have not been previously depicted by the poet, but are subsequently intimated. The man who, when he perceives the dishonour of the house into which he has fallen, recognises so quickly and acutely the danger that threatens him, who penetrates in a moment the wicked nature of the sinning father, declaring that he blushes no more for his own shame, and upon its discovery 'seem'd not to strike, but smooth;' who, modest as he is prudent, ventures not to name openly, and scarcely even to himself, the perceived connection, and who thoughtfully considers his position; the man who speaks riddles proves that he is able also to solve them. And he, whose imagination, after fear has been once excited in him, is filled with ideas of a thousand dangers, whose mind is seized with the darkest melancholy, appears also in these touches to be a nature of such prominent mental qualities that, trusting rather to these than to chance, he ventured to undertake to guess the dangerous riddle of the daughter of Antiochus. Agitation, fear, and mistrust now drive him out into the wide world, and beset him in his happiness at Pentapolis, as in his danger in Antiochia; yielding to adversity, and more noble and tender than daring, he carefully conceals himself, and in a perfectly different position fears the same snares as with Antiochus; these are without doubt intentional additions by the last elaborator, for in the story and in the English narrations of it Pericles declares at once his name and origin. The tender nature of his character, which makes him anxious in moments of quiet action, renders him excited in misfortune, and robs him of the power of resistance in suffering. The same violent emotion, the same sinking into melancholy, the same change of his innermost feelings, which he remarks in himself in the first act, after his adventure in Antiochia, we see again rising in him after the supposed death of his wife and child; as at that time he again. casts himself upon the wide world and yields to immoderate grief, forgetful of men and of his duties, until the unknown daughter restores him to himself, and he at the same time recovers wife and child. The ecstatic transition from sorrow to joy is here intimated in the same masterly manner as the sudden decline from hope and happiness to melancholy and mourning was before depicted. As we said above, this is only sketched in outline; but there is a large scope left to a great actor to shape this outline into a complete form by the finishing

touches of his representation. We therefore before suggested that Shakespeare may have chosen this play, in all other parts highly insignificant and trifling, only to prepare a difficult theme for his friend Burbage, who acted this character.

We should consider this almost a decided matter, if the piece had been first elaborated by Shakespeare in the year 1609, when it appeared for the first time in print, with the words. 'lately presented' on the title-page. In this case we should have here discussed the play in the wrong place. Dryden, however, in a prologue, which he wrote in 1675, to the 'Circe' of Charles Davenant, calls it expressly Shakespeare's first piece, and for this reason excuses its discrepancies. We must confess it is difficult to believe that, even with such a purpose as that which we have stated, Shakespeare should, at the period of his greatest maturity, have appropriated such a piece as Pericles for the first time. If we compare the revolting scenes of the fourth act with similar ones in Measure for Measure, a play which was written before 1609, we are reluctant to believe. that Shakespeare could have prepared this over-seasoned food for the million, or even should have tolerated it from the hand of another. We should therefore prefer (with Staunton) to assume that Shakespeare appropriated the piece soon after its origin (about 1590). At the time that the play was printed with Shakespeare's name, in 1602, it may perhaps have been re-prepared for Burbage's acting, and through this it may have acquired its new fame. That at that time it excited fresh sensation is evident from the fact that the performance of the piece and Twine's version of the story gave rise to a novel, composed in 1608, by George Wilkens: 'The true history of the play of Pericles, as it was lately presented by the worthy and ancient poet John Gower.' In this publication we read the iambic verses and passages of the piece transposed into prose, but in a manner that allows us to infer that the play at that time was reprinted in a more perfect form than that in which we now read it. Shakespeare's pen-so easily is it to be distinguished-is recognised in this prose version in expressions which are not to be found in the drama, but which must have been used upon the stage. When Pericles (Act III. sc. 1)

1 Reprinted from a copy in the Zurich Library, by Tycho Mommsen. Oldenb. 1857."

receives the child born in the tempest, he says to it: Thou'rt the rudeliest welcome to this world that e'er was prince's child.' To this, the novel (p. 44, ed. Mommsen) adds the epithet: Poor inch of nature!' merely four words, in which every one must recognise our poet. We therefore probably read this drama in a form which it neither bore when Shakespeare put his hand to it for the first nor for the last time.

HENRY VI.

OUR remarks upon the two plays which we have discussed were essentially of a critical nature, for it was of less importance to determine their trifling value than their origin and the share which Shakespeare had in them. In the three parts also of the History of Henry VI. the discussion for the most part will be of a critical nature, especially that referring to the First Part, the consideration of which must be perfectly separate from that of the two last. The two last parts of Henry VI. are worked up by Shakespeare from an existing original, which may have early suggested to our poet the idea, not alone of appropriating them with additions to his stage, but also of appending to them the whole series of his histories, and this not only as regards the facts, but even the leading idea. For the First Part, on the contrary, we possess no sources; in its purport it is but very slightly united with the two last parts, and this union did not originally exist in the piece. The latter parts afford the counterpart to Shakespeare's Richard II. and Henry IV.; as the former treat of the elevation of the house of Lancaster, the latter refer to the retribution of the house of York; the First Part, on the other hand, in its original form treated only of the French wars under Henry VI. and the civil discord which occasioned the losses in France. The satirist Thomas Nash, in his 'Pierce Penniless' Supplication to the Devil,' 1592, alludes to a piece in which the brave Talbot,' the dread of the French, is raised from the tomb 'to triumph again on the stage.' Whether this allusion refers to our drama or to another Henry VI., which, as we know, was acted in 1592, by Henslowe's company, it is evident that this is indeed the essential subject of our play; all that relates to the rising York and his political plans was without doubt added by Shakespeare, in order to unite the play with the two others. It may almost with

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certainty be denied that Shakespeare had any further share in the piece than this. From Malone's ample dissertation upon the three parts of Henry VI. until Dyce, our poet has generally been refused in England all share in the authorship of this first part. The extraordinary ostentation of manifold learning in the play is not like Shakespeare, nor is the style of composition. Coleridge enjoins the comparison of Bedford's speech at the beginning of the piece with the blank verse in Shakespeare's first genuine plays, and 'if you do not then feel the impossibility of its having been written by Shakespeare,' he says, 'you may have ears-for so has another animal-but an ear you cannot have.' If the subject induced the poet to appropriate the piece as a supplement to the completion of the two following parts, without question his share in it is a very small one. That he himself, after the custom of the time, originally composed the piece in company with other poets, is not credible, because a man of Shakespeare's self-reliance must have early felt the unnaturalness of this habit. It is, on the other hand, probable that the piece which he elaborated occupied various hands at the same time, because the marks of them are plainly to be discerned.

No piece is more adapted to the explanation of the manner in which Shakespeare, as soon as he was himself, did not write his dramatic works. His historical plays follow for the most part the historical facts of the well-known chronicle of Holinshed, and adhere rigorously to succession and order, rejecting all fable. The First Part of Henry VI., on the contrary, follows another historical narrative (Hall), and adds single events from Holinshed and other partly unknown sources; great historical errors, a medley of persons, a remarkable confusion in the computation of time, and a series of non-historical additions, characterise the treatment of this history-faults of which Shakespeare has never been guilty. The history of the Countess of Auvergne, the threefold cowardice of Fastolfe, the recapture of Orleans by Talbot, the surprise of Rouen, and the apprehension of Margaret by Suffolk, are mere inventions, partly to be referred to patriotic zeal. Such did not appear to be Shakespeare's general idea of a dramatic history, in which he always, as far as possible, strictly adhered to genuine tradition. It is not our intention to set forth these historical errors, as we do not consider Shakespeare's historical plays from this point of view; we refer the reader to Courtenay's 'Commentaries' upon the his