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.
{308}
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.
{309}
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.
{310}
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.
{311}
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.
{312}
[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.
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/61647/pg61647-images.html#Page_335.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_monarchs.]
First And Second Parts
Of King Henry IV.
(1597-1598.)
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.
{313}
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.
{314}
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.
{315}
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.]
{316}
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."
{317}
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.'
{318}
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.
{319}
The second part of "Henry IV." appeared, it is believed, in 1598.
{320}
[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.
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/61828/pg61828-images.html#Page_9.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_monarchs.]
King Henry V.
(1599.)
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."
{321}
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.
{322}
[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.
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/61828/pg61828-images.html#Page_9.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_monarchs.]
King Henry VI.
(1589-1591.)
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
{323}
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.