He refers to Colley Cibber’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s play: ‘The Tragical History of King Richard III. Altered from Shakespear. By Colley Cibber Esq.’
NOTE XXVI.
[V. 3. 204–206.] Johnson says: ‘These lines stand with so little propriety at the end of this speech that I cannot but suspect them to be misplaced. Where then shall they be inserted? Perhaps after these words, Fool do not flatter (i.e. line 192).’
Rann, following Mason’s suggestion, inserted them after ‘I fear, I fear’ (line 214), and then, says Mason, Ratcliffe’s reply bidding the King not be afraid of shadows, would be natural. Mr Grant White would insert them either after line 178, ‘Soft I did but dream,’ or after 212, ‘I have dream’d a fearful dream.’ As the Folios omit lines 212, 213, Ratcliffe’s allusion to the shadows, of which he has heard nothing, is rendered absurd. Yet the absurdity escaped the notice of all editors before Capell.
NOTE XXVII.
[V. 5.] We have retained the stage direction of the Quartos and Folios, ‘they fight. Richard is slain,’ in preference to ‘they fight, and exeunt fighting’ of Mr Dyce, because it is probable from Derby’s speech, ‘From the dead temples of this bloody wretch,’ that Richard’s body is lying where he fell, in view of the audience.
CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
TRANSCRIBER’S ENDNOTE
Original printed spelling and grammar are retained, with exceptions noted below. Small caps LOOK LIKE THIS. The changes recommended in the [ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA] section have been applied. The transcriber created the cover image, and assigns it to the public domain.
It is impossible to render verse indents quite accurately in this electronic edition, which permits font-family and font-size and many other parameters to vary whimsically. Therefore verse indents are coded herein in terms of percentages of screen width. An original printed indent of 22em has been converted herein to 71.25% of total verse width, and an original indent of 2em is converted to 6.25%. Other indents are proportional.