THE mode in which some of the German critics have spoken of this play is a rebuke to dogmatic assertions and criticism. Schlegel says-putting 'Sir John Oldcastle,' 'Thomas Lord Cromwell,' and 'The Yorkshire Tragedy,' in the same class-"The three last pieces are not only unquestionably Shakspere's, but in my opinion they deserve to be classed among his best and maturest works. 'Thomas Lord Cromwell' and 'Sir John Oldcastle' are biographical dramas, and models in this species; the first is linked, from its subject, to Henry VIII., and the second to Henry V." Tieck is equally confident in assigning the authorship of this play to Shakspere. Ulrici, on the contrary, takes a more sober view of the matter. He says "The whole betrays a poet who endeavoured to form himself on Shakspere's model, nay, even to imitate him, but who stood far below him in mind and talent." Our own critics, relying upon the internal evidence, agreed in rejecting it. Malone could "not perceive the least trace of our great. poet in any part of this play." He observes that it was originally entered on the Stationers' registers without the name of Shakspere; but he does not mention the fact that of two editions printed in 1600 one bears the name of Shakspere, the other not. one which has the name says-"As it hath bene lately acted by the Right honorable the The Earle of Notingham, Lord High Admirall of England, his Seruants." In 1594 a play of Shakspere's might have been acted, as, we believe, Hamlet was, at Henslowe's theatre, which was that of the Lord High Admiral his servants; but in 1600 a play of Shakspere's would have unquestionably been acted by the Lord Chamberlain his servants. However, this conjectural evidence is quite unnecessary. Henslowe, the head of the Lord Admiral's company, as we learn by his diary, on the 16th of October, 1599, paid "for The first part of the Lyfe of Sir Jhon Ouldcastell, and in earnest of the Second Pte, for the use of the company, ten pound;" and the money was received by "Thomas Downton" "to pay Mr. Monday, Mr. Drayton, Mr. Wilson, and Hathaway." We might here dismiss the question of the authorship of this play, did it not furnish a very curious example of the imperfect manner in which it was attempted to imitate the excellence and to rival the popularity of Shakspere's best historical plays at the time of their original production. It is not the least curious also of the circumstances connected with The First Part of Sir John Oldcastle,' that, whilst the bookseller affixed the name of Shakspere to the performance, it has been supposed that the Falstaff of his Henry IV. was pointed at in the following prologue: "The doubtful title, gentlemen, prefix'd Upon the argument we have in hand, May breed suspense, and wrongfully disturb Nor aged counsellor to youthful sin, But one, whose virtue shone above the rest, Your favours merit. Let fair truth be grac'd, In the Introductory Notice to Henry IV. we have adverted to the opinion that the Sir John Falstaff of Shakspere's Henry IV. was originally called Sir John Oldcastle; and the question is again touched upon in the Introductory Notice to the Merry Wives of Windsor. The line in the prologue which we have just quoted "Since forg'd invention former time defac'd ". might appear to point to an carlier period of the stage than that in which Shakspere's Henry IV. was produced. Indeed the old play of The Famous Victories' contains the character of Sir John Oldcastle. He is a low ruffianly sort of fellow, who may be called "an aged counsellor to youthful sin;" but he is not represented as "a pampered glutton." In the Notice to. Henry IV. we said "In our opinion, there was either another play besides 'The Famous Victories' in which the name of Oldcastle was introduced, or the remarks of contemporary writers applied to Shakspere's Falstaff, who had originally borne the name of Oldcastle. The following passage is from Fuller's 'Church History:'-"Stage-poets have themselves been very bold with, and others very merry at, the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, whom they have fancied a boon companion, a jovial royster, and a coward to boot. The best is, Sir John Falstaff hath relieved the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, and of late is substituted buffoon in his place." This description of Fuller cannot apply to the Sir John Oldcastle of "The Famous Victories.' The dull dog of that play is neither a jovial companion nor a coward to boot." We added,"Whether or not Shakspere's Falstaff was originally called Oldcastle, Shakspere was, after the character was fairly established as Falstaff, anxious to vindicate himself from the charge that he had attempted to represent the Oldcastle of history. In the epilogue to The Second Part of Henry IV. we find this passage:-" -For anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man."" The Second Part of Henry IV., the epilogue of which contains this passage, was entered in the Stationers' registers in 1600, and was published in that year. When 'The First Part of Sir John Oldcastle' was published in the same year, Falstaff is distinctly recognised as the companion of Prince Henry. that play Henry V. is represented as robbed by the parson of Wrotham, a very queer hedge-priest indeed, bearing the name of Sir John, as if in rivalry of another Sir John; and the following dialogue takes place : In "Sir John. Sirrah, no more ado; come, come, give me the money you have. Despatch; I cannot stand all day. K. Henry. Well, if thou wilt needs have it, here it is. Just the proverb, one thief robs another. Where the devil are all my old thieves? Falstaff, that villain, is so fat, he cannot get on his horse; but methinks Poins and Peto should be stirring hereabouts. Sir John. How much is there on't, o'thy word?" Falstaff is again mentioned in the same scene by the priest, who asserts that the king was once a thief; and in answer to the question "How canst thou tell?" replies, "How? because he once rebbed me before I fell to the trade myself, when that foul villainous guts, that led him to all that roguery, was in his company there, that Falstaff." We have here tolerable evidence that Falstaff was "not the man "Oldcastle in 1600. And yet the following very remarkable letter, or dedication, is written some years after "To my noble friend Sir Henry Bourchier: "Sir Harry Bourchier, you are descended of noble ancestry, and in the duty of a good man love to hear and see fair reputation preserved from slander and oblivion. Wherefore to you I dedicate this edition of Ocleve, where Sir John Oldcastle appears to have been a man of valour and virtue, and only lost in his own times because he would not bow under the foul superstition of Papistry, from whence, in so great a light of Gospel and learning, that there is not yet a more universal departure, is to me the greatest scorn of men. But of this more in another place, and in preface will you please to hear me that which follows? A young gentle lady of your acquaintance, having read the works of Shakespeare, made me this question: How Sir John Falstaffe, or Fastolf as it is written in the statute-book of Maudlin College, in Oxford, where every day that society were bound to make memory of his soul, could be dead in Harry the Fifth's time and again live in the time of Harry the Sixth to be banished for cowardice? Whereto I made answer that this was one of those humours and mistakes for which Plato banished all poets out of his commonwealth; that Sir John Falstaff was in those times a valiant soldier, as appears by a book in the Herald's office, dedicated unto him by a herald who had been with him, if I well remember, for the space of 25 years in the French wars; that he seems also to have been a man of learning, because in a library of Oxford I find a book of dedicating churches sent from him for a present unto Bishop Wainfleet, and inscribed with his own name. That in Shakespeare's first show of Harry the Fifth, the person with which he undertook to play a buffoon was not Falstaff, but Sir John Oldcastle; and that, offence being worthily taken by personages descended from his title, as peradventure by mary others also who ought to have him in honourable memory, the poet was put to make an ignorant shift of abusing Sir John Falstophe, a man not inferior of virtue, though not so famous in piety as the other, who gave witness unto the trust of our reformation with a constant and resolute martyrdom, unto which he was pursued by the priests, bishops, monks, and friars, of those days. Noble sir, this is all my preface. God keep you, and me, and all Christian people, from the bloody designs of that cruel religion. "Yours in all observance, This letter is contained in a manuscript preserved in the Bodleian Library, written by Dr. Richard James, who died in 1638. The manuscript to which it is prefixed is entitled The Legend and Defence of the Noble Knight and Martyr, Sir John Oldcastel,' and has been published by Mr. Halliwell, having been pointed out to him by the Rev. Dr. Bliss.* The "young gentle lady" who, according to this letter, was so well employed in studying Shakspere's historical plays, read them as many other persons read, without any very accurate perception of what essentially belongs to the province of imagination, and of what is literally true. Whatever similarity there may be in the names of Sir John Falstaff and Sir John Fastolf, the young lady might have perceived that the poet had not the slightest intention of proposing the Fastolf of Henry VI. as the Falstaff of Henry IV. Assuredly the Falstaff that we last see in the closing scene of The Second Part of Henry IV.-a jester, surfeit-swelled, old, profane, as the king denounces him—is not the Fastolf that makes his appearance at the battle of Patay, in the First Part of Henry VI., and is subsequently degraded from being a knight of the garter for his conduet on that occasion. In these scenes of Henry VI. Shakspere drew an historical character, and represented an historical fact. The degradation of Fastolf was in all probability an unjust sentence, as unjust as that pronounced by the worthy writer of the letter in the Bodleian Library, that the wittiest of all Shakspere's creations was a "buffoon," and that he might be confounded with the very commonplace knight whose only distinction was the garter on his leg. Fastolf was a respectable personage no doubt in his day, but not "sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff." It appears to us, therefore, that, in the same manner as the "young gentle lady" and Dr. Richard James, somewhat ignorantly, as we think, confounded Fastolf and Falstaff, so they erred in a similar way by believing that "in Shakespeare's first show of Harry the Fifth, the person with which he undertook to play a buffoon was not Falstaff, but Sir John Oldcastle." Fuller, in his 'Worthies,' speaking of Sir John Falstaff, has the same complaint, as we have seen, against "stage-poets." Now, admitting what appears possible, that Shakspere in his Henry IV. originally had the name of Oldcastle where we now find that of Falstaff, is it likely that he could have meant the champion of the Reformation of Wickliff, who was cruelly put to death for heresy in the fourth year of Henry V., to have been the boon companion of the youthful prince; and who, before the king went to the French wars, died quietly in his bed, "e'en at the turning of the tide?" And yet there is little doubt that, when Shakspere adopted a name familiar to the stage, he naturally raised up this species of absurd misconception, which had the remarkable fate of being succeeded by a mistake still more absurd, that Falstaff and Fastolf were one and the same. It is, however, extremely probable that there were other plays in which the character of Sir John Oldcastle was presented historically, and falsely presented; that from this circumstance Shakspere saw the necessity of substituting another name for Oldcastle, and of making the declaration "Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man ;" and that the authors of the play before us, 'The First Part of Sir John Oldcastle,' adopted a subject with which the public mind was at that time familiar, and presented Sir John Oldcastle upon the stage, in a manner that would be agreeable to ". personages descended from his title," and to the great body of the people "who ought to have him in honourable memory." Whether the reputation of Oldcastle derived much benefit from their labours remains to be seen. The play opens with a quarrel in the street of Hereford between Lord Herbert, Lord Powis, and their followers; which is put down by the judges, who are holding the asşize in the town. The commencement of the conflict, in which blood was shed, is thus described: * On the Character of Sir John Falstaff, 1841. "Lord Powis detracted from the power of Rome, The second scene introduces us to the Bishop of Rochester, denouncing Lord Cobham (Oldcastle), as an heretic, to the Duke of Suffolk. The bishop is supported by Sir John of Wrotham, whose zeal is so boisterous as to receive the following rebuke from the Duke : "Oh, but you must not swear; it ill becomes One of your coat to rap out bloody oaths." In The king appears to hear the complaint of the churchman; and he promises to send for Oldcastle" and school him privately." In the third scene we have Lord Cobham and an aged servant, and Lord Powis arrives in disguise, and is concealed by Cobham. the second act we have a comic scene, amusing enough, but anything but original; a sumner arrives to cite Lord Cobham before the Ecclesiastical Court, and the old servant of the noble reformer makes the officer eat the citation. Nashe tells us in his 'Pierce Pennylesse' that he once saw Robert Greene "make an apparitor eat his citation, wax and all, very handsomely served 'twixt two dishes." We have something like the same incident in the play of the Pinner of Wakefield.' The scene changes to London, where we have an assembly of rebels who give out that Oldcastle will be their general. In the next scene, which is probably the best sustained of the play, we have Henry and Lord Cobham in couference :: "K. Henry. "T is not enough, lord Cobham, to submit; You must forsake your gross opinion. The bishops find themselves much injured; And though, for some good service you have done, We for our part are pleas'd to pardon you, Yet they will not so soon be satisfied. Cob. My gracious lord, unto your majesty, I owe him none; nor shall his shaveling priests, If out of Holy Scripture they can prove That I am in an error, I will yield, And gladly take instruction at their hands: But otherwise, I do beseech your grace My conscience may not be encroach'd upon. K. Henry. We would be loth to press our subjects' bodies, Of Him that is the ruler of us all : Yet let me counsel you, that might command. |