DRAMATIC WORKS AND POEMS OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, WITH NOTES, (RIGINAL AND SELECTED, AND INTRODUCTORY REMARKS TO EACH PLAY, BY SAMUEL WELLER SINGER, F. S. A. AND A LIFE OF THE POET, BY CHARLES SYMMONS, D.D. IN TWO VOLUMES. II. NEW-YORK: PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, No. 82 CLIFF-STREET. 184 3. FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. THE historical transactions in this play take in the compass of above thirty years. In the three parts of King Henry VI. there is no very precise attention to the date and disposition of facts; they are shuffled backwards and forwards out of time. For instance, the Lord Talbot is killed at the end of the fourth act of this play, who in reality did not fall till the 13th of July, 1453: and the Second Part of King Henry VI. opens with the marriage of the king, which was solemnized eight years before Talbot's death, in the year 1445. Again, in the second part, dame Eleanor Cobham is introduced to insult Queen Margaret: though her penance and banishment for sorcery happened three years before that princess came over to England. There are other transgressions against history, as far as the order of time is concerned. Mr. Malone has written a dissertation to prove that the First Part of King Henry VI. was not written by Shakspeare: and that the Second and Third Parts were only altered by him from the old play, entitled "The Contention of the Two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster,' printed in two parts, in quarto, in 1594 and 1595. The substance of his argument, as far as regards this play, is as follows: 'No sooner was I crept out of my cradle, King Henry VI. Part II. Act IV. Sc. 9 2. In Act ii. Sc. 5. of this play, it is said that the earl of Cambridge raised an army against his sovereign. But Shakspeare, in his play of King Henry V. has represented the matter truly as it was: the earl being in that piece, Act ii., condemned at Southampton for conspiring to assassinate Henry. 3. The author of this play knew the true pronunciation of the word Hecate, as it is used by the Roman writers: 'I speak not to that railing Hecate.' But Shakspeare, in Macbeth, always uses Hecate as a dissyllable. The second speech in this play ascertains the author to have been very familiar with Hall's Chronicle: 'What should I say? his deeds exceed all speech.' This phrase is introduced upon almost every occasion by Hall when he means to be eloquent. Holinshed, not Hall, was Shakspeare's historian. Here then is an additional minute proof that this play was not Shak. speare's. 1. The diction, versification, and allusions in it, are all different from the diction, versification, and allusions of Shakspeare, and corresponding with those of Greene, Peele, Lodge, Marlowe, and others who preceded him: there are more allusions to mythology, to classical authors, and to ancient and modern history, than are found in any one piece of Shakspeare's written on an English story: they are such as do not naturally rise This is the sum of Malone's argument, which Steeout of the subject, but seem to be inserted merely to vens has but feebly combated in notes appended to it; show the writer's learning. These allusions, and many and I am disposed to think more out of a spirit of oppoparticular expressions, seem more likely to have been used by the authors already named than by Shak-sition than from any other cause. Malone conjectured speare. He points out many of the allusions, and instances the words proditor and immanity, which are not to be found in any of the poet's undisputed works. -The versification he thinks clearly of a different colour from that of Shakspeare's genuine dramas; while at the same time it resembles that of many of the plays produced before his time. The sense concludes or pauses almost uniformly at the end of every line; and the verse has scarcely ever a redundant syllable. He produces numerous instances from the works of Lodge, Peele, Greene, and others, of similar versification. that this piece which we now call the First Part of King Henry VI. was, when first performed, called The Play of King Henry VI.; and he afterwards found his conjecture confirmed by an entry in the accounts of Henslowe, the proprietor of the Rose Theatre on the Bank Side. It must have been very popular, having been played no less than thirteen times in one season: the first entry of its performance by the Lord Strange's company, at the Rose, is dated March 3, 1591. It is worthy of remark that Shakspeare does not appear at any time to have had the smallest connexion with that theatre, or the companies playing there; which affords additional argument in favour of Malone's position, that the play could not be his. By whom it was written (says Malone,) it is now, I fear, difficult to ascertain. It was not entered on the Stationers' books, nor printed ill the year 1623; when it was reiterated with Shakspeare's undisputed plays by the editors of the first folio, and improperly entitled the Third Part of King Henry VI. In one sense it might be called so; for two plays on the subject of that reign had been printed before. But considering the history of that king, and the period of time which the piece comprehends it ought to have been called, what in fact it is, The First That this passage related to the old play of King Part of King Henry VI. At this distance of time it is Henry VI. or, as it is now called, the First Part of impossible to ascertain on what principle it was that King Henry VI. can hardly be doubted. Talbot appears Heminge and Condell admitted it into their volume; but in the First Part, and not in the Second or Third Fart, I suspect that they gave it a place as a necessary introand is expressly spoken of in the play, as well as induction to the two other parts; and because Shakspeare Hall's Chronicle, as 'the terror of the French. Holin- had made some slight alterations, and written a few shed, who was Shakspeare's guide, omits the passage lines in it.t in Hall, in which Talbot is thus described; and this is an additional proof that this play was not the production A passage in a pamphlet written by Thomas Nashe, an intimate friend of Greene, Peele, Marlowe, &c. shows that the First Part of King Henry VI. had been on the stage before 1592; and his favourable mention of the piece may induce a belief that it was written by a friend of his. How would it have joyed brave Talbot, the terror of the French, to thinke that, after he had lyen two hundred yeare in his tombe, he should triumph again on the stage; and have his bones new embalmed with the teares of ten thousand spectators at least (at several times,) who in the tragedian that represents his person behold him fresh bleeding.-Pierce Penniless, his Supplication to the Devil, 1592. of our great poet. There are other internal proofs of this:-- 1. The author does not seem to have known precisely now old Henry VI. was at the time of his father's death. He supposed him to have passed the state of infancy before he lost his father, and even to have remembered some of his sayings. In the Fourth Act, Sc. 4, speaking of the famous Talbot, he says: When I was young (as yet I am not old,) Mr. Malone's arguments have made many converts to his opinion; and perhaps Mr. Morgann, in his elegant Essay on the Dramatic Character of Falstaff, led the way, when he pronounced it 'That-drum-andtrumpet thing,-written doubtless, or rather exhibited long before Shakspeare was born, though afterwards repaired and furbished up by him with here and there a little sentiment and diction." *This applies only to the title in the Register of the Stationers' Company: in the first folio it was called the First Part of King Henry VI. +Malone's Life of Shakspeare, p 310, ed 1821. First published in 1777 FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH. KING HENRy the SixtH. PERSONS REPRESENTED. HUNG be the heavens with black,2 yield day to night! Comets, importing change of times and states, Glo. England ne'er had a king, until his time. in blood? Henry is dead, and never shall revive; 1 Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, who is a character in King Henry V. The earl of Warwick, who appears in a subsequent part of this drama, is Richard Nevill, son to the earl of Salisbury, who came to the title in right of his wife, Anne, sister of Henry Beauchamp, duke of Warwick. Richard, the father of this Henry, was appointed governor to the king on the demise of Thomas Beaufort, duke of Exeter, and died in 1439. There is no reason to think the author meant to confound the two characters. 2 Alluding to the ancient practice of hanging the stage with black when a tragedy was to be acted. Mayor of London. WOODVILLE, Lieutenant of the Tower. VERNON, of the White Rose, or York Faction. COUNTESS of AUVERGNE. SCENE-partly in England, and partly in France. Like captives bound to a triumphant car. Win. He was a king bless'd of the King of kings And lookest to command the prince, and realm. Glo. Name not religion, for thou lov'st the flesh; And ne'er throughout the year to church thou go'st, Except it be to pray against thy foes. Bed. Cease, cease these jars, and rest your minds in peace! Let's to the altar :-Heralds, wait on us :- 3 Crystal is an epithet repeatedly bestowed on comets by our ancient writers. 4 Consented here means conspired together to pre mote the death of Henry by their malignant influence on human events. Our ancestors had but one word to express consent, and concent, which meant accord and agreement, whether of persons or things. 5 There was a notion long prevalent that life might be taken away by metrical charms. 6 Nurse, was anciently spelt nouryce and noryshe and, by Lydgate, even nourish. Henry the Fifth! thy ghost I invocate; Enter a Messenger. Mess. My honourable lords, health to you all! Speak softly; or the loss of those great towns These news would cause him once more yield the Exe. How were they lost? what treachery was us'd? Mess. No treachery; but want of men and money. That here you maintain several factions; Let not sloth dím your honours, new begot: Exe. Were our tears wanting to this funeral, Enter another Messenger. Retiring from the siege of Orleans, Durst not presume to look once in the face. Bed. Is Talbot slain? then I will slay myself, 3 Mess. O no, he lives; but is took prisoner, And Lord Scales with him, and Lord Hungerford Most of the rest slaughter'd, or took, likewise. Bed. His ransom there is none but I shall pay : I'll hale the Dauphin headlong from his throne, His crown shall be the ransom of my friend; Four of their lords I'll change for one of ours.Farewell, my masters; to my task will I; Bonfires in France forthwith I am to make, 2 Mess. Lords, view these letters, full of bad To keep our great Saint George's feast withal: mischance, France is revolted from the English quite; The Dauphin Charles is crowned king in Rheims; Ten thousand soldiers with me I will take, sieg'd; The English army is grown weak and faint: And hardly keeps his men from mutiny, Exe. The Dauphin is crowned king! all fly to Since they, so few, watch such a multitude. him! 1 Pope conjectured that this blank had been supplied by the name of Francis Drake, which, though a glaring anachronism, might have been a popular, though not judicious, mode of attracting plaudits in the theatre. Part of the arms of Drake was two blazing stars. Ere. Remember, lords, your oaths to Henry sworn ; Either to quell the Dauphin utterly, Or bring him in obedience to your yoke. [Exit. [Exit. [Exit. Scene closes. 5 For an account of this Sir John Fastolfe, vide Biographia Britannica, by Kippis, vol. v. ; in which is his life, written by Mr. Gough. 6 The old copy reads send, the present reading was proposed by Mason, who observes that the king was not at this time in the power of the cardinal, but under the care of the duke of Exeter. The second article of accusation brought against the bishop by the duke of Glouces ter is that he purposed and disposed him to set hand on the king's person, and to have removed him from El4 1. e. their miseries which have only a short inter- tham to Windsor, to the intent to put him in governance Bission. 2 Capel proposed to complete this defective verse by the insertion of Rouen among the places lost, as Gloster infers that it had been mentioned with the rest. 3 i. e. England's flowing tides. as him list. Holinshed vol. iii. p. 591 |