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year 1601-2, were we certain that it was lately written as well as lately acted.' The supposition, however, is not probable, inasmuch as the frequent occurrence of rhyming lines points to an earlier date, and admits of the possibility of its having been an older work that was merely revived about the year 1602. This conjecture is also supported by the plan and the composition of the play, which is the most unsatisfactory part about it. The narrative, epic style, which describes the life of a man through all its various stages, and thus divides the play into a number of smaller pieces, points to the earlier school which Shakspeare at first joined; but this style is appropriate only for the epic, legendary, fantastic subject of the story of Pericles, not for the historical subject of the life of Cromwell. For a legend is essentially the past poetically described in the present, or rather the present in the past; it therefore takes the form of the epos, the narrative. History, on the other hand, is history only as a living present, containing the essence of the past and determining the nature of the future; it, therefore, requires a strictly dramatic form, that inner unity of place, of time, and of action, which pervades not only all Shakspeare's later dramas, but-as regards his histories'. even his earlier plays. In 'The Life and Death of Cromwell,' however, all the three unities are disregarded: the first act has different fundamental conditions and a different significance from the second and third acts.* The unity consists only of the unity of the person, whose life and fortunes are depicted in the play.

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Still, we are forced to admire the skill with which the poet contrives to gather up the many loosely arranged threads, and ultimately collects the various persons whom he introduced on different occasions, although he does not succeed in bringing their dramatic existence to a proper close. It is only to a certain extent that the play can be said to reflect Shakspeare's fine skill in giving organic roundness to the subject-matter, inasmuch as it is based upon one view of life. This view, however, is too indefinite, too general, and more epic than

*This is a point upon which Ch. Knight lays special emphasis in his criticism of the play.

dramatic; for life is conceived in its surging movement, at times as falling to the lowest ebb of misfortune, and then as rising on the full tide of the highest glory and splendour. This is exhibited not only in the fortunes of Cromwell, but likewise in the manifold fluctuations in the fortunes of Banister and his family, of Bagot, Bedford and Frescobald, not excepting honest Hodge and Seely. The delineation of the characters follows the general rules of epic composition: Thomas Cromwell is always noble, amiable, talented and lofty in his aims; his father a good-hearted braggart; Gardiner, ambitious, jealous and revengeful; the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, ordinary courtiers who rejoice in the fall of a rival but have not the strength or the courage to meddle with things themselves; Bedford, on the other hand, is a man in the dress of a courtier, he is grateful, grieves for the fall of a friend, but is without the wit or the energy to give actual assistance; Banister is an innocent but unfortunate individual; Frescobald, a thoroughly noble character; Bagot, on the other hand, an utter scoundrel; Hodge a foolish, goodnatured simpleton, whose stupidity proves his good fortune, &c. All these figures are depicted outwardly in light but correct outlines; the depth of their inner life is left wholly unrevealed, and only in so far as they take any real part in the action do they at all stand out from the canvas. Yet the comic characters-Cromwell, Hodge, and Seely and his wife-occasionally show a touch of Shakspearian humour.

All this does indeed admit of the possibility of the play being reckoned as one of Shakspeare's first attempts in the domain of historical drama; but it cannot be dated so far back as this. For, apart from the fact that Shakspeare's earliest historical plays are invariably distinguished by greater depth and sharpness of characterisation, by more careful motives for the incidents and a stricter connection between the details and the whole, these very plays prove that Shakspeare seems at first to have rejected the invariable introduction of verse as inappropriate for this species of drama (such passages are first of more frequent occurrence in his Richard II.'). In addition to this, the Action, in tone and colouring, bears the stamp of belonging

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to an earlier date and of possessing but very little of Shakspeare's style. Generally speaking it does indeed show some affinity to the straightforward, calm flow of the language in Pericles.' But this regular movement is not adapted to the subject of the representation; Shakspeare would have clothed the subject in a perfectly different dress. As in the older King John,' the expression of sentiment is wanting in warmth, the outbursts of emotion and of passion in elevation, the reflection in acuteness and richness of substance as well as of form; in like manner there is a total absence of Shakspearian spell-words, his striking brevity of expression, the rapid change from the language of feeling to that of reflection, and conversely,characteristics which, even though to a small extent, distinguish Shakspeare's youthful works from those of his fellow labourers.

The language, on the other hand, shows distinct traces of that higher development of dramatic diction which the English drama, through Shakspeare's influence, acquired during the last decade of the 16th century. In some passages Shakspeare's influence is, I think, directly evident. It may have been this that induced the publisher to give the play Shakspeare's name; in fact, the author may have been an admirer of his. Accordingly, in my opinion, The Life and Death of Lord Cromwell' cannot, in spite of its epic style and composition, have been written earlier than 1595—that is, cannot well be a work of Shakspeare's.

CHAPTER VI.

KING EDWARD III. AND A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY.

'KING Edward III.', I think, exhibits more of Shakspeare's spirit and character than any of the doubtful plays hitherto examined. In the registers of the Stationers' Company, where it appears under the tit'e of Edward the Third and the Black Prince, etc., it is entered no less than four times; first on Dec. 1, 1595, and last on Feb. 23, 1625, it was therefore doubtless a favourite piece. It was first printed in 1596, and again in 1599, without the author's name. Of later editions-if such ever appeared-no copy has been preserved. Accordingly, we have no external evidence of Edward III.' being a work of Shakspeare's, it was first entered under his name by the compilers of old catalogues. However, the mere want of a name on the two old prints cannot be looked upon as an argument against the genuineness of the play, for it is well known that a number of the older editions of Shakspeare's undoubtedly genuine works present the same defect; this is a natural consequence of the already described circumstances of the English drama, as well as of the recency of Shakspeare's fame at that period. But even though the later editions of Edward III.'-which according to the Stationers' books were to have been published in the years 1609, 1617 and 1625did appear without the author's name, still, this startling circumstance might in some measure be explained by the nature of the piece, and therefore prove nothing against Shakspeare's being the author. In the first two acts, for instance, we have sharp cutting attacks upon the Scotch, prompted by English patriotism; these passages were quite in their right place during the lifetime of Elizabeth, who, it is well known, was as little fond of her successor as she was of his mother, and always on bad terms with Scotland; on the other hand they must have

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been offensive to James I. Now it was to James, as we have seen, that Shakspeare was indebted for many a favour, and he has shown his obligations to him not only indirectly in Macbeth,' but more expressly in Henry VIII. Accordingly, in order to avoid wounding his own sense of gratitude, Shaks eare may have either expressly disavowed his paternity of Edward III.,' or, at least, have refused to acknowledge it, and thus left the playwhich, perhaps for other reasons, did not satisfy him--to its fate. This supposition may likewise explain how it happened that the work-although perhaps unquestionably Shakspeare's own-could have been overlooked or intentionally omitted by his friends Heminge and Condell, the editors of the first folio.

In spite of the want of external evidence it might, accordingly, nevertheless be admissible to attribute the play to Shakspeare, provided that its external construction in form and substance were decidedly to favour the supposition. If, therefore, the play be somewhat more carefully examined, it will at once strike every reader with any experience in artistic form, that the first two acts stand too much apart-quite contrary to Shakspeare's mode of composition-and that they are only internally connected with the three following acts, not externally as well. In the first two, the action turns upon the King's love for the beautiful Countess of Salisbury, whom he had released from the hands of the besieging Scottish army. This affair is never again alluded to, and ends entirely with the close of the second act, where the King, overcome and at the same time strengthened by the virtuous greatness of the Countess, becomes master of himself and renounces his passion. The Countess, accordingly, retires altogether from the scene, which is now transferred to the victorious campaign of Edward III and of his son the Black Prince.

The play, therefore, falls into two outwardly ur. connected halves, in reality into two distinct pieces. The fault which this involves, and which—as far as I know--I was the first to point out, would lose some of its objection if, to judge from the style and character of the play, it were possible to reckon it among Shakspeare's

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