neglected to consider the deep internal reason of the great national war, its immediato, external causes, or the special circumstances and relations which called it forth. The war begins, in the first instance, about a disputed claim, and the drama opens with an inquiry into it. Henry's external, legal right may appear doubtful, though he himself weighs and considers this point with great conscientiousness, but his internal right is all the more undoubted, and England, therefore, gains the victory. And as the war has its outward cause and beginning, so it must also have its outward termination; the disputed claims must be brought to a final decision. This end, according to history, is Henry's marriage with Catherine of France, whereby, at the same time, his title to the French throne is acknowledged and secured to him on the death of Charles VI. The end of the drama is the same, and has often enough been censured because of the love-scenes and preliminary arrangements for the nuptials in the fifth act, which certainly do appear but little in keeping with the serious, weighty, heroic and epic substance of the first four acts. But this, in fact, only brings the war to an outward termination, its true internal conclusion does not come about till several decades later, when Henry had long been in his grave. However, on the one hand, the drama does not stand alone, it is only a part of a larger whole, and its off-shoots extend far into the great trilogy which follows it. On the other hand, those who censure the conclusion, have misunderstood the natural and internal connection between making war and celebrating marriage. It is the same connection as between life and death. As war arises out of peace, by the accumulated forces of peace, seeking vent in an outward direction where friction and collision are always to be found, so war is the father of peace; it is in this case only can it be called a just Now the truest picture of thriving peace is marriage, the foundation of the family, the germ of a new and vigorous life. It is certainly true that a peace thus made does not bring any true pacification, inasmuch as it is concluded by princes alone, not by the nations; accordingly, because it is made externally and has not proceeded from history. But can we blame the poet for this? If his work is torn

war.

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out of its organic connection with the following dramas, then the concluded peace can and must be regarded as a true and permanent point of rest, then it is the natural end of the war, as well as of the drama. If, however, it be considered in the connection in which it actually stands, then the real termination will be found in the play of Henry VI.,' and the termination of Henry V.' then forms but a point of transition containing the same important lesson which runs through the whole piece, namely, that war, and hence peace also, cannot be made arbitrarily. This is perhaps the reason, as Schlegel justly remarks, why Shakspeare has treated the fifth act with peculiar irony and humour.

Moreover, the above objections have arisen in most cases from the one-sided theory that every historical play ought to be either a tragedy or a comedy. Henry V.' is obviously neither the one nor the other, and this is a fault, not indeed theoretically, but in so far as it is connected with the entire want of an interesting plot, and of all dramatic substance in the narrower sense. For the issue of the war is known at the outset from history; and the war itself, the battle and its result, are of course not represented, merely reported, in the most vivid manner, it is true. This defect lies so deeply in the nature of the subject, that it could not well be removed. Hence the effect produced by the drama when performed by itself, cannot be compared with that invariably produced by Shakspeare's other historical dramas; for this play more than any other is but a single member in the great cyclic whole composed of the English histories. For this very reason I am convinced that it was not often given alone on Shakspeare's stage, but merely in connection with other plays, either as an afterplay to Henry IV., or as a prelude to Henry VI;' in connection with the whole it produces its full effect.*

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As Henry V.', in form and substance, is but the continuation and conclusion of Henry IV.', the play was no doubt written by Shakspeare directly after the second

*This was proved on the occasion of the performance of the who e cycle in Weimar in celebration of the 300th anniversary of Shakspeare's birthday.

VOL. II.

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part of 'Henry IV.' The earliest quarto of the first part appeared in 1598, probably soon after the 25th of February, under which date it is entered at Stationers' Hall. It was probably printed not long after its first representation. For, that 'Henry IV. met with the greatest and most universal applause, and that it was one of the most popular pieces on Shakspeare's stage, may be inferred from the universal approbation it invariably receives in our own day, and is moreover proved by the fact that of the first part there appeared no less than six different quartos, even before the folio edition (the second as early as 1599 with the remark, 'newly corrected by W. Shakspeare'), and that after the publication of the folio, two other special editions were issued (1632 and 1639). The first part therefore probably appeared on the boards at the end of 1596 or at the beginning of 1597. This conjecture is supported not only by the circumstance that Henry IV.' is mentioned by Meres, but also that the second part, as Collier * has proved, existed as early as the 25th of February 1598, hence that it must have been written at latest in the year 1597. Lastly, the first part is so closely connected with Richard II.,' and shows so much resemblance to it in diction, versification, composition &c., that no more time can well have elapsed between the two plays than Shakspeare's vigorous genius may have required to make another mighty advance in its career. For that Henry IV. must be ranked higher than Richard II.' in a poetical as well as an artistic point of view, is acknowledged by almost all critics. The second part again, of which the first and only quarto did not appear till 1600, was doubtless followed directly by Henry V.' The first quarto of it is of the same date (1600) and was again twice published (in 1602 and 1608); the first quarto, however, is evidently one of those pirated' editions taken down from the lips of the actors, and gives the text in a very mutilated and corrupt form. This is again a proof of the great success which Henry V.' met with on its first appearance. That the play was first performed in the summer of 1599 is

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* In his edition of Shakespeare, iv. 309.

clearly evident from the lines in the chorus to the fifth act, which begin with the words 'As, by a lower but by loving likelihood,' etc. These lines beyond all doubt refer to the Earl of Essex, the commander of the Queen's troops, who had been sent to Ireland in April 1599 to suppress the rebellion, and had returned in September of the same year. As Meres does not mention the play, it was assuredly not known in 1598, and consequently it may also be assumed that the above lines were perhaps introduced at a later date. Shakspeare, therefore, probably wrote it in the winter of 1598-99; and to judge from a certain carelessness in the diction and composition, as well as from several disturbing excrescences (among which I reckon the lessons in English given to the Princess Catherine-they are at all events very superfluous-and the scene between Pistol and Le Fer), I am inclined to conclude that the play may have been sketched rather hurriedly, perhaps in order to have it brought upon the stage during the Irish campaign, or shortly after its termination, to contribute to the celebration of the victory of the English arms.

CHAPTER IX.

HENRY VI. FIRST, SECOND AND THIRD PARTS.

THE general features of the historical significance and importance of the long reign of Henry VI. have already been stated. What France experienced under the powerful hand of Louis XI., England suffered under the weak government of Henry VI. It might seem as if the thought which, as already intimated, is reflected in Henry's life is the same which has erroneously been supposed to exist in Hamlet's, and that it forms Shakspeare's leading idea in the composition of this trilogy. But this is obviously not the case. An historical drama is not biographical, but historical, and therefore, in addition to the usual dramatic characters, scope must also be given to the people and the state in their relation to other nations. Moreover, the significance and importance of an historical drama never proceeds merely from the character of single individuals, even though eminent personages, but from the connection of events, from the immediate historical past which it succeeds.

Accordingly the drama advances from the representation of the war between the two nations-in its poeticohistorical sense-to the representation of the civil war, which stands in the same relation to the former as poison to medicine. This advance, upon a closer examination, proves to be the first necessary link in the organism of the great tragedy, of which the reign of Henry VI. forms the fourth act. For a complete cure is effected only by an antidote to the poison. The unstable foundation upon which the royal house of Lancaster stands, i. e. the original disturbance in the natural course of history, as well as the immorality, the arrogance, the ambition and selfishness into which the power of the English aristocracy had degenerated-ultimately produced its own antidote in the