"Richard III" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... To Richard III. on whom history has cast innumerable stains, England has considerable obligations as a legislator. Barrington thus speaks of him: "Not to mention his causing each act of parliament to be written in English and to be printed, he was the first prince on the English ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... king—perhaps excepting Richard III. of England, whom he resembled—had for his champion the victor of Cressy and Poictiers. He was restored to his throne, which had been usurped by his brother Enrique (or Henry), but in a personal encounter ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... being obliged to carry their goods to a market where the generality of purchasers were pleased with more elegantly executed works at an inferior price. The legislature felt, as every patriotic legislature would feel, for their injured countrymen; and, accordingly, the statute of Richard III. was enacted,[176] whereby English printers and book-binders were protected from the mischiefs, which would otherwise have overtaken them. Thus our old friend Caxton went to work with greater glee, and mustered up all his energies to bring a good stock of British manufacture to the market. What ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... True, we were now even with the foe, but we were compelled to show a majority, even if it consisted only of a single vote. If Richard III could offer "a kingdom for a horse," why should not we offer ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... seen in the streets hanging over the shops of oil-dealers, what shall be said of them? They are generally Richard III. whales, with dromedary humps, and very savage; breakfasting on three or four sailor tarts, that is whaleboats full of mariners: their deformities floundering in seas of ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... gallant Yorkist Edward IV. is supported on the dexter side by a lion rampant argent, the tail passed between his legs, and turned over his back; on the sinister by a white hart, and in some instances by a bull. The supporters of the shield of Richard III. were two boars rampant argent, tusked and bristled or. Henry VII., as a descendant of the Welch prince Cadwallader, assumed the red dragon as the supporter of the dexter side of his shield; the sinister was supported by a greyhound argent, ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... Lord Mayor of London, delivered a sermon at St. Paul's Cross, in which he insisted on the illegitimacy of Edward V. and his brother. On June 25th a deputation of nobles and citizens of London offered the crown to Richard. He accepted it, and began to reign as Richard III. And, according to a confession afterwards made by Sir James Tyrell, one of Richard's officers, the two young princes remained in the Tower, being put to death by their Uncle Richard's orders. Thus, atrociously, began the reign of ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... him the absolute mastery over his own sovereign; we see repeatedly in profane history that the mutual knowledge of some crime is the invariable cause of deadly hatred between a subject and a king. Such feelings as King John may be supposed to have had to Hubert de Burgh, or King Richard III. to Sir James Tyrrel, or King James I. to the Earl of Somerset, such probably, in still more virulent intensity, were the feelings of Nero towards his ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... Julius Caesar or Richard III. stalking about in impossible clothes, and stepping four feet at a stride, if they want to, but let them not claim to be more "legitimate" than "Ours" or "Rip Van Winkle." There will probably be some ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... not care to walk always in the well-tried paths, or to follow the grooves made plain and uninteresting by earlier writers. Tiberius and even Nero have been praised. The memories of our early years have been shocked by instructions to regard Richard III. and Henry VIII. as great and scrupulous kings. The devil may have been painted blacker than he should be, and the minds of just men, who will not accept the verdict of the majority, have been much exercised to put ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... me. It could not long escape his quick penetration that my thoughts were deeply occupied. He was earnest with me to accompany him, in the evening, to see Garrick in Richard III, but could not prevail. He taxed me with absence of mind, and was kindly earnest to know why I was so serious. I told him at last it was a family concern; and this did but increase his eagerness to know of what nature. ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... person's wounds would bleed afresh in the presence of his murderer. The passage in our text is interesting as being the earliest literary reference to the belief. Other instances will be found in Shakespear ("King Richard III., Act. I., Sc. 2), Cervantes ("Don Quixote"), Scott ("Ballads"), and Schiller ("Braut von Messina"). In the 15th and 16th centuries especially, the bleeding of the dead became in Italy, Germany, France, and Spain an absolute or contributory ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... of "Mary, Queen of Scotland," was withheld from the stage for twenty years, owing to "the profound penetration of the Master of the Revels, who saw political spectres in it that never appeared in the presentation." From Cibber's version of "Richard III.," the first act was wholly expunged, lest "the distresses of King Henry VI., who is killed by Richard in the first act, should put weak people too much in mind of King James, then living in France." In vain did Cibber petition the Master of the Revels "for the small indulgence ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... expression of a lower view of human nature. Not so with him. He has weak and erring men—men who are misled by their passions, ambition, revenge, selfish lust, or what not; but Iago, Edmund, and the Duke in "Measure for Measure" are almost all his characters of their kind. In "Richard III." he merely painted a highly colored historical portrait; and Parolles, in "All's Well that Ends Well," and Iachimo, in "Cymbeline," do not rise to the dignity of even third-rate personages. Iago, it need hardly be said, is the most perfect of all his creatures in this kind, ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... contemporaries can be credited with exerting on his efforts in tragedy a really substantial influence, was in 1592 and 1593 at the zenith of his fame. Two of Shakespeare's earliest historical tragedies, 'Richard III' and 'Richard II,' with the story of Shylock in his somewhat later comedy of the 'Merchant of Venice,' plainly disclose a conscious resolve to follow in Marlowe's footsteps. In 'Richard III' Shakespeare, working single-handed, ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... replied the prince, "I have seen Richard III. performed by Garrick. But were we at that moment sufficiently cool to be capable of observing dispassionately? Could we judge of the emotion of the Sicilian when we were almost overcome by our own? ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... story alluded to by Pepys, which belongs not to the reign of Richard III., but to that of Edward VI., occurred during a seditious outbreak at Bodmin, in Cornwall, and is thus related by Holinshed: "At the same time, and neare the same place [Bodmin], dwelled a miller, that had beene a greate dooer ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... an ideal commonwealth, modeled on Plato's Republic, and printed in 1516. The name signifies "no place" (Outopos), and has furnished an adjective to the language. The Utopia was in Latin, but More's History of Edward V. and Richard III., written in 1513, though not printed till 1557, was in English. It is the first example in the tongue of a history as distinguished from a chronicle; that is, it is a reasoned and artistic presentation of an historic period, and not a ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... competent text critics impute to the years 1591 to 1594—is mentioned in Henslowe's Diary as having been presented upon his boards. It is generally agreed that The Comedy of Errors, King John, Richard II., Love's Labour's Lost, Love's Labour's Won, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Richard III., and Midsummer Night's Dream, were all produced before the end of 1594, yet there is no record nor mention of any one of these plays in Henslowe's Diary, which gives a very full list of the performances at the Rose and the plays presented ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... believed to have been killed in 1471, he being then a prisoner in the hands of the triumphant Yorkists,—but there is no proof that he was killed. Edward V., a boy-monarch, is one of the princes whom Richard III.'s enemies said he had smothered in the Tower,—a story to be maintained only by smothering all evidence. Many English sovereigns were attacked by assassins, but escaped. Edward I. was stabbed by a Mussulman when ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... pictures before us. One, on paper yellow with the moth of years, is the portrait of an actor in the costume of Richard III. What a classic face! English features are rarely cast in that antique mould. The head sits lightly on its columnar neck, and is topped with dark-brown curls, that cluster like the acanthus; the gray eyes are those which were justly described as being "at times ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... gratification of this ruling passion. On pretence of a French war, he issued a commission for levying a "benevolence" on his people;[*] a species of taxation which had been abolished by a recent law of Richard III. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... steamer Ariel with me that I state here that the accommodations on that steamer were very vile. If I did not so state, my conscience would sting me through life, and I should have harried dreams like Richard III. Esq. ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... the way let me tell you (while it is fresh) that Lord Sandwich, who was lately dining at Cambridge, speaking (as I am told) handsomely of your book, said, it was pity you did not know that his cousin Manchester had a genealogy of Kings, which came down no lower than to Richard III, and at the end of it were two portraits of Richard and his son, in which that king appeared to be a handsome man. I tell you it as I heard it; perhaps you may think it ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... Uninflected parts of speech, used as substantive.—When King Richard III. says, none of your ifs, he uses the word if as a ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... the oldest Welsh families. Here are antiquities and MSS. (old British history and Welsh, brought from Gloddaeth), a harp dated 1568, torques (torchau), &c. Henry VII., then earl of Richmond, is said to have been concealed here in the reign of Richard III., when the lord of Mostyn ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... Camden terms another Roscius, was probably the original representative of Richard III., and seems to have been early almost identified with his prototype. Bishop Corbet, in his Iter Boreale, tells us that mine host of Market Bosworth was full of ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... "scalping trophies." The china is curious—there is even an empty ginger jar—picked up in country places, of a rare and valuable old-fashioned type. He has the finest collection of old tinsel pictures of the Richard III. and Dick Turpin order in the kingdom, and values an old book full of tinsel patterns of the most exquisite design and workmanship. Old glass pictures are scattered about, "Lord Nelson's Funeral ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... years." The Chamberlain was instructed to pay to the company 13 s. 4 d. yearly for their services. The custody of all orphans, with that of their lands and goods, had been entrusted to the City by the charter of Richard III, and this agreement was made in order to enable the "City Fathers" to faithfully discharge their duties in looking after children of deceased freemen. In spite of many difficulties, especially after the ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... we hear, gone to press with two additional volumes of his Judges of England, which will carry his subject down to the end of the reign of Richard III. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... you expect of a man who calls incessantly, like Richard III., 'My kingdom for a horse'?" said Emmanuel. "He is pitiless; and in that you must imitate him. Pay his notes; give him, if you will, your whole fortune; but that of your sister and of your brothers is ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... made a treaty with King Edward IV. at Fotheringhay in June 1482. Like Edward Baliol, he promised to hold Scotland under English suzerainty in return for Edward's assistance, and with Richard, duke of Gloucester, afterwards King Richard III., he marched at the head of the English forces to Edinburgh. Meanwhile his supporters in Scotland had seized James, and professed their readiness to recognize Albany, declaring at the same time their ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... not complain of ingratitude. He did them in the hope that his patron would put him in a position to be elected deputy; Marcas wished for nothing but a loan that might enable him to purchase a house in Paris, the qualification required by law. Richard III. asked for nothing but ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac
... the knowledge of their uncle, as it was commonly believed. This murder made Richard unpopular even at a time when one could kill one's political rivals without incurring general opprobrium. A new aspirant to the throne organized a conspiracy. Richard III was defeated and slain in the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, and the crown which had fallen from his head was placed upon that of the first Tudor king, Henry VII. The latter had no particular right to it, although he was descended from Edward III ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... the Plot. The play is founded on the lives of Edward IV, Edward V, and Richard III, as given (on the authorities of Edward Hall and Sir Thomas More) in Holinshed's Chronicles. Shakespeare may have seen a worthless play (The True Tragedy of Richard III) which was published in ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... Conquest to the time of Richard III., the fashion was to ride with the toes down; after which period, the heel was dropped, and the toe raised. Spurs were not screwed to the armour before ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... because it may place a great gulf between him and the descendant of those who crucified the Saviour. Nevertheless, some of his enemies allege that professions of Christianity have sometimes been the premeditated accompaniments of usurpations. It was so with Cromwell and with Richard III. Who does not remember the scene in Shakspeare, where Richard appears on the balcony, with prayer book in hand and ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... Magistraytes, begun by Thomas Sackville, and intended to be a poetical biography of remarkable Englishmen. Sackville wrote the "Induction," and furnished one of the sketches, that of Henry Stafford, duke of Buckingham (the tool of Richard III.). Baldwynne, Ferrers, Churchyard, Phair, etc., added others. Subsequently, John Higgins, Richard Nichols, Thomas Blenerhasset, etc., supplied additional characters; but Sackville alone stands out pre-eminent in merit. In the "Induction," Sackville tells us he was conducted by Sorrowe into ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... everything to the feeling. That he does so is as evident as if he had chosen a form of verse more remote from the language of Nature and obliged himself to conform to its requirements. The terrible cursing of Margaret in "Richard III.," for example, is not the remorseless, hollow monotony of it, while it so heightens the passion, as evident to Shakspeare as to us; or had he no ear for verse, and just let his words sound on as they would, looking only at the meaning, and counting his iambics on his fingers,—not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... the Mews was so called from having been used for the King's falcons—at least, from the time of Richard III. to Henry VIII. In the latter King's reign the royal horses were stabled here, but the name Mews was retained, and has come to be applied to any town range of stabling. The mews were removed to make way for the National Gallery ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... deputation to request Richard to accept the crown in his nephew's stead. He met it as if the whole notion was quite new to him, but, of course, accepted the crown, sent for his wife, Anne Nevil, and her son, and was soon crowned as King Richard III. of England. ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and character-drawing he could not go far astray. He produced, at any rate, vivid impressions of reality, just as Shakespeare's historical plays have stamped upon the English mind the figures of Hotspur or Richard III., which have been thus set up in permanent type for all subsequent ages. At any rate portraits of this kind have not been modernised to suit the taste of a later age, as has been done with King Arthur in Tennyson's 'Idylls of ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... thought elsewhere. Thus he gave to his verse ease, flexibility, and movement, and he put into it the warmth and vividness of his own personality. Upon such verse as this Shakespeare could hardly improve. But this by no means sums up his debt to Marlowe. His characterization of Richard III, for instance, was distinctly affected by that of Marlowe's hero Tamburlaine, a character to which the poet had given a passionate life and an energy that made him more than human. In other ways less easy to define, Shakespeare must have been stimulated by Marlowe's fire. The ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... said Lady Herman, in a loud voice; "he knew how a man makes love to a woman. If Richard III. had made love to me as Shakespeare describes him doing it, I'm not sure that I could have resisted him. But the finest of all Shakespeare's men is Othello. That's a real man. Desdemona was a fool. It's not wonderful that Othello didn't see through Iago; ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... against Jane Shore, who had been the mistress of Edward IV, never came to trial and in consequence illustrates neither ecclesiastical nor conciliar jurisdiction. It is worthy of note however that the accusation was preferred by the protector—who was soon to be Richard III—in ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... poet than a seaman. If only one-half the sovereigns who deserve to be execrated had their names erased, the list of even our English kings would be rather short; and some countries would be without historical kings at all. However much Richard III. may deserve cashiering in this summary manner, his peers and laws are just as good as any other prince's peers and laws. Witness the Duke of ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... had, at the age of seventeen, begun his career as an actor at his father's theatre in Birmingham, had, on Monday, October 5th, 1819, at the age of twenty-six, taken the Londoners by storm in the character of Richard III Covent Garden reopened its closed treasury. It was promptly followed by a success in Coriolanus, and Macready's place was made. He was at once offered fifty pounds a night for appearing on one evening a week at Brighton. It was just after that turn in Macready's fortunes that ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... Smetana's symphonic poem "Richard III," Duparc's symphonic poem "Lenore," and Glazunof's "Oriental Rhapsody," given by the Chicago ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... brought up Horace giving the Poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his credit.' At Burbage's request, one of the University men then recites two lines of 'Richard III.,' by ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... through the town. A favourite actor of the day was giving recitations at Freemason's Hall. A man of letters, Richard Sharp, who had read and liked "John Gilpin," pointed out to the actor how well it would suit his purpose. The actor was John Henderson, whose Hamlet, Shylock, Richard III., and Falstaff were the most popular of his day. He died suddenly in 1785, at the age of thirty-eight, and it was thus in the last year of his life that his power of recitation drew "John Gilpin" from obscurity and made ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... reign of King Richard III, as I have read, deformity of body was the fashion, and the nobility and gentry of the court thought it an indispensable requisite of a graceful form to pad for themselves a round shoulder, because the king was crooked. And can we think human nature so absurdly ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... king Richard III gave occasion to Henry earl of Richmond to assert his title to the crown. A title the most remote and unaccountable that was ever set up, and which nothing could have given success to, but the universal detestation of the then usurper ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... without, and the external force is grotesquely inappropriate except when it is quite conventional, as in the case of Henry V. Falstaff is more vivid than any of these serious reflective characters, because he is self-acting: his motives are his own appetites and instincts and humors. Richard III, too, is delightful as the whimsical comedian who stops a funeral to make love to the corpse's widow; but when, in the next act, he is replaced by a stage villain who smothers babies and offs with people's heads, we are revolted at the imposture and repudiate the changeling. ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw |
