entertainment on the London stage in 1592; and in the
same connection Nash speaks of them as being resorted to
in the afternoon by "men that are their own masters, as
gentlemen of the court, the inns of court, and the num-
ber of captains and soldiers about London." Historical
plays, being in such special request, would naturally lead
Shk-1-11 3^
Introduction THE FIRST PART OF
off in whatsoever of dramatic improvement was then forth-
coming; and in fact the earhest growth of excellence
appears to have been in this department. For in this,
as in other things, the demand would needs in a great
measure regulate the supply, and thus cause the first ad-
vances to be made in the line where, to the common inter-
est of dramatic representation was added the further
charm of national feeling and recollection, and where a
large patriotism, looking before and after, would find itself
at home. Hence, no doubt, the early and rapid growth
in England of the historical drama, as a species quite dis-
tinct from the old forms of tragedy and comedy. Nor, in
this view of the matter, is there anything incredible in
the tradition reported by Gildon, that Shakespeare, in a
conversation with Ben Jonson, said that, "finding the
nation generally very ignorant of history, he wrote his his-
torical plays in order to instruct the people in that par-
ticular." That he cared to make the stage a place of in-
struction as well as of pastime, appears in his Prologue to
Henry VIII, where he says, — "Such as give their money
out of hope they may believe, may here find truth
too." And something of this substantial benefit, it seems,
was soon realized; for in Heywood's Apology for Actors,
1612, we are told, — "Plays have made the ignorant more
apprehensive, taught the unlearned the knowledge of many
famous histories, instructed such as cannot read in the dis-
covery of our English Chronicles."
Of the historical plays referred to by Nash in the quota-
tion with which we began, very few specimens have come
down to us. In our Introduction to the First Part of
Henry IV is a passage quoted from the same pamphlet,
showing that one of the plays he had in mind was The
Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth, which is known to
have been on the stage as early as 1588, because the lead-
ing comic part was sustained by Tarleton, who died that
year. In our Introduction to King John, also, we see that
that play was founded on an older one entitled The Trou-
blesome Reign of King John, which was printed in 1591.
XX
KING HENRY VI Introduction
In further illustration of this point, we have another
passage in Nash's pamphlet: "How would it have joyed
brave Talbot, the terror of the French, to think that after
he had lien two hundred year 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 sev-
eral times,) who, in the tragedian that represents his per-
son, behold him fresh bleeding." Which evidently refers
to The First Part of Henry the Sixth, wherein the last
scenes of Talbot and his son are by far the most impressive
and memorable passages, and are fraught with a pathos,
which, in that day of un jaded and fresh sensibility, could
scarce fail to produce such an effect as is here ascribed
to them. Inferior as that play is to many that followed
it in the same line and from the same pen, no English his-
torical drama of so early a date has survived, that ap-
proaches it, either as a work of art, or in the elements of
dramatic effect. To audiences that were wont to be enter-
tained by such frigid and artificial, or such coarse and
vapid performances as then occupied the boards. The First
Part of Henry VI must have been irresistibly attractive;
a play which, perhaps for the first time, gave the English
people "a stage ample and true with life," where, instead
of learned echoes from classical antiquity, their ears took
in the clear free tones of nature, and where swollen verbiage
and strutting extravagance were replaced with the quiet
power of simplicity, and with thoughts springing up fresh,
home-born, and beautiful from the soil of common sense.
That such was indeed the case, may be inferred from the
words of Nash, and is confinned by Henslowe's Diary,
which ascertains that a play called Henry the Sixth was
acted by "Lord Strange's men," jMarch 3, 1592, and was
repeated twelve times in the course of that season. As this
w^as not the company to which Shakespeare belonged, and
in which he held a respectable place as joint proprietor in
1589, it seems but reasonable to presume that the play had
gone through a course of representation by his own com-
pany before it was permitted to the use of another; un-
XXI
Introduction THE FIRST PART OF
less we suppose, what is indeed possible, that Henslowe's
notes refer to another play on the same subject, gotten
up perhaps in consequence of the success of the former at
a rival theater. At all events, the words of Nash, which
could scarce point to any other than Shakespeare's Henry
VI, and which clearly regard it as being already well known,
fully warrant the conclusion that the play was written as
early as 1589 or 1590.
The First Part of Henry VI is not known to have been
printed in any shape, till it appeared in the folio of 1623,
where the first four acts are regularly marked, as are also
the scenes in the third act, but at the beginning of the
fifth act we have merely Scena Secunda, and at the begin-
ning of the last scene Actus Quintus. A question has
been raised, whether the play was originally written as it
is there printed. On this point we have no means of form-
ing even an opinion, other than such probability as may
accrue from the fact that several of the Poet's earlier
efforts afterwards underwent revisal, the effects of which
are in some cases quite apparent in certain inequalities
of style and execution, some parts evincing a riper faculty
and a more practiced hand, and being especially charged
with those peculiarities which all men have agreed to call
Shakespearian, as if they were written when by repeated
trial he had learned to trust his powers, and dared to be
more truly himself. The play in hand, however, yields lit-
tle if any argument that way, there being no such inequal-
ities but what might well enough result from the ordinary
differences of matter and of mental state ; unless, perhaps,
something may be gathered from such incoherences of rep-
resentation as we discover in Joan of Arc, the latter end of
whose character does not very well remember the begin-
ning. The play, in short, though not wanting in what
distinguishes Shakespeare from all other known writers of
that time, has little of that which sometimes distinguishes
Shakespeare from himself.
The authorship of King Henry VI was for a long time
unquestioned, till at last Theobald started a doubt thereof,
xxii
KING HENRY VI introduction
whicli, nminly through the dogged industry of Malone, has
since grown into a general disbelief. This conclusion, and
the arguments whereby it is reached, are built altogetiier
on internal evidence, and proceed for the most part upon
a strange oversight of what seems plain enough, namelv,
that Shakespeare's genius, great as it confessedly was,
must needs have had to pass a time in youth and pupilage.
The main points in Malone's argument, the only ones in-
deed of any real weight, are the following: That the dic-
tion and versification are of another color than we find in
Shakespeare's genuine dramas, the sense almost uniformly
pausing or concluding at the end of every line, and the
verse scarce ever having a redundant syllabic ; and that the
classical allusions are more frequent than in any one of
his plays on English history, and do not rise naturally out
of the subject, but seem inserted to show the writer's learn-
ing; the play thus being in all these respects more like
those preceding Shakespeare, than like those which he is
known to have written : That there are several expressions
which prove the author to have been familiar with Hall's
.Chronicles, whereas Holinshed was Shakespeare's historian:
That in Act iii. sc. 4, the king is made to say, — "When I
was young, (as yet I am not old,) / do remember how my
father said; " but Shakespeare knew that Henry could
not remember any thing of his father, for in the Second
Part, Act iv. sc. 9, he makes him say, — "But I was made
a king at nine months old:" again, in Act ii. sc. 5, of the
play in hand, the earl of Cambridge is said to have "levied
an anny" against his sovereign ; whereas Shakespeare in
King Henry V represents the matter as it really was.
We have endeavored to give INIalone's reasons with all
the strength of statement the}'' will bear, for, in truth, they
are at best so unequal to the service put upon them, tliat
one may well be loth to state them at all, lest he should
seem wanting in candor; at all events, to understate them
would be more apt to provoke a charge of unfairness, than
any possible overstatement to make them bear out the con-
clusion. Nevertheless, for those reasons, or, if there were
xxiii
Introduction THE FIRST PART OF
others, the}^ have not been given, a large number of critics
and editors have rested in the same judgment, among whom
are found such respectable names as Morgann, Drake, Sin-
ger, and Hallam. IMorgann speakes of the play as "that
drum-and-trumpet thing, — written, doubtless, or rather
exhibited, long before Shakespeare was born, though after-
wards repaired and furbished up by him w^th here and
there a little sentiment and diction." Hallam says, — "In
default of a more probable claimant, I have sometimes been
inclined to assign The First Part of Henry VI to Greene."
And Drake proposed that the play should be excluded
from future editions of the Poet, as "offering no trace of
any finishing strokes from the master-bard." These au-
thorities, backed up as they are by a host of concurring
names, must be our excuse for stating, in the Introduction
to The T-u'o Gentlemen of Verona, that "the three parts
of Henry VI were adapted from preexisting stock copies,
into which Shakespeare distilled something of the life and
spirit of his genius ;" a conclusion which cannot well sur-
vive a careful sifting of the arguments whereon it has been
based.
For, in the first place, the diction and versification have
not the qualities specified by Malone in nearly so great a
degree as his statement would lead one to suppose. In va-
riety of pause and structure, the verse, though nowise com-
parable to what the Poet afterwards wrote, is a good deal
in advance of any preceding dramas that have come down
to us from other hands. On this score, the play may be
safely affirmed to differ much less, for example, from
Shakespeare's King John and Richard II, than these do
from his Henry VIII; or than A Midsuvfimer-Nighfs
Dream and The Merchant of Venice from The Tempest
and The Winter's Tale. Yet in these cases of course no
one has ever thought of inferring diversity of authorship
from difference of style. Besides, what might we expect,
but that in these respects his first performances would be
more like what others had done before, than what was
afterwards done by himself? Would he not naturally be-
xxiv
KING HENRY VI Introduction
gin by writing very much as those about him wrote, and
thus by practice gradually learn to write better? Surely
his style must needs draw towards such models as were be-
fore him, till he had time to form a style of his own ; so
that, had the play in hand borne less of resemblance to
such as then held the stage, this would have been a strong
argument that it was not the work of a beginner, but of
one who had attained considerable experience and j^ro-
ficiency in his art. — As to the classical allusions, Malone
here brought the power of figures to bear, and found there
were just twent^^-two in the play. He also figured out,
that of something more than six thousand lines in the Sec-
ond and Third Parts, Shakespeare was the sole author of
somewhat less than one-third; and he took the pains to
mark Shakespeare's lines with asterisks for the convenience
of all future readers and editors. Knight's Shakespeare
has a very learned and elaborate essay, wherein Malone's
argument is thoroughly knocked to pieces, showing, among
other things, that in the lines thus painfully marked there
are no less than eighteen classical allusions and quotations,
and those not a whit more apt and natural than Malone's
twenty-two. Which seems to finish that part of the argu-
ment.
Again, touching the Chronicles used, it is to be observed
that Holinshed's were first published in 1577, when Shake-
speare was in his fourteenth year, and Hall's about thirty
years earlier; and it is quite probable that the Poet be-
came familiar with the elder chronicler in his boyhood, be-
fore the other got into circulation. ^Moreover, Holinshed
embodies in his own work the greater part of Hall, inso-
much that, on most of the subjects handled by the Poet,
the same matter, and in nearly the same words, is found in
both chroniclers, thus often making it uncertain to which
of them he was immediately indebted. Remains but to add
on this point, that Shakespeare's unquestioned dramas fur-
nish numerous instances of acquaintance with Hall.
Finally, as to the discrepancies of representation, which
Malone cites in proof of his point, these might indeed make
XXV
Introduction THE FIRST PART OF
somewhat for the purpose, but that similar discrepancies
are not unfrequently to be met with in the Poet's undoubted
plava. For example, in this very play. Act i. sc. 3, Glos-
ter says to Beaufort, — "I'll canvass thee in thy broad car-
dinal's hat;" and the Mayor a little after, — "This cardi-
nal's more haughty than the devil:" yet in Act v. sc. 1,
Exeter exclaims, — "VvHiat ! is my lord of Winchester in-
stall'd, and call'd unto a cardinal's degree?" as if that
were the first notice he had of his brother's advancement.
Does this infer that the first and fifth acts of this play
were written by several hands? Another still more ma-
terial discrepancy is adduced by Knight. It occurs in The
Second Part of Henry the Fourth, Act iii. sc. 1, where the
following is put into the mouth of Bolingbroke:
"But which of you vsas by,
(You, cousin Neville, as I may remember,)
When Richard, with his eye brirafull of tears,
Then check'd and rated by Northumberland,
Did speak these v.'ords, now prov'd a prophecy?
'Northumberland, thou ladder, by the which
My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne;' —
Though then, God knows, I had no such intent."
This refers to what took place in King Richard 11, Act v.
sc. 1, which was some time after the same Bolingbroke had
said to the parliament, — "In God's name I'll ascend the
regal throne." It is hardly needful to add, that on the
principle of Malone's reasoning the two plays in question
could not have been by the same author. Several other in-
accuracies of this kind are remarked in our notes, and in-
deed occur too often in these plays to prove any thing but
that either the Poet or his characters sometimes made mis-
takes.
Thus it appears that upon examination Malone's argu-
ment really comes to nothing. But even if it were at all
points sound, stDl it has not force enough to shake, much
less to overthrow, the evidence on the other side. Of this
evidence the leading particulars are thus stated by Mr.
Collier : "When Heminge and Condell published the folio
XXVI
KING HENRY VI introduction
of 1623, many of Shakespeare's contemporaries, authors,
actors, and auditors, were aHve ; and the player-editors,
if they would have been guilty of the dishonesty, would
hardly have committed the folly, of inserting a play in
their volume which was not his production. If we imagine
the frequenters of theaters to have been comparatively ig-
norant upon such a point, living authors and living actors
must have been aware of the truth ; and in the face of these
Hcminge and Condell would not have ventured to appro-
priate to Shakespeare what had really come from the pen
of another. That tricks of the kind were sometimes played
by fraudulent booksellers, in single plays, is certainly true;
but Heminge and Condell were actors of repute, and men
of character: they were presenting to the world, in an im-
portant volume, scattered performances, in order to "keep
the memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive, as was
our Shakespeare ;" and we cannot believe they would have
included any drama to which he had no title." It is
further considerable, that Ben Jonson lent to their volume
the sanction of his great name ; — a man whose long inti-
macy with the Poet gave him every chance to know the
truth, and whose unquestionable honesty forbids the
thought of his having endorsed any thing savoring of
fraud.
Furthermore, we have words from Shakespeare himself
which can scarce be interpreted otherwise than as claiming
The First Part of Hcnrii VI for his own. Which words
occur in the Epilogue to Henry V :
"Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd king
Of France and England, did this king succeed;
Whose state so many had the managing,
That they lost France, and made his England bleed:
Which oft our stage hath shown; and for their sake,
In your fair minds let this acceptance take."
The sense of which manifestly is, that "the events whereby
France was lost have been often set forth in plays of our
writing ;" it being rather unlikely that the Poet would thus
XXV ii
Introduction THE FIRST PART OF
beg a favorable reception for his play, because a play writ-
ten by somebody else, and on another subject, had formerly
been well received.
Besides this strong external evidence, concurrent there-
with is internal evidence more than enough to counterpoise
Malone's argument. This, to be sure, is not of a kind
to be discovered by mere verbal criticism, but few, it is to
be presumed, will think the less of it on that account. Sev-
eral parts of the play evidently look to a continuation, and
are strangely out of place and unmeaning, but that they
are to reappear in their after results. Such, especially,
are the fourth scene of Act ii., where in the Temple Garden
the two factions assume the M'hite rose and the red as
their respective badges ; the interview of Mortimer and
Richard in the next scene ; the quarrel of Vernon and Bas-
set in Act iv. sc. 1 ; and, above all, the undertaking of a
marriage between Henry and Margaret in the last scene of
the pla3^ These scenes, be it observed, more than any oth-
ers in the play, are of the author's invention ; which puts it
quite out of reason that they should have been meant to
end with themselves: unless designed and regarded as the
beginnings of something yet to come, they are manifest
impertinences, having nothing to do with the action of the
play, viewed by itself. Of course the promises thus made
are fulfilled in the plays immediately following. Here,
then, we have the lines of an intrinsic connection between
the several plays of the series, running them all together as
parts of a larger whole. In short, the First Part is strictly
continuous with the Second and Third, as these in turn
are with King Richard III; an unbroken harmony and
integrity not only of design and action, but of composition
and characterization, pervading the four plays, and knit-
ting together in the unity of individual authorship.
This matter will be unfolded more at length in our Intro-
ductions to the Second and Third Parts, where we shall
hope to make appear how each preceding play of the series
runs into the following, while, in turn, the latter in like
manner carries out and completes tfie former. For the
xxviii
KING HENRY VI Introduction
present, then, it shall suffice to state by way of instance in
point, that in the character of the king we have the same
conception carried out in most orderly and consistent de-
velopment through the three plays that bear his name.
Than which, perhaps nothing could more clearly show how
wide Malone is of the truth in assuming, as he all along
does assume, that the Second and Third Parts were not
written, either in their original or their amended form, by
the same man who wrote the First. In justice, however,
to Malonc's understanding, it should be added, that he him-
self saw, what he had been blind indeed not to see, that
the three plays are drawn in together as one continuous
whole. Speaking of the First Part, he says, — "At this
distance of time it is impossible to ascertain on what prin-
ciple Hemingo and Condell admitted it into their volume;
but I suspect they gave it a place as a necessary introduc-
tion to the two other parts, and because Shakespeare had
made some slight alterations, and written a few lines in it."
How unlikely it is that Shakespeare should at any thne
of his life have written a play and left it in such a state, as
that a pla}' by some other man should form a necessary in-
troductian to it, is more obvious than to need insisting
upon. Yet this, strongly as it infers the point in question,
is but half the argument; for it may be safely affirmed
that the First Part is not more necessary as an introduc-
tion to the Second and Third, than these latter are as a
supplement and continuation of the First. We scarce
know which were harder of belief, that Shakespeare should
have so fitly carried out another's design, or that another
should have designed so aptly for Shakespeare's carrying-
out.
Two other points there are that seem to require a passing
notice ; one of which is, the frequent performance, as re-
marked above, of a play called Henry the Sixth, by Lord
Strange's men at the Rose, in 1592; — an establishment
with which Shakespeare never had any connection. This
is conjectured to be the play referred to by Nash in a
passage already quoted, and which has come down to
XXIX
Introduction THE FIRST PART OF
US as Shakespeare's, though written by somebody else.
The argument of course supposes that a manuscript play
belonging to one company was not likely to be had for use
at a rival theater. Yet, as we have seen, JMalone thinks
that "Shakespeare had made some slight alterations, and
written a few lines in it ;" Morgann, that it was "repaired
and furbished up by him with here and there a little senti-
ment and diction." Now it does not well appear, but that
one of Sliakespeare's manuscripts may have got into the
hands of Lord Strange's men, as easily as one of theirs into
his ; and he must have got hold of it before he repaired it.
Besides, it is clear that at that time the same play, though
yet unprinted, was sometimes acted by different companies ;
for in the title-page to the first edition of Titus Andronicus
x<e have the words, — "As it hath sundry times been played
by the Right Honourable the Earl of Pembroke, the Earl
of Derby, the Earl of Sussex, and the Lord Chamberlain
their Servants." Mr. Collier observes, accordingly, — "It
is probable that prior to the year 1592 or 1593 the copy-
right of plays was little recognized ; and that various com-
panies were performing the same dramas at the same time,
although perhaps they had been bought by one company
for its sole use."
Again ; Coleridge, as may be seen by a note on the
passage, delivers a most confident opinion that the first
speech in the play could not have been written by Shake-
speare ; though Mr. Collier informs us that in his Lectures
in 1815 he quoted many lines which he thought Shakespeare
must have written. Now our ear does indeed tell us that
the metre of the passage in question is not Shakespearian ;
but this is a very different thing from telling us that
Shakespeare could not have written it. The truth is,
Shakespeare has many passages which seem to us very un-
Shakespearian ; and, as might be expected, both the quan-
tity and the degree of such are in proportion as he was
unpractised in his art. How far unlike himself he may
have written at first, when, as must needs have been the case,
he followed rather the style in vogue than the bent of his
XXX
KING HENRY VI introduction
genius, our ear, we freely confess, is incompetent to de-
cide. Surely it was most natural that in his first efforts
Shakespeare should endeavor to surpass his contemporaries
in their own style; and, for aught we know, he may have
had as great facility of imitation as Burke, who, it is well
known, wrote a pamphlet so much in the style of Lord
Bolingbroke, that Bolingbroke himself might almost have