Page:Richard III (1927) Yale.djvu/186

172 friends for fear. 'Diuerse other noble personages, which inwardlie hated king Richard woorse than a tode or a serpent, did likewise resort to him with all their power and strength, wishing and working his destruction. Holinshed, iii. 745. Halle, 413.

Earl of Surrey. This character is omitted in the quartos.

battalia. '[Richmond's] whole number exceeded not fiue thousand men, beside the power of the Stanleies, wherof three thousand were in the field. ' Holinshed, iii. 755. Halle, 414.

tower. Cf. Proverbs, xviii, 10: 'The name of the Lord is a strong tower.'

Dorset. He was not at Bosworth Field, having been left behind in France by Richmond.

watch. It is possible that 'watch' means here, as Doctor Johnson suggested, a watch-light or candle.

tender George. Shakespeare seems to have been unaware that George Stanley was at this time a grown man. 'The child' of the chronicles is the same use of the word as in the ballad quoted in King Lear, III. iv. 187, meaning 'young nobleman.'

bruising irons of wrath. Cf. Psalm ii, 9: 'Thou shalt bruise them with a rod of iron.'

Richard's dream. '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 diuerse images like terrible diuels, which pulled and haled him, not suffering him to take anie quiet or rest. ' Holinshed, iii. 755. Halle, 414.

lance. Some editors emend this line by the insertion of an adjective such as Collier's 'pointless' before 'lance.' As any such emendation rests