I feel greatly obliged to your correspondent C. B. for the attention he has
bestowed on the question of Fletcher's connexion with _Henry VIII._, as it
is only through the concurrent judgments of those who think the subject
worthy of their full and impartial consideration, that we can hope to
arrive at the truth. His remarks (Vol. iii., p. 190.) are the more
valuable, as they coincide with a doubt in my own mind, which has, to a
great extent, ripened since I last communicated with you on the subject;
and, indeed, I have no need to hesitate in saying, that I had more
difficulty in coming to a conclusion with regard to the scene (Act III. Sc.
2.) in which the passages occur quoted by C. B., than with any other scene
in the whole play. The suggestions, that Shakspeare might have touched
scenes of which the mass had been written by Fletcher, is a point which I
had not overlooked, and which indeed, to some extent, might be said to
follow from the view I took of the relation of Shakspeare and Fletcher as
master and scholar. Yet this suggestion is especially valuable regarding
this scene, and may account for that which, without it, is not so easily
explained.
If, however, there be any lurking notion in your correspondent's mind, that
the scene in _Antony and Cleopatra_ (Act III. Sc. 1) referred to by X. Z.
(Vol. iii., p. 139.) is, judging from certain coincidences of expression,
an interpolation, and not by Shakspeare, I beg at once to be allowed to
express my total dissent from such a view. Whether, also, there may have
been any secondary allusion to some known event of the day, as X. Z.
supposes, and as is by no means improbable, I cannot say; but I protest
against its being said that the scene referred to is "totally unconnected
with what goes before, and what follows." Antony is the hero of the play;
and this scene shows the culminating point of Antony's fortunes, when his
very successes turn against him.
To return to _Henry VIII._, the compliment to the Queen, to which your
correspondent refers, is, as he very justly observes, brought in in a very
forced manner. This, to my mind, is very strong evidence; otherwise I
should not think it unworthy of Shakspeare. And it still has to be borne in
mind, that he would have had to accommodate his characters and
circumstances to the views of another writer. Shakspeare's spirit was too
catholic, too universal, to have allowed, in a work entirely his own, even
his Wolsey to have made use of the term "a spleeny Lutheran;" yet neither
in the passage in which this expression occurs, nor in the one above
referred to, is the versification characteristic of Fletcher. For my own
part, however, I cannot recognise Shakspeare's spirit in this antagonism of
creeds, which is, perhaps, even more strongly displayed in the prophetic
speech of Cranmer's in the last scene, wherein he says, "God shall be truly
known!" It may be said, that in both these instances the expressions are
true to the characters of Wolsey and Cranmer. It may be so; for both are
wanting in that ideal elevation which Shakspeare never fails to give. That,
with this reservation, he becomes the mouth-piece of each character, is
most true; and a curious instance of the writer's utter forgetfulness of
his assumed character of contemporary with the events he is relating,
occurring in Act. IV. Sc. 2 where Griffiths says--
"He was most princely: ever witness for him
Those twins of learning, that he rais'd in you,
Ipswich and Oxford! _one of which fell with him_,
Unwilling to outlive the good that did it;
The other, though unfinish'd, yet so famous,
So excellent in art, _and still so rising_,"--
{319} has no parallel in Shakspeare's works. To John Fletcher, indeed, at
the close of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, these things were known; but
scarcely to the attendant of Queen Katherine, who has but just narrated the
circumstances, then newly happened, of Wolsey's fall. On maturer
consideration, then, I am inclined to think that the whole of the scene
(Act III. Sc. 2.) to which your correspondent refers, was originally
written by Fletcher, although, as it now stands, it is strongly marked by
the hand of Shakspeare. In the same category, also, I am inclined to place
Scenes 3. and 4. of Act II. It will be observed that these changes are not
inconsistent with the view I had previously taken; the effect being merely,
that I am inclined to ascribe a little more than in the first instance to
the hitherto unsuspected participator in the work. I am not sure, too, that
I shall not be coming nearer to MR. SPEDDING; as, if I am not mistaken, it
is in some of these scenes that he imagines he detects "a third hand;" a
theory which, though I do not adopt, I certainly have not confidence enough
to reject altogether. But this view affects so very small a portion of the
play, that it is of very little consequence.