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. [Exit.9 9 This play has many scenes of high dignity, and many of easy merriment. The character of the king is well supported, except in his courtship, where he has neither the vivacity of Hal, nor the grandeur of Henry. The humour of Pistol is very happily continued his character has perhaps been the model of all the bullies that have yet appeared on the English stage. The lines given to the Chorus have many admirers; but the truth is, that in them a little may be praised, and much must be forgiven; nor can it be easily discovered why the intelligence given by the Chorus is more necessary in this play than in many others where it is omitted. The great defect of this play is the emptiness and narrowness of the last act, which a very little diligence might have easily avoided. JOHNSON. THE historical transactions contained in this play, take in the compass of above thirty years. I must observe, however, that our author, in the three parts of Henry VI. has not been very precise to the date and disposition of his facts; but shuffled them, backwards and forwards, out of time. For instance, the lord Talbot is killed 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 solemnized eight years before Talbot's death, in the year 1445. Again, in the Second Part, dame Eleanor Cobham is introduced to insult Queen Margaret! though her penance and banishment for sorcery happened three years before that princess came over to England. I could point out many other transgressions against history, as far as the order of time is concerned. Indeed, though there are several master-strokes in these three plays, which incontestibly betray the workmanship of Shakspeare; yet I am almost 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 see, the diction of them is more obsolete, and the numbers more mean and prosaical, than in the generality of his genuine compositions. THEOBALD. Like many others, I was long struck with the many evident Shakspearianisms in these plays, which appeared to me to carry such decisive weight, that I could scarcely bring myself to examine with attention any of the arguments that have been urged against his being the author of them. But I should have adverted to a very striking circumstance which distinguishes this first part from the other parts of King Henry VI. This circumstance is, that none of these Shakspearian 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. I would here request the reader to attend particularly to the versification of this piece, (of which almost every line has a pause at the end,) which is so different from that of Shakspeare's undoubted plays, and of the greater part of the two succeeding pieces, as altered by him, and so exactly corresponds 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 classical allusions which are found in this first part. 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 apprehension, on a very different ground from that of this first part, or, as I be lieve 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 some 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 the Shrew, he formed two other plays with the same titles. 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. The disposition of facts in these three plays, not always corresponding with the dates, which Mr. Theobald mentions, and the want of uniformity and consistency in the series of events exhibited, may perhaps be in some measure accounted for by the hypothesis now stated. As to our author's having accepted these pieces as a director of the stage, he had, I fear, no pretension to such a situation 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 dramatick efforts; and almost every young poet begins his career by imitation. Shakspeare, therefore, till he felt his own strength, perhaps servilely conformed to the style and manner of his predecessors. STEEVENS. |