[Transcriber's note: Guizot presents a history of Richard II in "A Popular History of England, From the Earliest Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria", Volume I, Chapter XII. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/61647/61647-h/61647-h.htm#Page_335. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_monarchs.]
In proportion as Shakspeare advances toward the more modern times of the history of his country, the chronicles upon which he relies for information coincide more exactly with historical truth; and already, in "The Life and Death of King Richard III.," the details furnished him by Holinshed differ only in a slight degree from the historical data which have been handed down to us as authentic. With the exception of the queen, who is a pure invention of the poet's imagination, and passing over the chronological disorder occasioned by Shakspeare's negligence in keeping events at a proper distance from each other, the facts contained in this tragedy differ in no respect from historical narratives of the same period, except with regard to the kind of death which Richard suffered. Holinshed, who copied other chroniclers, supplied Shakspeare with the story which he has followed; but the most probable opinion, and that which is in most accordance with the care taken publicly to expose Richard's body after his death, is, that he was left to die of hunger. This attention to evade, at least, the material appearances of crime, while caring little to avoid suspicion, was beginning to be introduced into the ferocious politics of these times; and Richard himself had stifled, beneath a mattress, the Duke of Gloucester, whom he held prisoner in Calais, and had afterward announced that he had died of an attack of apoplexy. Besides Shakspeare's tendency to follow implicitly the historical guide whom he had once adopted, this version allowed him to preserve to the character of Bolingbroke that interest with which he has invested it, both in this drama and in the two parts of "King Henry IV." The choice between different versions of the same story, is, moreover, the least contested and the least contestable privilege of dramatic authors.
The tragedy of "Richard II." is then, generally speaking, sufficiently conformable to history; and the manner in which the poet has described the deposition of Richard, and the accession to the throne of Henry of Lancaster, appears singularly in accordance with what Hume says on the subject: "Henry IV. became king, nobody could tell how or wherefore." But it would be necessary to be like Hume, entirely unacquainted with the sight of revolutions, to be puzzled to say how and why the Duke of Lancaster, after having acted for some time in the name of the king, whom he kept prisoner, finally established himself without difficulty in his place. Shakspeare did not think it necessary to explain this; Richard left Flint Castle with the title of king, in the retinue of Bolingbroke; and we next see him signing his own deposition. The poet does not in any way indicate to us what has passed; but in order not to guess how the fall of Richard was accomplished it would be necessary for us to have very ill understood the picture presented to us of his first degradation; and the conversation of the gardener with his servants completes the description by revealing to us its effects upon public opinion. It was a characteristic of Shakspeare's art to make us present at every part of the event; and he always transports us to the scene in which he strikes his most decisive blows, while at a distance from our view the action pursues its course, and contents itself with meeting us again when it has reached its consummation.
Although this tragedy is entitled "The Life and Death of King Richard II.," it only comprises the last two years of that prince's reign, and contains only a single event, namely, his downfall—the catastrophe toward which every circumstance tends from the very outset of the play. This event has been considered under different aspects, and a rather singular anecdote has revealed to us the existence of another tragedy on the same subject, anterior, as it would appear, to Shakspeare's drama, and treated in an altogether different point of view. Some of the partisans of the Earl of Essex, on the day preceding his extravagant enterprise, procured the performance of a tragedy in which, as in Shakspeare's drama, Richard II. was deposed and put to death on the stage. The actors having represented to them that the play was entirely out of fashion, and would not attract a sufficient audience to cover the expense of the performance, Sir Gilly Merrick, one of the confederates, gave them forty shillings above the receipts. This fact was mentioned at the trial of Sir Gilly, and served to procure his condemnation.
The conspiracy of the Earl of Essex occurred in 1601, and Shakspeare's tragedy appeared, it is believed, in the year 1597. Notwithstanding this precedence, no one will be disposed to suspect that one of Shakspeare's plays could have figured in a factious enterprise against Elizabeth. Besides, the drama in question seems to have been known by the name of "Henry IV.," and not by that of "Richard II.;" and there is reason to believe that the history of Henry IV. was its true subject, and Richard's death only an incident. But in order to remove every kind of doubt, it is sufficient to read Shakspeare's tragedy; the doctrine of divine right is incessantly presented in it, accompanied by that interest which is excited by the aspect of the misfortunes of fallen greatness. If the poet has not given to the usurper that odious physiognomy which produces hatred and the dramatic passions, it is sufficient to read history to understand the cause of this.
This vagueness of the moral aspect under which men and things present themselves, and which does not allow the feelings to attach themselves vigorously to any one object, because they can rest upon nothing with satisfaction, is not a fact peculiar to Richard II. and his destiny, in the history of these disastrous times. Parties ever at conflict with each other for the supreme power, vanquished by turns, and always deserving their defeat, without any one of them having ever deserved victory, do not present a very dramatic spectacle, nor one very well calculated to elevate our feelings and faculties to that degree of exaltation which is one of the noblest objects of art. Pity is, in such a case, often wanting to indignation, and esteem almost always to pity. We have no difficulty in finding out the crimes of the strongest, but we look with anxiety for the virtues of the weakest; and the same effect is produced when the circumstances are changed: follies, depredations, injustice, and violence have led to Richard's downfall, and have even rendered it necessary; and they detach us from him by the two-fold reason that we behold him working out his own ruin, and that we find it impossible to save him. It would, however, be easy to discover at least as many crimes in the party which triumphs over his degradation. Shakspeare might, with little trouble, have amassed against the rebels those treasures of indignation which would animate all hearts in favor of the legitimate sovereign; but one of the principal characteristics of Shakspeare's genius is a truthfulness, I may say a fidelity of observation, which reproduces nature as it is and time as it actually occurs. History supplied him neither with heroes superior to their fortune, nor with innocent victims, nor with instances of heroic devotion or of imposing passion; he merely found the very strength of his characters employed in the service of those interests which degrade them—perfidy considered as a means of conduct, treason almost justified by the dominant principle of personal interest, and desertion almost rendered legitimate by the consideration of the risk that would be run by remaining faithful; and all this he has described. It is, in truth, the Duke of York, a personage of whose incapacity and nullity we are informed by history, whom Shakspeare has selected to represent this ever-ardent devotedness to the man who governs, this facility in transferring his obedience from rightful to actual power, and vice versa, merely allowing himself, for his honor, to shed a few solitary tears on behalf of the monarch whom he has abandoned. To any one who has not witnessed the sport of fortune with empires, this personage would be only comic; but to any one who has beheld such changes, does he not possess alarming truthfulness?
Surrounded by characters of this kind, whence could Shakspeare derive that pathetic element which he would have loved to infuse into the spectacle of fallen greatness? He who had given old Lear, in his misery, so many noble and faithful friends, could not find one for Richard; the king had fallen, stripped and naked, into the hands of the poet, as he fell from his throne; and in himself alone the poet has been obliged to seek all his resources; the character of Richard II. is, therefore, one of the profoundest conceptions of Shakspeare.
The commentators have had a great discussion as to whether it was from the court of James or of Elizabeth that Shakspeare derived the maxims which he so frequently professes in favor of divine right and absolute power. Shakspeare derived them ordinarily from his personages themselves; and it was sufficient for him here to have to describe a king already seated on the throne. Richard never imagined that he ever was, or could be, any thing but a king; his royalty was, in his eyes, a part of his nature, one of the constituent elements of his being, which he brought into the world with him at his birth, subject to no conditions but his life; as he had nothing to do to retain it, it was no more in his power to cease to be worthy of it than to cease to be invested with it; and hence arose his ignorance of his duties to his subjects and to his own safety, and his indolent confidence in the midst of danger. Although this confidence abandons him for a moment at every new reverse, it returns immediately, doubling its force in proportion as he requires more of it to take the place of other props, which successively crumble away. When he has arrived at last at a point at which it is no longer possible for him to hope, the king becomes astonished, looks around, and inquires if he is really himself. Another kind of courage then springs up within him—the courage imparted by such a misfortune that the man who experiences it becomes excited by the surprise into which he is thrown by his own position; it becomes to him an object of such lively attention, that he dares to contemplate it in all its bearings, were it only for the purpose of understanding it; and by this contemplation he escapes from despair, and sometimes rises to truth, the discovery of which always calms a man to a certain degree. But this calmness is barren, and this courage inactive; it sustains the mind, but it is fatal to action; all the actions of Richard are, therefore, deplorably feeble: even his reflections upon his actual condition reveal a consciousness of his own nullity, which descends, at certain moments, almost to baseness; and who could raise a man who, on ceasing to be a king, has lost, in his own opinion, the distinctive quality of his being, the dignity of his nature? He believed himself precious in the sight of God, sustained by His arm, and armed with His power; when fallen from the mysterious rank which he had once occupied, he knows no place for himself upon earth: when stripped of the power which he believed his right, he does not suppose that any strength can remain to him: he, therefore, makes no resistance; to do so would be to try something which he believes impossible: in order to arouse his energy, some sudden and pressing danger must, as it were, provoke, without his knowledge, faculties which he disavows; when his life is attacked, he defends himself, and dies with courage; but in order always to have possessed courage, he needed to know what a man is worth.
We must not expect to find in "Richard II.," any more than in the majority of Shakspeare's historical dramas, a particular character of style. Its diction is not greatly elaborated; though frequently energetic, it is frequently also so vague as to leave the reason to decide as it pleases upon the meaning of the expressions, which can be determined by no rule of syntax.
This play is written entirely in verse, a great part of which is in rhyme. The author appears to have made some changes in it after the first edition, which was published in 1597. The scene of Richard's trial, in particular, is entirely wanting in this edition, and occurs for the first time in that published in 1608.
[Transcriber's note: Guizot presents a history of Henry IV in "A Popular History of England, From the Earliest Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria", Volume I, Chapter XII. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/61647/61647-h/61647-h.htm#Page_335. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_monarchs.]
The commentators have given to these two plays the title of comedies, and, in fact, although their subject belongs to tragedy, their intention is comic. In Shakspeare's tragedies, the comic sometimes arises spontaneously from the position of the personages introduced to assist the tragic action; here not only does a part of the action absolutely turn upon the comic personages, but most of those whose rank, the interest in which they are concerned, and the dangers to which they expose themselves, might raise them to the dignity of tragic personages, are presented under the aspect which belongs to comedy, namely, under the weak or whimsical features of their nature. The almost puerile impetuosity of the fiery Hotspur, the brutal originality of his good sense, and his soldier-like ill temper with all who endeavor to detain his thoughts for a moment beyond the circle of the interests to which his life is devoted, give rise to some extremely piquant scenes. The Welshman, Glendower, boastful and vainglorious, as loquacious as he is brave, who makes head against Hotspur whenever he threatens or contradicts him, but who yields and retires whenever a pleasantry alarms his self-love with the fear of ridicule, is a truly comic conception. Even the three or four words which Douglas utters are also characterized by a tinge of braggadocio. Neither of these three courages is expressed in the same way; but all yield to that of Hotspur, the comic hue of whose character does not detract in the slightest degree from the interest which he inspires. We become attached to him as to Alceste in the "Misanthrope"—to a great character who is the victim of a quality which the impetuosity of his temper and the preoccupation of his own ideas have turned into a defect. We see the brave Hotspur accepting the enterprise proposed to him before he knows its nature, as he feels certain of success as soon as he is struck with the idea of action; we see him successively losing all the supporters upon whom he had reckoned, abandoned or betrayed by those who have involved him in danger, and urged onward, as it were, by a sort of fatality toward the abyss which he does not perceive until the moment when he finds it impossible to draw back; and he falls regretting nothing but his glory. This is doubtless a tragical catastrophe, and the substance of the first part of the drama, the subject of which is the first step of Henry V. toward glory, required one of this kind; but the picture of the vagaries of the prince's youth, nevertheless, forms the most important part of the work, the principal character in which is Falstaff. Falstaff is one of the most celebrated personages of English comedy, and perhaps no drama can present a gayer one. The description of the follies of a youth so disorderly as that of Henry V., at a time when manners were so coarse and rude, would be a very melancholy picture, if, in the midst of its uncouth debauchery, habits and pretensions of a higher order did not effect a contrast, and perform a part all the more amusing because it is so out of place. It would have been very moral, undoubtedly, to cast the ridicule of this impropriety upon the prince who thus degrades himself; but, even if Shakspeare had not been the poet of the court of England, neither probability nor art would have permitted him to debase such a personage as Henry V. He is careful, on the contrary, always to preserve to him the dignity of his character and the superiority of his position; and Falstaff, who is destined to amuse us, is admitted into the play only for the diversion of the prince.
Born to move in good society, Falstaff has not yet renounced all his pretensions of this kind; he has not adopted the coarseness of the positions to which he is degraded by his vices; he has given up every thing except his self-love; he does not make a merit of his intemperance, nor does he base his vanity upon the exploits of a bandit. If there were any thing to which he would cling, it would be to the manners and qualities of a gentleman; to this character he would pretend, if he were permitted to entertain, or able to maintain, a pretension of any kind. At least, he is determined to give himself the pleasure of affecting these qualities, even should the gratification of this pleasure gain him an affront; though he neither believes in it himself, nor hopes that others believe in it, he must at any cost rejoice his ears with panegyrics upon his bravery, and almost upon his virtues. This is one of his weaknesses, just as the taste of Canary sack is a temptation which he finds it impossible to resist; and the ingenuousness with which he yields to it, the embarrassments in which it involves him, and the sort of hypocritical impudence which assists him to get out of his dilemmas, make him an extraordinarily amusing personage. The play upon words, although frequent in this drama, are much less numerous than in several other dramas of a more serious character, and are infinitely better placed. The mixture of subtlety, for which Shakspeare was indebted to the spirit of his time, does not prevent the gayety in this piece, as well as in those in which Falstaff reappears, from being perhaps more frank and natural than in any other work of the English drama.
The first part of "Henry IV." appeared, it is believed, in 1597.
Henry V. is the true hero of the second part; his accession to the throne, and the great change which results from it, constitute the event of the drama. The defeats of the Archbishop of York and of Northumberland are only the complement of the facts contained in the first part. Hotspur is no longer present to give these facts a life of their own, and the horrible treason of Westmoreland is not of a nature to establish a dramatic interest. The dying Henry IV. appears only to prepare the way for the reign of his son, and all our attention is already directed toward the successor, who possesses equal importance from the fears and hopes which he occasions.
Shakspeare has not borrowed the picture of these varied feelings entirely from history. The accession of Henry V. was generally a subject of rejoicing. Holinshed relates that, during the three days which followed the decease of his father, "diverse noblemen and honorable personages did to him homage, and swore to him due obedience, which had not been seen done to any of his predecessors—such good hope and great expectation was had of this man's fortunate success to follow." [Footnote 30]
[Footnote 30: Holinshed's Chronicles, vol. ii., p. 543.]
The inconstant ardor of the public mind, which was maintained by frequent overthrows, necessarily rendered a new reign a subject of hope; and the troubles which had agitated the reign of Henry IV., the cruelties with which they had been attended, and the continual distrust which had resulted from them, naturally turned the eyes and the affections of the nation toward a young prince whose irregularities, at such a period of disorder, gave far less offense than his generous qualities inspired confidence. A portion of these irregularities was, moreover, ascribed to the jealous distrust of his father, who, by keeping him unconnected with public business, for which he had manifested great aptitude and even denying him an opportunity to display his military talents, had cast his impetuous spirit into courses of disorder, in which the manners of the time did not permit him to pause until he had been guilty of its extremest excesses. Holinshed attributes to the malevolence of those who surrounded the king not only the suspicions which he was disposed to entertain regarding his son, but also the odious reports which were spread in reference to the conduct of the prince. He relates an occasion on which the prince, having to defend himself against certain insinuations which had created a misunderstanding between his father and himself, appeared at court with a retinue, the splendor and number of which were not calculated to diminish the suspicions of the king, and in a costume so singular that the chronicler thinks it worthy of special mention. It was "a gown of blue satin, full of small eyelet holes, at every hole the needle hanging by a silk thread with which it was sewn." Whatever may be thought would be the constraint of the movements of a person clad in so unprepossessing a manner, the prince threw himself at his father's feet, and, after having protested his fidelity, presented him with a dagger, that he might rid himself of his suspicions by putting him to death, and "in presence of these lords," he added, "and before God at the general judgment, I faithfully protest clearly to forgive you." The king, "moved herewith, cast from him the dagger," embraced his son with tears in his eyes, confessed his suspicions, and declared, at the same time, that they were effaced. The prince demanded the punishment of his accusers, but the king replied that some delay was required by prudence, and did not punish them after all. But it appears that the general opinion sufficiently avenged the young prince; and without precisely believing with Holinshed, who contradicts himself in another place on this point, that Henry was always careful "to tether his affections within the tract of virtue," [Footnote 31] we are led to suppose that there may be some exaggeration in the account of the excesses of his youth, which are rendered more remarkable by the sudden revolution which brought them to a termination, and by the splendor of glory which followed them.
[Footnote 31: Holinshed's Chronicles, vol. ii., p. 539.]
Shakspeare naturally adopted the tradition most favorable to dramatic effect; and he also felt how admirably adapted the part of a dying king and father, anxious about the fate of his son and his subjects, was to produce a touching and pathetic picture upon the stage; and, just as he has invented the episode of Gascoigne to enhance the beauty of his dénouement, he has added to the scene of the death of Henry IV. developments which render it infinitely more interesting. Holinshed simply relates that the king, perceiving that the crown had been taken from his pillow, and learning that the prince had carried it away, sent for him, and required an explanation of his conduct, "Upon which the prince with a good audacity answered, 'Sir, to mine and all men's judgments you seemed dead in this world, wherefore I, as your next heir-apparent, took that as mine own, and not as yours.' 'Well, fair son,' said the king, with a great sigh, 'what right I had to it, God knoweth.' 'Well,' said the prince, 'if you die king, I will have the garland, and trust to keep it with the sword against all mine enemies, as you have done.' Then said the king, 'I commit all to God, and remember you to do well;' with that he turned himself in his bed, and shortly after departed to God." [Footnote 32]
[Footnote 32: Holinshed's Chronicles, vol. ii., p. 541.]
Perhaps the answer of the young prince, rendered as a poet might have rendered it, would have been preferable to the studied speech which Shakspeare has put into his mouth; he has, however, retained a part of it in the last reply of the Prince of Wales, and the rest of the scene is full of great beauties, as are also those which follow between Gascoigne and the prince. In the whole, Shakspeare seems to have desired to redeem, by beauties of detail, the necessary coldness of the tragic part; it contains many excellences, and its style is generally more careful and more free from whimsicality than that of most of his other historical dramas.
The comic part, which is very important and very considerable in the second part of "Henry IV.," is not, however, equal in merit to the corresponding portion of the first part of the same play. Falstaff has got on in the interval; he has a pension and a rank; his relations with the prince are less frequent; his wit does not, therefore, so frequently serve to deliver him from those embarrassments which rendered him so comic; and comedy is obliged to descend a stage to represent him in his true nature, under the influence of his real tastes, and in the midst of the rascals with whom he associates or the fools whom he makes his dupes. These pictures are undoubtedly painted with striking truth, and abound in comic features, but the truth is not always sufficiently removed from disgust for its comicality to find us disposed to enter into all the mirth which it inspires; and the personages upon whom the ridicule falls do not always appear to us to be worth the trouble of laughing at them. The character of Falstaff is, however, perfectly sustained, and will appear in all its completeness when we next meet with it in another play.
The second part of "Henry IV." appeared, it is believed, in 1598.
[Transcriber's note: Guizot presents a history of Henry V. in "A Popular History of England, From the Earliest Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria", Volume II, Chapter XIII. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/61828/61828-h/61828-h.htm#Page_9. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_monarchs.]
It is erroneously that most critics have regarded "Henry V." as one of the weakest of Shakspeare's works. The fifth act, it is true, is empty and cold, and the conversations which compose it possess as little poetic merit as dramatic interest. But the progress of the first four acts is simple, rapid, and animated; the events of the history, plans of government or of conquest, plots, negotiations, and wars, are transformed in them without effort into dramatic scenes full of life and effect. If the characters are not completely developed, they are at least well drawn and well sustained; and the double genius of Shakspeare, as a profound moralist and a brilliant poet, even in the painful and fantastic forms in which he sometimes clothes his thought and imagination, retains, in these four acts, all its abundance and its splendor.
We also meet, in the words of the chorus which fills up the intervals between the acts, with remarkable proofs of Shakspeare's good sense, and of the instinct which led him to feel the inconveniences of his dramatic system. At the very opening of the play, he thus addresses his audience. "Let us," he says,
"On your imaginary forces work;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times;
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass."
And in another place he says,
"Linger your patience on; and well digest
The abuse of distance, while we force a play."
The popular and comic part of the drama, although the originality of Falstaff's wit is absent, contains scenes of perfect natural gayety; and the Welshman Fluellen is a model of that serious, ingenious, inexhaustible, unexpected, and jocose military talkativeness, which excites at once our laughter and our sympathy.
[Transcriber's note: Guizot presents a history of Henry VI in "A Popular History of England, From the Earliest Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria", Volume II, Chapter XIII. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/61828/61828-h/61828-h.htm#Page_9. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_monarchs.]
Among the editors and commentators of Shakspeare, the three parts of "Henry VI." have formed a subject of controversy which is not yet decided, nor, perhaps, even exhausted. Several of them have thought that the first of these pieces belonged to him in no respect; others, fewer in number, have also denied him the original invention of the last two parts, which, in their opinion, he had merely retouched, and the primitive conception of which belonged to one or two other authors. Neither of these three pieces was printed during Shakspeare's lifetime; but this proves nothing, for the same may be said of several other works, the authenticity of which is contested by no one, although it certainly leaves every latitude to doubt and discussion.
The general weakness of these three compositions, in which we can find only a small number of scenes which reveal the touch of a master's hand, would nevertheless not be a sufficient reason for ascribing them to another pen than his; for, if they belonged to him, they would be his first works, a circumstance that would sufficiently explain their inferiority, at least so far as regards the conduct of the drama, the connection of the scenes, and the art of sustaining and augmenting the interest progressively, by bringing all the various parts of the composition to one single impression which increases as it advances, just as a river becomes larger at every step from the influx of waters from every side Such is, in fact, Shakspeare's character in his great compositions, but it is essentially wanting to the three parts of "Henry VI.," and especially to the first part. But Shakspeare's defects are equally absent—that refinement and emphasis from which he has not always escaped even in his finest works, and which are the almost necessary result of the juvenility of ideas which, being astonished, as it were, at themselves, are unable to exhaust the pleasure which they feel in their own production. It would, indeed, be strange if Shakspeare's first essays were exempt from these defects.
We must, however, distinguish here between the three parts of "Henry VI.," those circumstances which concern the first part, to which it is believed that Shakspeare was almost entirely a stranger, and those which have reference to the other two parts, the invention and original composition of which are alone denied to him, although it is admitted that he retouched them to a considerable extent. These are the facts.
In 1623, that is, seven years after the death of Shakspeare, appeared the first complete edition of his works. Fourteen only of his dramas had been printed during his lifetime, and the three parts of "Henry VI." were not among the number; they appeared in 1623, in the state in which they are given at the present day, and were all three ascribed to Shakspeare, although a sort of tradition, as it would appear, already disputed his title to the authorship of the first part. On the other hand, as early as the year 1600, had been published, without the author's name, by Thomas Millington, bookseller, two plays, entitled—one, "The first part of the Contention between the two famous Houses of York and Lancaster;" and the other, "The true Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York, and Death of Good King Henry VI." Of these two plays, one served as a matrix, if I may be allowed the expression, for the second part of "Henry VI.," and the other for the third. The progress and conformation of the scenes and dialogue are the same in both, with the exception of a few slight differences; entire passages have been transferred verbatim from the original plays into those which Shakspeare has given us under the name of the "Second and Third Parts of Henry VI." Most of the lines have been merely embellished, and a very small number only are entirely new.
In 1619, that is, three years after the death of Shakspeare, these two original dramas were reprinted by a bookseller named Pavier, and this time with the name of our poet. Hence arose among the critics the opinion that they belonged to Shakspeare, and ought to be regarded either as a first composition, which he had himself revised and corrected, or as an imperfect copy, prepared for the actors, and printed in this state—which often happened at this period, as authors were not generally in the habit of having their plays printed. This last opinion was for a long while the most general; but it can not bear investigation, for, as it is observed by Mr. Malone, who of all the commentators has thrown most light upon this question, an awkward copyist omits and maims, but does not add to his original; and the two original plays contain several passages, and also some short scenes, which do not occur in the others. Besides, nothing about them bears the impress of an ill-made copy; the versification is regular, and the style is only much more prosaic than that of the passages which undubitably belong to Shakspeare: from whence it would result that the copyist had omitted precisely those features which were most striking, and best calculated to impress themselves upon the imagination and the memory.
There only remains, therefore, the supposition of a first sketch, afterward perfected by its author. Among the proofs of detail which Mr. Malone accumulates in opposition to this opinion, and which are not all equally conclusive, there is, however, one which deserves to be taken into consideration, and that is, that the original plays are evidently based upon Hall's chronicle, whereas Shakspeare always followed Holinshed, never borrowing from Hall except when Holinshed has copied him. It is not at all probable that, if he had used Hall for his first works, he would afterward have left the original for the copyist.
If these two opinions be rejected, we must suppose that Shakspeare borrowed without scruple, from the work of another, the substance and stuff which he afterward enriched with his own embroidery. His numerous borrowings from the dramatic authors of this time render this supposition very easy of credence, and the following fact, in this special instance, is almost equivalent to a proof of its legitimacy. In the first place, it must be observed that the two original pieces which were printed in 1600 existed as early as 1593; for we find them, at that period, registered under the same title, and with the name of the same bookseller, in the registers of the Stationers' Company. What cause delayed the publication of these two plays until 1600, it is useless just now to discuss; but the proof of the antiquity of their existence acquires, in the discussion which now occupies our attention, considerable importance from the following passage in a pamphlet by Greene, a very prolific author, who died in the month of September, 1592. In this pamphlet, which was written a short time before his death, and printed immediately after, as he had ordered in his will, Green addresses his farewell advice to several of his friends, literary men like himself; and the object of this advice is to dissuade them from working for the theatre, if they desire to escape the griefs of which he complains. One of the motives which he gives for so doing is the imprudence of trusting to the actors; for, he says, "there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide, [Footnote 33] supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and, being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shake-scene in the country." [Footnote 34]
[Footnote 33: In allusion to a line in the old play—
"The First Part of the Contention:"
"O, tyger's heart, wrapt in a woman's hide."]
[Footnote 34: Greene's "Groatsworth of Wit," 1592.]
These passages leave no doubt as to Shakspeare's having borrowed from Greene as early as in 1592; and as the three parts of "Henry VI." are the only dramas of our poet which it is believed can be placed before that period, the question would seem to be almost settled; while, at the same time, the quotation by Greene, on this occasion, of a line from the original play, would prove that it was this borrowing which went to his heart. It is, therefore, very probable that Shakspeare, who was then an actor, and exercised the activity of his genius as yet only for the advantage of his troop, may have tried to bring upon the stage, with greater success, dramas already known, and the substance of which furnished him with a few beauties which he could turn to account. As plays then belonged, according to all appearances, to the actors who had bought them, the undertaking was a natural one, and the success of "Henry VI." may probably have been the first indication, in reliance upon which a genius as yet ignorant of its own strength ventured to dart forward on its career.
In order to explain why Shakspeare, after thus remodeling the two plays from which he constructed the second and third parts of "Henry VI.," did not do the same work for the first part, it will be sufficient to suppose that the first part already enjoyed enough success upon the stage to prevent the interest of the actors from requiring any change in it. This supposition is, moreover, supported by a passage in a pamphlet by Thomas Nashe, in which he says, "How would it have joyed brave Talbot, the terror of the French, to think that after he had lain two hundred years in his tomb, he should triumph again on the stage, and have his bones new embalmed with the tears of ten thousand spectators at least (at several times), who, in the tragedian that represents his person, behold him fresh bleeding." [Footnote 35]
[Footnote 35: Nashe's "Pierce Penniless; his Supplication to the Devil."]
Nashe, the intimate friend of Greene, would probably not have spoken in such terms of one of Shakspeare's plays, and perhaps the success achieved by this drama may have induced Shakspeare to render the other two parts worthy to share in its triumph; but even with this supposition, it would be difficult not to believe that, either before or afterward, Shakspeare had enhanced, by a few touches, the coloring of a work which had only succeeded in pleasing his contemporaries because Shakspeare had not yet made his appearance. The scenes, therefore, between Talbot and his son must be by him, or else we must believe that before his time there existed in England a dramatic author capable of attaining that touching and noble truthfulness of which very few, even of his successors, have divined the secret. Nothing can be finer than this description of the two heroes—one dying, and the other scarcely initiated into a warrior's life; the first, satiated with glory, and, in his paternal anxiety, desirous rather to save the life than the honor of his son; the other, stern and inflexible, determined to prove his filial affection by seeking death at his father's side, and by his carefulness thus to maintain the honor of his race. This position, varied by all the alternations of fear and hope which can be occasioned by the chances of a battle, in which the father saves his son, and the son is eventually slain at a distance from his father, contains in itself almost the interest of a drama; and there is every reason to believe that Shakspeare added this ornament to a play which his close connection with those parts of it which he had remodeled had, as it were, incorporated into his works. It must also be observed, that the scenes between Talbot and his son are almost entirely in rhyme, as is the case in many of Shakspeare's works, whereas, in the rest of the play, as well as in the two plays which appear to be intended as a continuation of it, there is scarcely a rhyme to be found. The scene which, in the first part of "Henry VI.," contains most rhyme, is that in which we behold Mortimer dying in prison, and we might therefore suppose that it had received at least some additions from the hand of Shakspeare. These additions, and a few others perhaps, in all not very numerous, may have furnished the editors of 1623 with what appeared to them a sufficient reason for including, among the works of a poet who had excelled all competitors, a play which owed entire its merit to what he had added to it, and which was also necessarily connected with two other works which contained too much of his composition to be omitted from the number of his productions.
As to the insertion of Shakspeare's name in Pavier's edition of the two original plays, it is easy to explain it as a bookseller's trick—a kind of fraud extremely common at that time, and which has been practised in reference to several dramatic works composed upon subjects which Shakspeare had treated, and which the publishers hoped to sell by favor of his name. This conjecture is rendered all the more probable by the fact that this edition is undated, although we know that it appeared in 1619, which might be a petty bookselling scheme to make purchasers believe that it had appeared during the lifetime of the author whose name it had borrowed.
We are ignorant of the precise period of the performance of the first part of "Henry VI.," which, according to Malone, originally bore the name of "The Historical Play of King Henry the Sixth." The style of this play, except so much of it as we may attribute to Shakspeare, bears the same character as that of all the dramatic works of the period which preceded the compositions of our poet: the grammatical construction is very irregular, the tone is simple but undignified, and the versification sufficiently prosaic. The interest, which is somewhat mediocre—although the play is full of movement—is furthermore greatly diminished, in our view, by the ridiculous and uncouth absurdity of the part of Joan of Arc, which may, however, give us a most exact idea of the spirit in which the English chroniclers have written the history of this heroic maiden, and of the aspect under which they have described her. In this sense the play is historical.
The second part of "Henry VI.," though much more interesting than the first, is not conducted with much greater art: monologues are continually employed to explain the facts, and feelings are expressed in asides. The scenes, separated by considerable intervals (for the whole play comprehends the space of ten years), are connected with each other by no link; we can perceive none of those efforts which Shakspeare made, in most of his other works, to unite them together, sometimes even at the expense of probability; and as, at the same time, we are never informed of the interval which separates them, we are frequently astonished at finding ourselves transferred, without having remarked it, to a distance of several years from the event which we have just seen accomplished. The different parts of the play, moreover, do not depend essentially upon each other, which is a fault very rare in the works that are indisputably acknowledged to be productions of Shakspeare's pen. Thus, for example, the adventure of Simpcox is absolutely superfluous; that of the armorer and his apprentice is but feebly connected with the subject; and the pirates who put Suffolk to death have nothing whatever to do with the rest of the plot. As to the general cast of the characters, it is far from corresponding to Shakspeare's ordinary talent. It can not, however, be denied, that there is some merit in the portraiture of Henry, a prince whose pious sentiments and constant goodness almost always succeed in interesting us, notwithstanding the ridiculousness of his weakness and poverty of mind, which border closely upon imbecility. The part of Margaret, also, is tolerably well sustained; but her excess of falsity to her husband exceeds the limits of probability; and Shakspeare would not, in his good time at least, have ascribed to two such criminals as Margaret and Suffolk such tender feelings as those which mark their last interview. As for Warwick and Salisbury, they arc two characters without any kind of connection, and which it is utterly impossible to explain.