Part 25

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.]

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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.

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The second part of "Henry IV." appeared, it is believed, in 1598.

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[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."

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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.

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[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.

In 1623, that is, seven years after the death of Shakspeare, 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." {324} 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. {326} 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.

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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."]