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."
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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.
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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.
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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.
{327}
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Whether Shakspeare is or is not the author of the play entitled
"The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses
of York and Lancaster,'" the Second Part of "Henry VI." is
entirely based upon that work. Shakspeare has, however, quoted
from it verbatim only to a small extent, and particularly in the
scenes of rapid dialogue, like that of the adventure of Simpcox,
the fight between the two artisans, and the dispute between
Gloster and the Cardinal at the hunt; he has made but few
alterations in these pieces, as well as in a part of Cade's
rebellion. That horribly effective scene, however, in which Lord
Say falls into the hands of the populace, is almost entirely by
Shakspeare. As for the rather long speeches, he has embellished
them all, more or less, and most of them even belong entirely to
him, as, for instance, those of Henry on behalf of Gloster, those
of Margaret to her husband, a great part of Gloster's defense,
some of York's monologues, and nearly the whole of the part of
young Clifford. It is not difficult to discern Shakspeare's hand
in these, as the poetry is bolder, more brilliant with imagery,
and less free, perhaps, from that abuse of wit which Shakspeare
does not appear to have borrowed from the dramatic poets of the
period. Moreover, with the exception of a certain number of
anachronisms common to all Shakspeare's works, this play is
tolerably faithful to history; and the perusal of chronicles
imparted to the authors of historical dramas, at this period, a
character of truthfulness, and means of interest, which superior
men alone can derive from subjects of their own invention.
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The third part of "Henry VI." comprises the interval from the
spring of the year 1455 until the end of 1471, that is, a space
of nearly sixteen years, during which fourteen battles were
fought, which, according to a probably much exaggerated
calculation, cost more than eighty thousand combatants their
lives. Blood and deaths are, therefore, not spared in this drama,
although, of these fourteen battles, only four are represented,
with which the author has been careful to connect the principal
facts of all the fourteen; these facts are, for the most part,
assassinations in cold blood, accompanied by the most atrocious
circumstances, sometimes borrowed from history, and sometimes
added by the author or authors. Thus, the circumstance of the
handkerchief steeped in the blood of Rutland, and given to his
father, York, to dry his tears, is a pure invention; and the
character of Richard, both in this piece and the preceding one,
is equally fictitious. Richard was much younger than his brother
Rutland, who is here represented as his junior, and he could not
possibly have taken any part in the events upon which the two
dramas are founded; but his character is, in other respects, well
announced and well sustained. That of Margaret does not belie
itself; and that of Henry, through the progress of his weakness
and imbecility, still affords us casual glimpses of those gentle
and pious feelings which made him so interesting in the first
part. These portions of his part belong entirely to Shakspeare,
as well as most of Henry's meditations during the battle of
Towton, his speech to the lieutenant of the Tower, his scene with
the keepers, and so forth; and these pieces are either entirely
wanting, or merely outlined, in the original play. It is easy to
distinguish the passages which were added, for they are
characterized by a charm and simplicity of imagery which the
style of the original work nowhere presents.
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Sometimes, also, the passages retouched by Shakspeare, whether of
his own work or that of another, are remarkable for that
refinement of wit which is familiar to him, and which is not
compensated, in this case, by that consistency and coherence of
imagery which, in his best works, almost always accompany his
subtleties. This may be remarked, for example, in Richard's
lamentations over the death of his father; it would be difficult
to attribute them to any other than Shakspeare, so clearly do
they bear his impress; but it would be equally difficult to
ascribe them to his better time, and their imperfection might
serve as an additional proof that the three parts of "Henry VI.,"
as we possess them at the present day, present us, not with
Shakspeare corrected by himself, but with Shakspeare employing
the first efforts of his genius to correct the works of others.
He has, besides, embellished this part much less than the
preceding one, which probably appeared to him more worthy of his
attention; with the exception of Margaret's speech before the
battle of Tewkesbury, a part of the scene between Edward and Lady
Grey, and a few other unimportant passages, we can add no more to
those which have been quoted already as belonging entirely to the
corrected work. The greater part of the original play is
reproduced word for word; and we also meet with the same want of
connection which is noticeable in the first and second parts. The
horrors which are accumulated in this part are painted with a
certain amount of energy, but it is far removed from that
profound truthfulness which, in his finest works, Shakspeare has
extracted, as it were, from the very bowels of nature.
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[Transcriber's note: Guizot presents a history of Richard III
in "A Popular History of England, From the Earliest
Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria", Volume II, Chapter XIV.
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/61828/pg61828-images.html#Page_81.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_monarchs.]
King Richard III.
(1597.)
Richard III. is one of those men who have produced upon the time
in which they lived an impression of horror and dread which is
always based upon some real cause, although it may afterward lead
to an exaggeration of the realities of the case. Holinshed calls
him "one of those bad persons who will not live an hour without
doing and exercising cruelty, mischief, and an outrageous manner
of living." Undoubtedly--and historical criticism has supplied
the proof of this--the life of Richard has been charged with
several crimes which do not properly belong to him; but these
errors and exaggerations, the natural result of the popular
feeling, explain, though they do not justify, the whimsical
attempt of Horace Walpole to rehabilitate the memory of Richard,
by purging him of most of the crimes of which he is accused. This
is one of those paradoxical questions upon which the mind of the
critic who allows himself to engage in it becomes excited, and in
which the most ingenious discussion serves only to prove to what
extent the mind may be employed to embarrass the simple and
steady progress of truth. Doubtless we must not judge a person
who lived in those times of disorder by the gentle and regular
habits of our modern ideas, and many things must be laid to the
charge of the men and facts in the midst of which historical
characters appear.
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But when, at the epoch at which Richard III. lived, after the
horrors of the Red and White Roses, the public hatred chose out
one man from among all to present him as a model of cruelty and
perfidy, there must assuredly have been something extraordinary
in his crimes, were it only the distinction which is added to
them by superiority of talents and character, which, when it is
employed in the service of crime, renders it at once more
dangerous and more insulting.
The generally received opinion regarding Richard may have
contributed to the success of the play which bears his name; and,
perhaps, not one of Shakspeare's works has attained more abiding
popularity in England. The critics have not usually treated it so
favorably as the public; some of them, and Johnson among the
number, have expressed their astonishment at its prodigious
success. We might, on the other hand, feel astonished at their
surprise, if we did not know, by experience, that the critic,
whose duty it is to introduce order into riches which the public
has enjoyed at first confusedly, sometimes becomes so attached to
this order, and particularly to the manner in which he has
conceived it, that he allows himself easily to be induced to
condemn those beauties for which he can not find a convenient
place within the limits of his system.
"Richard III.," more than any other of Shakspeare's great works,
presents the defects common to the historical dramas which,
before his time, held possession of the stage; we find in it that
accumulation of facts, that aggregation of catastrophes, that
improbability of dramatic progress and theatrical execution,
which are the necessary results of all that material movement
which Shakspeare has reduced, as much as possible, in those
objects which he had more freely at his disposal, but which could
not be avoided in national subjects of such recent date, all the
details of which were so freshly present to the memory of the
spectators.
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Perhaps we ought, therefore, to admire all the more that genius
which could trace out its course through this chaos, and follow
up in this labyrinth a thread which is never broken or lost. One
idea dominates the whole drama, and that is, the just punishment
of the crimes which stained the quarrels of York and Lancaster
with blood. At once an example and an organ of the divine wrath,
Margaret, by her cries of agony, incessantly invokes vengeance
upon those who have committed so many evil deeds, and even upon
those who have profited by them; she it is who appears to them
when this vengeance has fallen upon them; her name is mingled
with the terror of their last moments; and they believe they fall
as much beneath her curse as under the blows of Richard--the
sacrificial priest of the bloody temple of which Margaret is the
sibyl, and who will himself fall, the last victim of the
holocaust, carrying with him all the crimes he has avenged, as
well as all that he has committed.
That fatality which, in "Macbeth," is revealed in the shape of
the witches, and in "Richard III." in the person of Margaret, is
nevertheless by no means the same in both dramas. Macbeth, drawn
aside from virtue into crime, presents to our imagination a
terrible picture of the power of the enemy of man--a power which
is, however, subject to the eternal and supreme Master, who
prepares its punishment with the same stroke which effects its
overthrow. Richard, a much more direct and voluntary agent of the
spirit of evil, seems rather to play with him than to obey him;
and in this terrible sport of the infernal powers, it is, as it
were _en passant_, that the justice of Heaven is exercised,
until the final moment when it bursts forth without mitigation
upon the guilty and insolent wretch who fancied he was braving
it, while he was working out its designs.
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