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But, though first published in 1600, it must have been written two or three years before, as is shown from an apparently slight yet conclusive circumstance which Mr. Collier has thus pointed out with lawyer-like acuteness: "We may state with more certainty than usual, that HENRY IV., Part II., was written before the 25th February, 1589. Act ii. scene 2 of the 'history' before us, contains a piece of evidence that Falstaff was still called Oldcastle when it was written; viz. that the prefix of Old. is retained in the quarto, 1600, before a speech which belongs to Falstaff, and which is assigned to him in the folio of 1623. Now, we know that the name of Oldcastle was changed to that of Falstaff, anterior to the entry of HENRY IV., Part I., in the books of the Stationers' Company on the 25th February, 1597-98. This circumstance overturns Malone's theory, that HENRY IV., Part II., was not written until 1599. It requires no proof that it was produced after RICHARD II., because that play is quoted in it."

It appeared in the folio of 1623 with several large additions, and some shorter omissions. The nature and object of these alterations are worth examining, as those in the different old editions of Shakespeare's plays always are whenever, as here, they appear to come from the author himself, and thus enable us to learn something of his mode of dramatic composition, and the degree of care he bestowed upon his works. There was evidently no regular critical revision of the whole play in detail; for there is no alteration of incident, character, or sentiment, and very little of language, but there are in different parts of the more elevated dialogue, additions of great poetic and dramatic excellence. They seem to have been mainly intended, in their origin, for the purpose of making the play more complete in itself, by bringing incidentally before the reader or the audience, circumstances materially contributing to the interest of the story, which had in the first edition been hurried over, or left to the general recollection of the preceding play. Such is the Archbishop's own reference to Bolingbroke's former popularity, and the deposition of Richard II; and again, Lady Percy's touching and graphic recollection of Hotspur. So also Mortimer's account of the Archbishop and his insurrection.

These and other ideas occurring to the author, as proper to give more dramatic effect to his scene by being added to the dialogue, expanded themselves in his fertile mind into elevated poetry, some of it, indeed, admirable. The omission of lines or sentences found in the first edition, on the other hand, do not seem to have been made on any critical principle of rejection; but apparently to have been struck out, when it could be done without injury to the context, for the purpose of shortening the piece, after its length had been thus increased by more important additions. On that account, they have been returned in this edition in their original place, and not thrown into the notes, as has been done in other plays, (see ROMEO AND JULIET,) when the Poet had evidently substituted other lines or words to those of his first conceptions. Our text therefore includes as well the passages peculiar to the quartos, as those afterwards added, "in order, (as Collier justly here observes,) that no syllable which came from the pen of Shakespeare may be lost. Even if we suppose our great dramatist to have himself rejected certain portions, preserved in the quarto, the exclusion of them by a modern editor would be unpardonable, as they form part of the history of the Poet's mind."

In the comic part, no alterations of this character are found; the changes in the folio being merely verbal, and chiefly confined to the softening or expunging words or phrases which seemed profane. The text, therefore, presents little contest between various readings, and but one or two difficulties admitting of any doubt.

The observations on the dramatic character, historic verity, invention, and style of the first part of HENRY IV., in the Introductory Remarks prefixed to it in this edition, are in the main equally applicable to the second part. It having been written, as the external and internal evidence concur in showing, not very long after the first part, when the author's mind was filled with the characters, story, and the spirit of that, the two together have the unity of a single drama. It is, however, inferior to its predecessor as a work of dramatic art, though, in my judgment, not at all so as a work of genius. It is not as perfect as the other as an historical tragi-comedy, as on its tragic side it has a less vivid and sustained interest, and approaches in those scenes more to the dramatized chronicle; in fact, adhering much more rigidly to historical authority, and deviating from it very little except in compressing into

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