T. SHERRATT In commemoration of his management of the Theatre Royal Covent Garden in the Seasons 1937-8 and 1838 and 3, it tis personation of the Characters, his restoration of the Text, and his illustration by the best intellectual. tride, if it Cistorical Facts and Poetical Creations of the Plays of Shakspeare, formed an Epoch in Thertrical Annals, alike honrate Senias and elevating in its influence upon the Public taste. King John. THE plays of Shakspere which he has founded upon English history, have seized so strongly on the national mind, that they are received not as dramas only but as history; but our poet did not invariably follow historic truth so closely as he might have done, nor are events always related with sufficient regard to their order in point of time. He seized the most dramatic incidents of a reign, and crowded them rapidly one upon another, drawing them within a narrow circle, and not unfrequently passed over some of the most important events, in reference to the political and social state of the people. In King John no allusion is made to what every Englishman must regard as the great event of that reign, the wringing from the reluctant tyrant, at Runnymede, the great basis of our national liberties-the MAGNA CHARTA. In Henry the Eighth, also, the poet has, with great art, forborne to touch upon any of the numerous dark spots of that monarch's character, while the great event of that reign-the REFORMATION-remains, partially perhaps from the nature of the subject, untouched. The errors or omissions of Shakspere are important matters, because they generate errors and false ideas in his admirers: that is, in all who speak the English language. It is, therefore, necessary to point out his historical discrepancies as we touch upon each play of the series, as well as to enumerate the beauties of the plays themselves. Many critics have rather falsified the trust reposed in them in this respect, forgetful that truth, whether popular or unpopular, is their first duty; and that the language of indiscriminate eulogy, though it may be acceptable to the unlearned enthusiast, is distasteful and even disgusting to the calm discriminating mind. Having sounded this note of preparation, I will address myself to a consideration of the tragedy before us. John ascended the throne in 1199, in his thirty-second year; Shakspere's play commences shortly after, and embraces the whole of his reign, a period of seventeen years. The first two acts of the play carry us only through the first year of John's reign, up to 1200, when he gave his niece Blanch, of Castile, in marriage to Lewis, the eldest son of Philip of France. John's divorce of his first wife, and his marriage with Isabella, the daughter of the Count of Angouleme, together with the consequent revolts of many of his barons, are passed over in silence. The death of Arthur, the young duke of Britanny, which occurred in 1203, is not related in the manner in which it is now supposed it took place, although, as the event is shrouded in mystery, it is possible Shakspere's account may be the correct one. Arthur was not a child, but rising to manhood, and had sought safety from his uncle by a coalition with Philip, the powerful king of France, to whose daughter he was affianced. Animated by a love of military fame, the young prince had broken into Poictou, at the head of a small army, and hearing that his grandmother, Queen Eleanor, who had always been his enemy, was residing at Mirabeau, he determined to take that fortress, and obtain possession of her person; in attempting this, he was himself captured, fell into the hands of his uncle John, and was committed to the custody of Hubert de Bourg. Hubert saved the prince from an assassin sent to destroy him, and spread a report of his death; but it excited such indignation in the revolted barons, that he thought it prudent to reveal the truth. This sealed the doom of the young prince; not long after he disappeared, and was never heard of again. Most accounts, however, represent the tyrant as murdering his nephew with his own hands. This deed of guilt was supposed to have taken place at Rouen; Shakspere represents Arthur to have met his death by attempting to escape from the castle of Northampton. Of the prisoners taken by John with the prince, twenty-two noblemen are said to have been starved to death in Corfe Castle. A lapse of ten years occurs between the fourth and fifth acts of Shakspere's tragedy, during which the famous dispute between John and the astute and subtle pontiff, Innocent III., took place respecting 1 |