THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING RICHARD II. A TRAGEDY. BY WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. ACCURATELY PRINTED FROM THE TEXT OF Mr. STEEVENS's LAST EDITION. Drnamented with Plates. London: PUBLISHED BY E. HARDING, NO. 98, PALL-MALL; J. WRIGHT, PICCADILLY; G. SAEL, STRAND; OBSERVATIONS. BUT this hiftory comprifes little more than the two last years of this prince. The action of the drama begins with Bolingbroke's appealing the duke of Norfolk, on an accufation of high treason, which fell out in the year 1398; and it closes with the murder of King Richard at Pomfret-cattle towards the end of the year 1400, or the beginning of the enfuing year. THEOBALD. It is evident from a paffage in Camden's Annals, that there was an old play on the fubject of Richard the Second; but I know not in what language. Sir Gillie Merick, who was concerned in the harebrained bufinefs of the earl of Effex, and was hanged for it, with the ingenious Cuffe, in 1601, is accused, amongst other things, " quod exoletam tragœdiam de tragicâ abdicatione regis Ricardi Secundi in publico theatro coram conjuratis datâ pecuniâ agi curaffet." I have fince met with a paffage in my Lord Bacon, which proves this play to have been in English. It is in the arraignments of Cuffe and Merick, Vol. IV. p. 412. of Mallet's edition: "The afternoon before the rebellion, Merick, with a great company of others, that afterwards were all in the action, had procured to be played before them the play of depofing King Richard the Second ; -when it was told him by one of the players, that the play was old, and they should have lofs in playing it, because few would come to it, there was forty Shillings extraordinary given to play, and fo thereupon played it was.' It may be worth enquiry, whether fome of the rhyming parts of the prefent play, which Mr. Pope thought of a different hand, might not be borrowed from the old one. Certainly, however, the general tendency of it must have been very different; fince, as Dr. Johnson oberves, there are fome expreffions in this of Shakspeare, which strongly inculcate the doctrine of indefeasible right. FARMER. It is probable, I think, that the play which Sir Gilly Merick procured to be represented, bore the title of HENRY IV. and not of RICHARD II. Camden calls it" exoletam tragediam de tragica abdicatione regis Ricardi fecundi" and (Lord Bacon in his account of The Effect of that which paffed at the arraignment of Merick and others) fays, "That the afternoon before the rebellion, Merick had procured to be played before them, the play of depofing King Richard the Second." But in a more particular account of the proceeding against Merick, which is printed in the State Trials, Vol. VII. p. 60, the matter is ftated thus: "The story of HENRY IV. being fet forth in a play, and in that play there being fet forth the killing of the king upon a stage; the Friday before, Sir Gilly Merick and fome others of the earl's train having an humour to fee a play, they must needs have the play of HENRY IV. The players told them that was ftale; they should get nothing by playing that; but no play elfe would ferve: and Sir Gilly Merick gives forty fhillings to Philips the player to play this, befides whatsoever he could get." Auguftine Philippes was one of the patentees of the Globe play-house with Shakspeare in 1603; but the play here defcribed was certainly not Shakspeare's HENRY IV. as that commences above a year after the death of Richard. TYR WHITT. This play of Shakspeare was first entered at Stationers' Hall by Andrew Wife, Aug. 29, 1597. STEEVENS. It was written, I imagine, in the fame year. MALONE. King RICHARD the Second. EDMUND of Langley, Duke of York; uncles to the King. HENRY, furnamed BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford, fon Duke of SURREY. Earl of SALISBURY. Earl BERKLEY. BAGOT, creatures to King Richard. GREEN, Earl of NORTHUMBERLAND. HENRY PERCY, his fon. Lord Ross. Lord WILLOUGHBY. Lord FITZWATER. Bishop of CARLISLE. Abbot of WESTMINSTER. Lord Marfbal; and another Lord. Sir PIERCE of Exton. Sir STEPHEN SCROOP. Queen to King Richard. Duchefs of GLOSTER. Duchefs of YORK. Lady attending on the Queen. Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, two Gardeners, Keeper, Meffengers, Groom, and other Attendants. SCENE, difperfedly in England and Wales. |