* KING HENRY VI. PART I.] The hiftorical transadions contained in this play, take in the compass 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 disposition of his fats; but shuffled them, backwards and forwards, out of time. For inftance; 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 second part, dame Eleanor Cobham is introduced to infult Queen Margaret; though her penance and banishment for forcery happened three years before that princess 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 several master-ftrokes in these three plays, which inconteftibly betray the workmanship of Shakspeare ; yet I am almost almost doul doubtful, whether they were entirely of his writing. And unless they were wrote by him very early, I should rather imagine them to have been brought to him as a director of the stage; and so have received some finishing beauties at his hand. An accurate observer will easily fee, the diction of them is more obsolete, and the numbers more mean and profaical, than in the generality of his genuine compositions. THEOBALD. Having given my opinion very fully relative to these plays at the end of the third part of King Henry VI. it is here only neceffary to apprize the reader what my hypothesis 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 ShakSpearianisms in these plays, which appeared to me to carry such 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 surprisfed, (and my readers perhaps may say the fame thing of themselves,) that I should never have adverted to a very striking circumstance which diftinguishes this first part from the other parts of King Henry VI. This circumftance is, that none of thefe Shaksperian passages are to be found here, though several are scattered through the two other parts. I am therefore decisively of opinion that this play was not written by Shakspeare. The reasons 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 pause at the end,) which is so different from that of Shakspeare's un. doubted plays, and of the greater part of the two fucceeding Dieces as altered by him, and so exadly corresponds with that of 1 1 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 fat this argument deserves attention, from the several extracts from those ancient pieces which he will find in the Effay on this subject. on With respect to the second and third parts of King Henry VI. or. as they were originally called, The Contention of the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, they stand, in my apprehenfion, a very different ground from that of this first part, or, as I believe it was anciently called, The Play of King Henry VI. - The Conten tion, &c. printed in two parts, in quarto, 1600, was, I conceive, the production of some playwright who preceded, or was contem porary 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 reasons on which this opinion is formed, I must again refer to my Effay on this subject. 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 suppose, to have been written in 1589, or before. See An Attempt to ascertain the Order of Shakspeare's Plays, Vol. II. The difpofition of fads in these three plays, not always corresponding 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 hypothesis now ftated. As to our author's having accepted these pieces as a Director of the stage, he had, I fear, no pretension to such a fituation at so early a period. MALONE. The chief argument on which the first paragraph of the foregoing note depends, is not, in my opinion, conclusive. 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 style and manner of his prede ceffors. Thus, the captive eaglet described by Rowe, 66 a while endures his cage and chains. "And like a prifoner with the clown remains: "Breaks from his bonds, and in the face of day " Full in the sun's bright beams he foars away. What further remarks I may offer on this subject, will appear in the form of notes to Mr. Malone's Effay, from which I do not wan tonly differ, though hardily, I confefs, as far as my fentiments may seem to militate against those of Dr. Farmer. STEEVENS. King Henry the Sixth. Duke of Glofter, uncle to the king, and Protector. Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March. 1 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. FIRST PART OF KING HENRY VI. ACT I. SCENE I. Westminster Abbey. Dead march. Corpfe of King Henry the Fifth difcovered, lying in state; 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, yield day to night! Comets, importing change of times and states, Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky; 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, son to the Earl of Salisbury, who became possessed 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 demise of Tomas 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 stage-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 stage for a tragedie to be played on." See also Mr. Malone's Historical Account of the English Stage. STEEVENS. 4 Brandish 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 chrystal comets whiles appear." And with them scourge the bad revolting stars, Spenser, in his Faery Queen, Book I. c. x. applies it to a lady's face: "Like funny beams threw from her chrystal face," Again, in an ancient fong entitled The falling out of Lovers is the renewing of Love : "You chrystal planets shine all clear "And light a lover's way." "There is also a white comet with filver haires," says Pliny, as translated by P. Holland, 1601. 5 That have consented STEEVENS. nsented_) 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 muse applauding the fong of Apollo. in Lyly's Midas, 1592, cries out: "O sweet confent!" i.e. sweet union of sounds, Again, in Spenser's Faery Queen, B. IV. c. ii: " Such mufick his wife words with time confented." Again, in his tranflation of Virgil's Culex: " Chanted their fundry notes with sweet concent." and in many other places. Confented, or as it should be spelt, concented, means, have thrown themselves into a malignant configuration, to promote the death of Henry. Spenser, in more than one inftance, spells this word as it appears in the text of Shakspeare; as does Ben Jonson, in his Epithalamion on Mr. Weston. The following lines. shall we curse the planets of mishap, "That plotted thus," &c. seem to countenance my explanation; and Falstaff says of Shallow's servants, that " they flock together in confent, like fo many wild geese." See also 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 uses the word, and with the same meaning, in his Penferoso: 1 " 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 Pestle, the Merchant says to Merry. thought: --too late, I well perceive, "Thou art confenting to my daughter's loss." f |