follows; the first scene of the third Act where Richard escorts the princes to the Tower, evolved from a few lines in Holinshed describing how Richard took the young Duke of York in his arms, and kissed him, saying, "Now welcome, my lord, with all my verie heart... and brought him unto the king his brother. . . into the Tower";1 the fourth scene of the fourth Act where Marga1 Chronicles, vol. iii. p. 721.

ret, Elizabeth, and the Duchess of York converse together and confront Richard on his way to Bosworth Field; and the account of Richard's last night on earth. This last scene was evolved from the following passage in the Chronicles :—

The fame went that he had the same night a dreadfull and terrible dreame: for it 'seemed to him, being asleepe, that he did see diverse images, like terrible divels, which pulled and haled him, not suffering him to take anie quiet or rest. The which strange vision not so suddenlie strake his heart with a sudden feare but it stuffed his head and troubled his mind with manie and dreadful imaginations. For incontinent after, his heart being damped, he prognosticated before the doubtful chance of the battle to come, not using the alacritie and mirth of mind and countenance as he was accustomed to do, before he came toward the battell.1

The mathematical precision with which Shakespeare assembles the ghosts gives an air of unreality to the scene in which he expands the above passage, so that, in this case, he can hardly be said to improve on his original. His symmetry, indeed, trembles on the grotesque. The ensuing orations of Richmond and Richard to their respective armies follow the Chronicles very closely.

In addition to frame-work and suggestion, many effective touches and particulars are directly drawn from the original narrative. Such would be the pathetic speech which Edward makes, in his remorse for Clarence's

1 Chronicles, vol. iii. p. 755.

death, when he is asked to pardon Stanley's servant, Act ii. 2.

Had I a tongue to doom my brother's death
And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave?
My brother kill'd no man:.

And yet his punishment was bitter death;
Who sued to me for him? etc.

Compare with:

Although King Edward were consenting to his death yet he much did lament his unfortunate choice. . . insomuch, that when anie person sued to him for the pardon of malefactors condemned to death, he would accustomablie saie and openlie speak, "Oh unfortunate brother for whose life not one would make sute!" 1

As in the other plays, we see the same vigilance in noting and appropriating any striking image, and striking images are not common in the Chronicles. So finding this passage in the

Chronicles:

Before such great things mens hearts of a secret instinct of nature misgive them, as the sea without wind swelleth of himselfe sometime before a tempest.

he takes care to reproduce it :

Before the days of change, still is it so:
By a divine instinct mens minds mistrust
Pursuing danger: as, by proof we see

The water swell before a boist'rous storm.

Holinshed appears to have got it from Seneca.3 Of the care with which Shakespeare retains the

1 Chronicles, vol. iii. p. 703.

* Ibid., p. 721. 9 See infra, p. 358.

most unimportant details we have an illustration in the fourth scene of the third Act, where Richard says to the Bishop of Ely:

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.

Ely: Marry, and will, my lord, with all my heart.

So the Chronicles.

After a little talking with them, he said unto the bishop of Elie, "My lord, you have verie good strawberries at your garden in Holborn. I require you let us have a messe of them." "Gladly, my lord" (quoth he).1

It is scarcely necessary to say that in this drama Shakespeare has immortalized a portrait and a career as purely fictitious as the popular representation of Machiavelli. In truth More's account of Richard and of Richard's actions, which is adopted and reproduced by Hall and Holinshed, is as romantic, 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.

1 Chronicles, vol. iii. p. 722.

And now we come to Henry VIII. Into the many problems connected with the authorship and the period of the composition of this play this is not the place to enter. But perhaps I may be allowed to say that, for my own part, I can see no sufficient reason for doubting the Shakespearean authorship of any portion of it, assuming that part of it was written early in Shakespeare's career, and that this part was more or less revised when, at a much later period, he took it up again and finished it. In none of his dramas is Holinshed, and what Holinshed incorporates or adopts, the Chronicles of Hall and Stow, Cavendish's Life of Wolsey and Campian's Irish Histories, followed so closely. It is simply a dramatization of the Chronicles. Scene by scene it follows them; scarcely anything of importance is added, scarcely anything of importance is altered, except an interpolation from Foxe. In what pertains to dramatisation alone is there any embroidery, and this is almost confined to the scene where Anne Boleyn and the old lady converse; to Buckingham's address to the people; to Wolsey's two great speeches; to the scene pourtraying the last hours of Katharine; to the comic scene in the Palace Yard; and to Cranmer's speech at the christening of Elizabeth. The rest merely conveys the dramatic presentation of what is expressed or of what is implicit in the prose narrative. It is remarkable that for the