mistaken it for his own. Perhaps no one, judging by the
ear alone, or from the internal evidence merely, would ever
believe that Burke's Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful
was written by the same man as Burke's Reflections on the
llevolution in France.
These considerations, and such as these, growing out of
a larger criticism than that used by INIalone, have prevailed
with many to withhold them from the more general opinion.
To say nothing of Stcevcns, who in these matters com-
monly shaped his course wnth a view to cross ISIalone, the
better discernment of Johnson, Hazlitt, Knight, Verplanck,
and of the Gennan critics, Schlegel, Tieck, and Ulrici, has
held them fast to the old belief.
It must be owned, indeed, that The First Part of Henry
VI, granting it to be Shakespeare's, can add nothing to
his reputation. But it may throw not a little light on his
mental history, showing, along with several other plays,
that his hand waxed cunning and mighty by long labor and
discipline; that in forming him for the office of universal
teacher art had perhaps as great a siiare as nature; and
that Ben Jonson knew what he was about, when saying
with reference to him, ā "For a good poet's made, as well
as born." Moreover, the play yields acceptable testimony
that Shakespeare, following the fashion of his time, had
at first an excess of classical allusion ; that even his genius
was not in the outset proof against the then besetting vice
of leanied pedantrj' ; thus guiding us to the reasonable con-
clusion, that his later freedom from such excess and pedan-
try was the result of judgment, not of ignorance. Ma-
lone took credit to himself, that he had vindicated Shake-
speare from the reproach of having written so poor a
XXXl
Introduction THE FIRST PART OF
performance; not perceiving, apparently, that such a
course as he pursued must needs disserve the virtue of the
man a great deal faster than it could serve the genius of
the poet. It will be better seen hereafter, that he did in
fact but vindicate him into the reproach of having been the
most impudent literary thief that ever went "unwhipp'd of
justice."
The Poet's more material drawings from history In this
play will be set forth from time to time In the form of
notes. It will be observed that he took much greater free-
dom than usual with the actual order of events, marshalling
them here and there upon no settled principle, or upon one
which it is not easy to discover. The play extends over
the whole period from the death of Henry V, in August,
1422, when his son was but nine months old, till the mar-
riage of the latter with Margaret of Anjou, which took
place in October, 1444. In some cases the scattered events
of several years are drawn together and presented in one
view, as in the first scene, where we have the angry rup-
ture of Gloster and Beaufort occurring at the same time
with the funeral of Henry V, and reports coming in of
losses In France, some of which did not take place till after
the events represented in several of the subsequent scenes.
In like manner, in the early part of the play the king is
made much older, and in the latter part much younger,
than he really was ; the effect of which, as it was probably
meant to be, is, to give an impression of greater unity
than were compatible with a more literal adherence to facts.
So, again, the death of the Talbots is drawn back many
years before the time of its actual occurrence, in order, as
would seem, that the foreign wars, and the disasters attend-
ing them, may be despatched in the First Part, and thus
leave the following parts free for a more undistracted rep-
resentation of the civil wars. And there are many other
similar misplacements of events, which are more fully no-
ticed as they occur.
Upon the whole, the leading purpose of the drama, con-
sidered by itself, appears to l)e, to set forth the growth of
XXXll
KING HENRY VI Introduction
faction in England, the gradual crippling of the national
energies thence resulting, and the consequent loss of the
conquests in France ; how domestic strife still propagated
mischiefs abroad, while these mischiefs in turn envenomed
that strife; and how this long train of evils started into
action as soon as the heroic spirit was withdrawn, in whom
all the powers of the nation had stood and worked smoothly
together, sweeping every thing before them. Such being
the scope of the play, so far as that scope ends with the
play itself, we may not unfitly apply to it one of Cole-
ridge's most comprehensive passages. Discoursing how
"a drama may be properly historical," he says, ā "The
events themselves are immaterial, otherwise than as the
clothing and manifestation of the spirit that is working
within. In this mode, the unity resulting from succession
is destroyed, but is supplied b}^ an unity of a higher order,
which connects the events by reference to the workers, gives
a reason for them in the motives, and presents men in their
causative character."
In comparison, however, of the Poet's other histories, it
must be confessed that the arrangement of this play is
inartificial and clumsy, the characterization loose and
sketchy, and the action inconsequential ; there being many
changes of scene which involve no real progress, and often
no reason appearing in the thing itself but that the order
might just as well have been quite other than it is: all
which, to be sure, is but an argument that the author had
not then acquired the power of moulding the stiff materials
of history to the laws of art and the conditions of dramatic
effect. Yet, though, as a whole, the piece be somewhat
rambling and unknit, several of the parts are replete with
poetic animation, many of the characters are firmly out-
lined, and in some of them, especially Beaufort and Talbot,
the coloring is strong and well-laid ; though, perhaps, in re-
gard to the former, the conception has more of dramatic
vigor than of historic truth.
In the character of the heroic maiden we seem to have
an apt instance of struggle between the genius of the poet
XXXUl
Introduction THE FIRST PART OF
and the prejudices of the Englishman. For it is observ-
able that many of the noblest thoughts and images in the
drama come from her ; and in her interview with Burgundy
the Poet could scarce have put into her mouth a higher
strain of patriotic eloquence, had she been regarded as the
patron saint of his father-land. But to have represented
her throughout as a heaven-sent deliverer, besides being
repugnant to the hereditary sentiment of the author, had
been sure to offend the prepossessions of his audience. It
is to this cause, probably, that we should attribute whatso-
ever of discrepancy there may be in the representation.
All that is pure and beautiful in her life as depicted in the
play resulted, no doubt, from the Poet's universality of
mind and heart overbearing for a time the strong natural,
and, we may add, honorable current of national feeling.
Nor should it be unremembered that herein Shakespeare's
course was against the whole drift of the Chronicles; for
the account they give of her is indeed consistent, but then
it is consistently bad. How the catastrophe of her career
in the drama may have affected a contemporary English
audience, we of course have no means of knowing: but to
us her behavior thereabouts seems nowise of her character,
but rather a piece of, perhaps justifiable, hypocrisy, taken
up as a sort of forlorn hope, and so forming no part of
herself; the impression of her foregoing life thus triumph-
ing over the seeming sacrifice of honor and virtue at its
close. What a subject she would have been for Shake-
speare's hand, could he have done, what no good man has
been able to do, namely, viewed her in the pure light of uni-
versal humanity, free from the colorings and refractings
of national prepossession !
Amidst the general comparative tameness of the drama
in hand, several scenes and parts of scenes may be specified
as holding out something more than a promise of Shake-
speare's ripened power. Such are the maiden's descrip-
tion of herself in Act i. sc. 2, beginning, ā "Dauphin, I
am by birth a shepherd's daughter;" ā and Talbot's ac-
count of his entertainment by the French while their pris-
xxxiv
KING HENRY VI Introduction
oner, in sc. 4 of the same Act, where the story reUshes at
every turn of the teller's character, and the words seem
thoroughly steeped in his individuality. Not less admir-
able, perhaps, in its way, is the pungent and pithy dia-
logue between Winchester and Gloster, Warwick, and
Somerset, at the opening of Act iii., where the words strike
fire all round, and where the persons, because they dare not
speak, tliercfore out of their pent-up wrath speak all the
more spitefully. Again, of w'hole scenes, the third in Act
ii., between old Talbot and the countess of Auvergne, is
in the conception and the execuLion a genuine stroke of
Shakespearian art, full of dramatic spirit, and making a
strong point of stage-effect in the most justifiable sense.
And in the Temple Garden scene, which is the fourth of the
same Act, we have a concentration of true dramatic life
issuing in a scries of forcible and characteristic flashes,
where every word tells with singular effect both as a de-
velopment of present temper and a germ of many tragic
events. And, on the higher principles of art, how fitting
it was that this outburst of smothered rage, this distant
ominous grumbling of the tempest, should be followed by
the subdued and plaintive tones that issue from the prison
of the aged Mortimer, where we have the very spring and
cause of the gathering storm discoursed in a strain of
melancholy music, and a vii-tual sermon of revenge and
slaughter breathed from dying lips. And of the fifth,
sixth, and seventh scenes in Act iv., also, we may well say
with Dr. Johnson, "If we take these scenes from Shake-
speare, to whom shall they be given?"
The chief merits of the play are w^ell stated, though
doubtless with some exaggeration, by Schlegel, the judi-
ciousness of whose criticisms in the main hath been so
often approved, that no apology seems needed for quoting
him. "Shakespeare's choice," sa^'s he, "fell first on this
period of English history, so full of misery and horrors of
every kind, because to a young poet's mind the pathetic is
naturally more suitable than the characteristic. We do
not here find the whole maturity of his genius, yet certainly
xx.w
Introduction KING HENRY VI
its whole strength. Careless as to the seeming uncon-
nectedness of contemporary events, he bestows little atten-
tion on preparation and development : all the figures follow
in rapid succession, and announce themselves emphatically
for what we ought to take them. The First Part contains
but the forming of the parties of the White and Red Rose,
under which blooming ensigns such blood}^ deeds were
afterwards perpetrated ; the varying results of the war in
France principally fill the stage. The wonderful savior of
her countr}', Joan of Arc, is portrayed by Shakespeare
with an Englishman's prejudice: yet he at first leaves it
doubtful whether she has not in reality an heavenly mis-
sion ; she appears in the pure glory of virgin heroism ; by
her supernatural eloquence ā and this circumstance is of
the Poet's invention ā she wins over the duke of Burgundy
to the French cause ; afterwards, corrupted by vanity and
luxury, she has recourse to hellish fiends, and comes to a
miserable end. To her is opposed Talbot, a rough iron
warrior, who moves us the more powerfully, as, in the mo-
ment when he is threatened with inevitable death, all his care
is tenderly directed to save his son, who performs his first
deeds of arms under his eye. The interview between the
aged Mortimer in prison, and Richard Plantagenet, un-
folds the claims of the latter to the throne, and forms, by
itself, a beautiful tragic elegy."
XX3CV1
COMMENTS
By Shakespearean Scholars
HENRY VI
The heroic days of the fifth Henry, when the play opens,
belong to the past; but their memory survives in the hearts
and in the vigorous muscles of the great lords and earls
who surround the king. He only, who most should have
treasured and augmented his inheritance of glory and of
power, is insensible to the large responsibilities and priv-
ileges of his place. He is cold in great affairs; his su-
preme concern is to remain blameless. Free from all
greeds and ambitions, he yet is possessed by egoism, the
egoism of timid saintliness. His virtue is negative, be-
cause there is no vigorous basis of manhood within him out
of which heroic saintliness might develop itself. For fear
of what is wrong, he shrinks from what is right. This is
not the virtue ascribed to the nearest followers of "the
Faithful and True" who in his righteousness doth judge
and make war. Henry is passive in the presence of evil,
and weeps. He would keep his garments clean; but the
garments of God's soldier-saints, who do not fear the soils
of struggle, gleam with a higher, intenser purity. "His
eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many
crowns; . . . And the armies which were in heaven
followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white
and clean." These soldiers in heaven have their repre-
sentatives in earth ; and Henry was not one of these. Zeal
must come before charity, and then when charity comes it
will appear as a self-denial. But Henry knows nothing of
zeal; and he is amiable, not charitable. ā Dowden, Shak-
spere ā His Mind and Art.
xxxvii
Comments THE FIRST PART OF.
JOAN OF ARC
Only in one case does Shakespeare ā according to our
modern ideas ā seem to have gone too far and to have been
unjust, viz., in his delineation of Joan of Arc's charac-
ter ; but in this he has closely followed his authority,
whether we assume it to have been Hall or Holinshed. La
Pucelle's character was, up to the seventeenth century, a
closed book even to her own countrymen, and has only in
recent days by documentary evidence been revealed to us
in its full purity and beauty. But even though this want
of a correct knowledge of the case were not an unquestion-
able excuse for the poet, still his error vanishes, and ap-
pears as nothing, when compared with the filth which Vol-
taire ā her own countryman ā has cast upon the character
of La Pucelle. And even though Voltaire's wit were a
hundred times more poignant, it would never clear him of
this wrong. ā Elze, William Shakespeare.
Taking the character [of Joan la Pucelle] as it stands,
ā the embodiment of motives and disposition in harmony
with deeds tha.t the chroniclers assert as facts, it is hard
to say that it is other than consistent and natural. The
world is now in possession of numerous detailed examples of
religious enthusiasm and self-deception combining with am-
bitious or political purpose in all their strange and ming-
ling manifestations both of the mind and body, and if we
scrutinize the most fortunate of them the result is much the
same as the catastrophe of Joan even as represented in the
play. The false impressions and assumptions that inflame
the enthusiast work wonders in their strength, but their
weakness tells at last. The self-conviction of the special
choice and guidance and inspiration of heaven suffers rude
shocks in an extended course, as rude as the blindest fatal-
ism that hardens its purposes by repetition of the phrase
of a destiny, a mission or a star. Rarely indeed does the
vainly exalted thought of special heavenly protection es-
xxxviii
KING HENRY VI Comments
cape reversal by as depressing a belief of desertion and for-
sakenness, and a life of heroism may easily close in vacilla-
tion, or despair, or degrading attempt to keep up by foul
means, or trickery, the influence that only worked won-
ders, and was victorious when it sprung spontaneously.
Still the dramatist has been more tender to Joan in one
respect than the historians, and he rejects the fact they
charge her with, of shamefully slaughtering, out of spite
and in cold blood, her surrendered prisoner. ā Lloyd,
^'Critical Essays on the Plays of Shakespeare"
We have yet to consider the Joan of Arc scenes, espec-
ially V. iv. ; here we are prejudiced not so much against
the verse, as against the treatment of the fair maid of
France, as we now know her; we hope the writer is not
Shakespeare ; we might hope it could be no writer at all. I
will state some considerations for and against : Shakespeare,
at any rate, has sanctioned the presence of this scene ; that
goes for a good deal ; next, ( 1 ) many English characters
meet with harsh treatment in these early chronicles and
plays, and Joan was not English, but French; (2) more
important still, she was regarded as a witch; (3) the sketch
of Joan in this play, if not less repulsive than that of the
chronicles, makes some attempt at justice (lines 36-53) ;
(4) we may fairly say that the writer of the drama would
be compelled either to omit the character altogether (which
was impossible), or to bow before (a) the Chronicles, (b)
popular belief and prejudice, (c) what was probably, at
least In part, his own mistaken conviction. However, for
the relief of any who may think Shakespeare's honor is
threatened by this scene, I may add that if we place it under
the microscope we find that only the lines above men-
tioned, 36-53, bear any distinct marks of Shakespeare's
handling; again I will support my general statement: lines
52, 53,
Whose mniden Wnnd. thus rigrormisly cfTiisecT,
Will cry for vengeance at the gates of heaven,
xxxix
Comments THE FIRST PART OF
may be compared with "Richard II," I. i. 116-118:
Whose blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries
Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth
To me for justice and rough chastisement;
and in the same play "Heaven" will "rain hot vengeance"
en offenders' heads. ā Luce, Handbook to Shakespeare's
Works.
LORD TALBOT
Joan's death appears the organic contrast to that of the
Earl of Salisbury, of Lord Talbot, and his son. Lord Tal-
bot is obviously the noblest character in the whole play, a
rough and vigorous knight ; battle and war, self-devoted
patriotism, knightl}^ honor and bravery, these have consti-
tuted his entire life ; all higher ideas seem beyond him ; he
knows how to win a battle, but not how to carry on a war ;
he is an excellent military captain, but no general, no chief,
because, although valiant and even discreet and prudent
(as is proved by his interview with the Countess of Au-
vergne), he does not possess either presence of mind, cre-
ative power, or a clear insight into matters. This, together
with the harshness and roughness of his virtue, which has
in it something of the rage of the lion, is his weak point,
and proves the cause of his death. His power was not
equal to the complicated circumstances and the depravity
of the age ; under the ii'on rod of chastisement, he became
equally unbending and iron ; he is the representative of the
rage and ferocity of the war, to which he falls a victim
because he is wholly absorbed in It and therefore unable to
become the master In directing it. In such days, however,
the honorable death of a noble character proves a blessing ;
victory and pleasure are found In death when life succumbs
to the superior power of evil, to the weight and misery of
a decline which affects both the nation and the state. ā '
Ulrici, Shakspeare^s Dramatic Art.
3d
KING HENRY VI Comments
A COMPARISON WITH LATER PLAYS
If we take the piece purely in a dramatic point of view,
and consider it as a work for the stage, it affords, as we be-
fore said, an excellent lesson in its contrast to Shakespeare's
general mode of proceeding. There is here no unity of ac-
tion, indeed not even, as in Pericles, a unity of person. If
we look strictly into the single scenes, they are so loosely
united, that whole series may be expunged without injur-
ing the piece, indeed perhaps not without improving it ā ā¢
an attempt which even in Pericles could not be carried far.
We need only superficially perceive this, in order to feel
how far removed the dramatic works of art previous to
Shakespeare were from that strong and systematic inner
structure, which admits of no dismemberment without dis-
tortion.
If we separate all the scenes between York and Somerset,
Mortimer and York, Margaret and Suffolk, and read them
by themselves, we feel that we are looking upon a series
of scenes which exhibit Shakespeare's style in his historical
plays just in the manner in whicli we should have expected
him to have written at the commencement of his career.
We sec the skilful and witty turn of speech and the germ
of his figurative language ; we perceive already the fine
clever repartees and the more choice form of expression ; in
Mortimer's death-scene and in the lessons of his deeply-dis-
sembled silent policy, which while d3'ing he transmits to
York, we see, with Hallam, all the genuine feeling and
knowledge of human nature which belongs to Shakespeare
in similar pathetic or political scenes in his other dramas ;
all, not in that abundance and masterly power which he
subsequently manifested, but certainly in the germ which
prefigures future perfection. These scenes contrast de-
cidedly with the trivial, tedious war scenes and the alternate
bombastic and dull disputes between Gloster and Win-
chester; they adhere to the common highway of historical
poetry, though they have sufficient of the freshness of
xli
Comments KING HENRY VI
youthful art to furnish Schiller in his "Maid of Orleans"
with many beautiful traits, and indeed with the principal
idea of his drama. ā Gervinus, Shakespeare Commentaries.
xlli
THE FIRST PART OF
KING HENRY VI
Shk-l-12
DRAMATIS PERSONS
King Henry the Sixth
Duke of Gloucester, uncle to the King, and Protector
Duke of Bedford, xnicle to the King, and Regent of France
Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, great-uncle to the King
Hexey Beaufort, great-uncle to the King, Bishop of Winchester , and
afterwards Cardinal
John Beaufort, Earl, afterwards Duke, of Somerset
Richard Pi.antagexet, son of Richard, late Earl of Cambridge,
aftenoards Duke of York
Earl of Warwick
Earl of Salisjjury
Earl of Suffolk
Lord Talbot, afterwards Earl of Shrewsbury
John Talbot, his son
Edmund Mortoier, Earl of March
Sir John Fastolfe
Sir William Lucy
Sir William Glaxsdale
Sir Thomas Gargrave
, Mayor of London
Woodvile, Lieutenant of the Tower
Vernon, of the White-Rose or York faction
Basset, of the Red-Rose or Lancaster faction
A Lawyer, Mortimer's Keepers
Charles, Dawphin, and afterwards King, of France
Reignier, Duke of Anjoti, and titidar King of Naples
Duke of Burgundy
Duke of Alencon
Bastard of Orleans
Governor of Paris
Master-Gunner of Orleans and his Son
General of the French forces in Bordeaux
A French Sergeant A Porter
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
Lords, Warders of the Tower, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Messen-
gers, and Attendants
Fiends appearing to La Pucelle
Scene: Partly in England, and partly in France
2
SYNOPSIS
ACT I
B}' the death of the valiant King Henry V his infant
son, Henry VI, succeeded to the thrones of England and
France. The young King's guardians, forgetful of their
country's interests, engage in quarrels with each other.
The French take advantage of this weakness to regain
many of their cities. Joan la Pucelle, or Joan of Arc, as
she is known in history, renders valuahle aid to the Dauphin
of France, later Charles VH ; she assists him to raise the
siege of Orleans in spite of the able resistance of Talbot, the
English general.
ACT n
The English retake Orleans by a sudden attack while
the French are feasting in celebration of their victory. In
England the quarrels of Richard Plantagenet, afterwards
the Duke of York, and John Beaufort, Earl, afterwards
the Duke, of Somerset, grow more violent and develop into
the civil war known as the War of the Roses from the col-
ors and flowers worn by either side ā white roses by the
Plantagenets (the House of York) and red ones by the
Somersets (the House of Lancaster).
ACT m
Aided by La Pucelle, the French capture Rouen, but the
English under Talbot retake it. Leaving a garrison in
the town, Talbot and his army go to Paris, where the young
monarch, Henry VI, is awaiting his coronation as King