*KING HENRY VI. PART I.] The hiftorical transactions contained in this play, take in the compafs of above thirty years. I muft obferve, however, that our author, in the three parts of Henry VI. has not been very precife to the date and difpofition of his facts; but fhuffled them, backwards and forwards, out of time. For instance; the lord Talbot is kill'd 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 Henry VI. opens with the marriage of the king, which was folemnized eight years before Talbot's death, in the year 1445. Again, in the fecond part, dame Eleanor Cobham is introduced to infult Queen Margaret; though her penance and banishment for forcery happened three years before that princefs came over to England. I could point out many other tranfgreffions against history, as far as the order of time is concerned. Indeed, though there are feveral master-strokes in these three plays, which inconteftibly betray the workmanship of Shakspeare; yet I am almoft doubtful, whether they were entirely of his writing. And unless they were wrote by him very early, I fhould rather imagine them to have been brought to him as a director of the ftage; and fo have received fome finishing beauties at his hand. An accurate obferver will eafily fee, the diction of them is more obfolete, and the numbers more mean and profaical, than in the generality of his genuine compofitions. THEOBALD. Having given my opinion very fully relative to thefe plays at the end of the third part of King Henry VI. it is here only necessary to apprize the reader what my hypothefis is, that he may be the better enabled, as he proceeds, to judge concerning its probability. Like many others, I was long ftruck with the many evident ShakSpearianifms in thefe plays, which appeared to me to carry fuch decifive weight, that I could fcarcely bring myself to examine with attention any of the arguments that have been urged against his being the author of them. I am now furprised, (and my readers perhaps may fay the fame thing of themselves,) that I should never have adverted to a very ftriking circumftance which diftinguishes this first part from the other parts of King Henry VI. This circumftance is, that none of thefe Shakfperian paffages are to be found here, though feveral are fcattered through the two other parts. I am therefore decifively of opinion that this play was not written by Shakspeare. The reafons on which that opinion is founded, are stated at large in the Differtation above referred to. But I would here request the reader to attend particularly to the verfification of this piece, (of which almost every line has a paufe at the end,) which is fo different from that of Shakspeare's undoubted plays, and of the greater part of the two fucceeding pieces as altered by him, and fo exactly correfponds with that of the tragedies written by others before and about the time of his first commencing author, that this alone might decide the question, without taking into the account the numerous claffical allufions which are found in this first part. The reader will be enabled to judge how far this argument deferves attention, from the feveral extracts from thofe ancient pieces which he will find in the Effay on this fubject. With refpect to the fecond and third parts of King Henry VI. or, as they were originally called, The Contention of the two famous Houfes of Yorke and Lancafter, they ftand, in my apprehenfion, on a very different ground from that of this firft part, or, as I believe it was anciently called, The Play of King Henry VI.-The Contention, &c. printed in two parts, in quarto, 1600, was, I conceive, the production of fome playwright who preceded, or was contemporary with, Shakspeare; and out of that piece he formed the two plays which are now denominated the Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI.; as, out of the old plays of King John and The Taming of a Shrew, he formed two other plays with the fame titles. For the reafons on which this opinion is formed, I must again refer to my Effay on this fubject. This old play of King Henry VI. now before us, or as our author's editors have called it, the first part of King Henry VI. I fuppofe, to have been written in 1589, or before. See An Attempt to afcertain the Order of Shakspeare's Plays, Vol. I. The difpofition of facts in these three plays, not always correfponding with the dates, which Mr. Theobald mentions, and the want of uniformity and confiftency in the series of events exhibited, may perhaps be in fome measure accounted for by the hypothefis now ftated. As to our author's having accepted thefe pieces as a Director of the ftage, he had, I fear, no pretenfion to fuch a fituation at fo early a period. MALONE. The chief argument on which the first paragraph of the foregoing note depends, is not, in my opinion, conclufive. This historical play might have been one of our author's earliest dramatic efforts; and almost every young poet begins his career by imitation. Shakspeare, therefore, till he felt his own ftrength, perhaps fervilely conformed to the ftyle and manner of his predeceffors. Thus, the captive eaglet defcribed by Rowe, -a while endures his cage and chains, "Breaks from his bonds, and in the face of day "Full in the fun's bright beams he foars away." What further remarks I may offer on this fubject, will appear in the form of notes to Mr. Malone's Effay, from which I do not wantonly differ, though hardily, I confefs, as far as my fentiments may feem to militate against thofe of Dr. Farmer. STEEVENS. King Henry the Sixth. Duke of Glofter, uncle to the king, and Protector. Duke of Bedford, uncle to the king, and Regent of France. Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, great uncle to the king. Henry Beaufort, great uncle to the king, Bishop of Winchester, and afterwards Cardinal. John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset; afterwards, Duke. Richard Plantagenet, eldeft fon of Richard late Earl of Cambridge; afterwards Duke of York. Earl of Warwick. Earl of Salisbury. Earl of Suffolk. Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March. Sir John Faftolfe. Sir William Lucy. Sir William Glanfdale. Sir Thomas Gargrave. Charles, Dauphin, and afterwards king of France. An old Shepherd, father to Joan la Pucelle. Margaret, daughter to Reignier; afterwards married to King Henry. Countess of Auvergne. Joan la Pucelle, commonly called, Joan of Arc. Fiends appearing to La Pucelle, Lords, Warders of the Tower, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Meffengers, and feveral Attendants both on the English and French. SCENE, partly in England, and partly in France. KING HENRY VI. ACT I. SCENE I. Westminster Abbey. Dead march. Corpfe of King Henry the Fifth dif covered, lying in ftate; attended on by the Dukes of BEDFORD, GLOSTER, and EXETER; the earl of WARWICK; the Bishop of Winchester, Heralds, &c. BED. Hung be the heavens with black,3 yield day to night! Comets, importing change of times and states, 2 earl of Warwick ;] The Earl of Warwick who makes his appearance in the first scene of this play is Richard Beauchamp, who is a character in King Henry V. The Earl who appears in the fubfequent part of it, is Richard Nevil, fon to the Earl of Salisbury, who became poffeffed of the title in right of his wife, Anne, fifter of Henry Beauchamp Duke of Warwick, on the death of Anne his only child in 1449. Richard, the father of this Henry, was appointed governor to the king, on the demife of Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, and died in 1439. There is no reason to think that the author meant to confound the two characters. RITSON. 3 Hung be the heavens with black,] Alluding to our ancient ftage-practice when a tragedy was to be expected. So, in Sidney's Arcadia, Book II: "There arofe, even with the funne, a vaile of darke cloudes before his face, which shortly had blacked over all the face of heaven, preparing (as it were) a mournfull ftage for a traSee alfo Mr. Malone's Hiftorical Account gedie to be played on." of the English Stage. STEEVENS. 4 Brandifh your crystal treffes-] Crystal is an epithet repeatedly bestowed on comets by our ancient writers. So, in a Sonnet by Lord Sterline, 1604: "When as those chryftal comets whiles appear." And with them fcourge the bad revolting stars, Spenfer, in his Faery Queen, Book I. c. x. applies it to a lady's face: "Like funny beams threw from her chryftal face." Again, in an ancient fong entitled The falling out of Lovers is the renewing of Love: "You chryftal planets fhine all clear "And light a lover's way." "There is alfo a white comet with filver haires," fays Pliny, as tranflated by P. Holland, 1601. STEEVENS. 5 That have confented-] If this expreffion means no more than that the stars gave a bare confent, or agreed to let King Henry die, it does no great honour to its author. I believe to confent, in this inftance, means to act in concert. Concentus, Lat. Thus Erato the mufe applauding the fong of Apollo, in Lyly's Midas, 1592, cries out: "O fweet confent!" i. e. fweet union of founds. Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. IV. c. ii: "Such mufick his wife words with time confented." Again, in his tranflation of Virgil's Culex: 66 Chaunted their fundry notes with fweet concent.” and in many other places. Confented, or as it fhould be fpelt, concented, means, have thrown themfelves into a malignant configuration, to promote the death of Henry. Spenfer, in more than one inftance, fpells this word as it appears in the text of Shakspeare; as does Ben Jonfon, in his Epithalamion on Mr. Wefton. The following lines, 66 fhall we curfe the planets of mishap, "That plotted thus," &c. feem to countenance my explanation; and Falstaff says of Shallow's fervants, that " they flock together in confent, like fo many wild geefe." See alfo Tully de Natura Deorum, Lib. II. ch. xlvi: Nolo in ftellarum ratione multus vobis videri, maximéque earum quæ errare dicuntur. Quarum tantus eft concentus ex diffimilibus motibus, &c. Milton ufes the word, Penferofo: and with the fame meaning, in his "Whose power hath a true confent "With planet, or with element." STEEVENS. Steevens is right in his explanation of the word confented. So, in The Knight of the Burning Peftle, the Merchant fays to Merrythought: too late, I well perceive, "Thou art confenting to my daughter's lofs." |