SCENE VIII. Alarm. Excurfions. Enter Catesby. Catef. Refcue, my Lord of Norfolk ! rescue! ref cue! 4 The King enacts more wonders than a man, Alarm. Enter King Richard, K. Rich. A horse! a horfe! my Kingdom for a horfe! I think there be fix Richmonds in the field; ! [Exeunt. Alarms. Enter King Richard and Richmond; they fight, Richard is flain. Retreat and Flourish. Enter Richmond, Stanley bearing the Crown, with divers others Lords. Rich. God and your arms be prais'd, victorious friends, The day is ours! the bloody dog is dead. Stant. Couragious Richmond, well haft thou acquit thee: Lo, here thefe long-ufurped royalties, From the dead temples of this bloody wretch, 6 Wear it, enjoy it, and make use of it. Richm. Great God of heaven, fay, Amen, to all! Richm. Inter their bodies as becomes their births. O now let Richmond and Elizabeth, and make use of it.] Some old books read, make MUCH of it and therefore Mr. Theobald reads fo too: but very foolishly. Without doubt ShakeSpear himself thus corrected it, to make use of it. Which fignifies don't abufe it like the Tyrant you have deftroyed; whereas the other reading make much of it, fignifies be fond of it; a very ridiculous moral for the conclufion of the Play. WARB. All this divided York and Lancafler, Divided in their dire divifion.] I think the paffage will be fomewhat improved by a flight alteration. All that divided York and Lancafter, Divided in their dire divifion, O now let Richmond and Elizabeth, The true Succeeders of each royal boufe, By God's fair ordinance conjoin Let them unite all that York and And And let their heirs, God, if thy will be fo, That this play has fcenes noble in themfelves, and very well contrived to frike in the exhibition, cannot be denied. But fome parts are trifling, others hacking, and fome improbable. 7 This is one of the most celebrated of our authour's performances; yet know not whether it has not happened to him as to others, to be praised moft when praife is not most deferved. I fhall here fubjoin two Differtations, one by Dr. Warburton, and one by Mr. Upten, upon the Vice. A CT III. SCENE I. Page 284. THUS like the formal VICE, INIQUITY, &c.] As this corrupt reading in the common books hathoccafioned our faying fomething of the barbarities of theatricalreprefentations amongft us before the time of Shakespear, it may not be improper, for a better apprehenfion of this whole matter, to give the reader fome general account of the rife and progrefs of the modern Stage. The firit form, in which the Drama appeared in the Well of Europe, after the destruction of learned Greece and Rome, and that a calm of Dulnefs had finifh'd upon letters what the rage of barbarifm had begun, was that of the Myftèries. Thefe were the fashionable and favou. rite diverfions of all Ranks of people both in France, Spain, and England In which laft place, as we learn by Stow, they were in ufe about the time of Richard the Second and Henry the Fourth. As to Italy, by what I can find, the first rudiments of their flage, with regard to the matter, were prophane fubjects, and, with regard to the form, a corruption of the ancient Mimes and Attellanes: By which means they got fooner into the right road than their neighbours; hav, ing had regular plays amongst them wrote as early as the fif teenth Century. As to thefe Myfteries, they were, as their name fpeaks them, a reprefentation of fome fcripture-tory, to the life as may be feen from the following paffage in an old French hiftory, intitled, La Chronique de Metz composic par le curé de St. Euchaire; which will give the reader no bad Idea of the furprizing abfurdity of thefe ftrange reprefentations. "L'an "L'an 1437le 3 Juillet (fays the boneft Chronicler) fut fait le Jeu de la Paffion de N.S. en le plaine de Veximiel. Et fut "Dieu un fire appellé Seigneur 66 Nicolle Dom Neufchaftel, le"quel etoit Curé de St. Victour "de Metz, lequel fut prefque "mort en la Croix, s'il ne fût "eté fecourus; & convient qu'un "autre Prêtre fut mis en la Croix pour parfaire le Perfonnage du "Crucifiment pour ce jour; " & le lendemain le dit Curé de "St. Victour parfit la Refur"rection, et fit très hautement "fon perfonage; & dura le dit Jeu Et autre Prêtre qui s'appelloit Mre. Jean de Nicey, qui eftoit Chapelain "de Metrange, fut Judas; le"quel fut prefque mort en pen"dant, car le cucr li faillit, & fut bien hâtivement dependu " & porté en Voye. Et etoit la bouche d'Enfer tres-bien faite; "carelle ouvroit & clooit, quand "les Diables y vouloient entrer et iffer; & avoit deux grofs "Culs d'Acier, &c." Alluding to this kind of reprefentations Archbishop Harfnet, in his Declaration of Popish Impofures, P. 71. fays, "The little Chil dren were never fo afraid of "Hell-mouth in the old plays, "painted with great gang teeth, faring eyes, and foul bottle "nofe." Carew in his Survey of Cornwall, gives a foller defcription of them in thefe words, "The Guary Miracle, in Eng"life lifh a Miracle-Play, is a kind of interlude compiled in Cornish out of fome Scripturehiftory. For reprefenting it, they raise an earthen Amphitheatre in fome open Field, having the diameter of an "inclofed Playne, fome 40 or 50 foot. The country people flock from all fides many "miles off, to hear and fee it. "For they have therein Devils 66 ولا" and Devices, to delight as "well the eye as the ear. The "Players conne not their parts " without book, but are promp"ted by one called the Ordinawho followeth at their "back with the book in his "hand, &c. &c." There was always a Droll or Buffoon in thefe Myfleries, to make the People mirth with his fufferings or abfurdities: and they could think of no better a perfonage to fuftain this part than the Devil himfel. Even in the Mystery of the Paffion mentioned above, it was contrived to make him ridiculous. Which circumftance is hinted at by Shakespear (who has frequent allufions to thefe things) in the Taming of the Shrew, where one of the Players asks for a little vinegar (as a Property) to make their Devil roar. For after the fpunge with the Gall and Vinegar had been employed in the reprefentation, they used to clap it to the nofe of the Devil; which making him roar, as if it had been holy-water, afforded infinite diverfion to the People. So that Vinegar in the old Farces, was always afterwards in ufe to torment their Devil. We have divers old English Proverbs, in which the Devil is reprefented as acting or fuffering ridiculoufly and abiurdly, which all arole from the part he bore in thefe Myfteries, as in that, for inftance, of Great cry and lit the wool, as the Devil faid when be feared his bags. For the heep hearing of Nabal being reprefented in the Mystery of David and Abigal, and the Devil always attending Nabal, was made to imitate it by hearing a Hog. This kind of abfurdity, as it is the propereft to create laughter, was the fubject of the ridiculous, in the ancient mimes, as we learn from thele words of St. Auflin: Ne faciamus ut Mimi folent, et optemus a Libero Aquam, à Lymphis Vinum *. Thele Myfteries, we fee, were given in France at firit, as well as in England, fub dio, and only in Hôtel de Bourgogne, but interdicted the reprefentation of the Myfteries. But in Spain, we find by Cervantes, that they continued much longer; and held their own, even after good Comedy came in amongit them: As appears from the excellent Critique of the Canon, in the fourth book, where he shows how the old extravagant Romances might be made the foundation of a regular Epic (which, he fays, tambien puede efcrivirfe en profa como en verfo; †) as the Myfiery-Plays might be improved into artful Comedy. His words are, Pues que fi venimos à las Comedias divinas, que de milagros the Provinces. Afterwards we find them got into Paris, and a Company cftablished in the Ho-faljes fingen en ellas, que de cofas tel de Bourgogne to reprefent them. But good Letters and Religion beginning to make their way in the latter end of the reign of Francis the First, the ftupidity and prophanenefs of the Miteries made the Courtiers and Clergy join their intereft for their fuppreffion. Accordingly, in the year 1541, the Procureur Generat, in the name of the king, prefented a Rique against the Company to the Parliament. The three principle branches of his charge againit them were, that the reprefentation of the Old-Teflament-Stories inclined the people to Judaifm; That the New-Teftament-Stories encouraged liberti ifm and infidelity; and that both of them leffened the Charities to the Poor: It feems that this profecution fucceeded for in 1548, the Parliament of Paris confirmed the company in the poffeflion of the * Civ. D. 1. 4. ' apocrifas, y mal entendidas, attribueyendo a un Santo los milagros de otro ; which made them fo fond of Miracles that they introduced them into las Comedias bumanas, as he calls them. To return; Upon this prohibition, the French poets turned themselves from Religious to Moral Farces. And in this we foon followed them: The public tafte not fuffering any greater alteration at first, tho' the Italians at this time afforded many just compofitions for better Models. These Far'ces they called Moralities. Pierre Gringere, one of their old Poets, printed one of these Mcralities, intitled La Moralité de l'Homme obtiné. The perfons of the Drama are l'Homme Obfiné-Pugnition DivineSimonie Hypocrifie and Demerites-Communes. The Homme Obftine is the Atheist, and comes |