KING HENRY THE SIXTH. PART THE FIRST. THE play we have just quitted has not only marks of the hand of Shakespeare, but is throughout one of the noblest productions of his genius. At the close of it the chorus tells us that the stage had often shewn the loss of France in the reign of King Henry the Sixth, and how it had shewn it the play before us exhibits proof. We see in it nothing of Shakespeare, neither his beauties nor his faults. It is tame and prosaic, and when not so is turgid. It may deserve to keep its place, inasmuch as it is alluded to in the chorus before mentioned, and for the sake of the continuity of history; but it has no pretension to be regarded as Shakespeare's. The second and third parts have evidently much of his hand; but there are in them portions by an inferior hand. Mr. Malone has treated at large on the composition of these three plays, and to his very valuable dissertation I refer, having nothing of my own to add to so admirable a performance. The date of all the three plays may be fixed at an early period of the Poet's career. Probably the First Part, whoever was the author, was written about 1587. The remarkable allusion in a pamphlet of Robert Green's to a line in the third part O tyger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide! is an accidental proof that Shakespeare had been concerned in these plays before September, 1592, in refitting and improving them at least, as the pamphlet was entered at Stationers' Hall in that month. II. 3. COUNTESS. It cannot be this weak and writhled shrimp Should strike such terror to his enemies. Perhaps Harington's Ariosto supplies a better illustration of this word than is found in the notes. Her face was wan, a lean and writhled skin; Her stature skant three horse-loaves did exceed, &c. Canto vii. St. 62. KING HENRY THE SIXTH. PART THE SECOND. AS THE Third Part of King Henry the Sixth existed in 1592, when it was alluded to by Green, we may be certain that this Second Part was produced in or before that year. It was one of the plays in which Shakespeare was employed in altering and amending the work of a preceding and inferior dramatist; but there is much from his hand, and some parts in this and the third play on this reign are even in his best manner. I. 1. SALISBURY. Mr. Malone's genealogical note is not so germane to the matter as it might be, and contains moreover one, if not more, erroneous statement. They were brothers by the Duke of York having married Cecily Neville, the sister of the Earl of Salisbury, both being children of Ralph the first Neville Earl of Westmoreland by Joan his second Countess, daughter of John of Gaunt by Katharine Swinford, and sister, of course, to Cardinal Beaufort. It would seem by Mr. Malone's note that the Earl of Salisbury was son of the Earl of Westmoreland by some other wife. The matter of a note, such as this of Mr. Malone, should be given before the play, explanatory of the dramatis personæ. I. 3. FIRST PETITIONER. My masters, let's stand close; my Lord Protector will come this way by and by, and then we may deliver our supplications in the QUILL. Steevens, Tollet, and Hawkins have all undertaken this word "quill," and with little success. The word has nothing to do with the instrument for writing so called, or with a nine-pin; neither of which, it may be observed, gives anything like a satisfactory meaning. "Quill" means here the narrow passage through which the Protector was to pass, as I infer from the use of this very rare word in Sylvester's translation of Dr. Bartas, a work abounding in rare and curious words and phrases. He is describing the Deluge: All wandering clouds, all humid exhalations, All seas (which Heaven through many generations Here it clearly means narrow winding passages, ambages. It is doubtless allied to the word quillets, which is also used by Shakespeare. III. 2. WARWICK. See how the blood is settled in his face! Attracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy; Which with the heart there cools, and ne'er returneth To blush and beautify the cheek again. But see his face is black and full of blood, &c. "Timely" is here opposite to untimely. "Ghost" appears to be written somewhat licentiously for corpse; but the Poet is kept in countenance by others. Spenser, as Steevens remarks, uses "ghost" in the same manner: and in The Widow of Watling Street we have, "I can't abide to handle a ghost of all men.' But the most remarkable use of the term "ghost," when corpse is intended, is presented by the verses on Shakespeare by J. M. S. This is one of the most striking passages in that noble poem; it reminds one of the vaults in which the Kings of Babylon were sleeping as pourtrayed by Isaiah. I know not that it has ever been adverted to, that in the royal vaults of England it was sometimes the practice to deposit valuables with the body of a person interred therein, with the special object that the body might be distinguished from that of a mean person if in the revolution of time the body should ever be disturbed in its last earthly home. In an account of the expenses of the burial of King Edward the Third in the Chapel of the Kings, at Westminster, this expression occurs :-" Pro predicto corpore honorabiliter arriando, si illud imposterum contigerit inveniri." III. 2. Suffolk. Would curses kill as doth the mandrake's groan. Sir Thomas Brown has collected all the opinions respecting the mandrake in his Vulgar Errors, Part II. ch. 6. Ben Jonson alluded to this part of its fabulous properties, Where the sad mandrake grows, Whose groans are deathful.-THE SAD SHEPHERD, Act ii. Sc. 8. III. 3. K. HENRY. Lord Cardinal, if thou thinkest on heaven's bliss, This was conformable to the practice of Shakespeare's time. When Queen Elizabeth was in extremis Dr. Parry, her chaplain, moved her to signify her faith and hope by lifting |