CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD PART OF King Henry THE SIXTH.. II. THE HISTORICAL SOURCES OF THE PLOT.. TOMB OF HENRY VI. FORMERLY AT WINDSOR. INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH. I. THE HISTORY OF THE PLAY. THE history of the play, and its relation to The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, have been already considered in the introduction to our edition of 2 Henry VI. (see p. 9 fol.). II. THE HISTORICAL SOURCES OF THE PLOT. As in 1 Henry VI. and Henry VI., the historical materials of the present play were mainly derived from Hall and Holinshed. This will be evident from the illustrative extracts given in the Notes. III. CRITICAL COMMENTS ON THE PLAY.* [From Hazlitt's “Characters of Shakespear's Plays.” †] Shakespear was scarcely more remarkable for the force and marked contrasts of his characters than for the truth and subtlety with which he has distinguished those which approached the nearest to each other. For instance, the soul of Othello is hardly more distinct from that of Iago than that of Desdemona is shown to be from Emilia's; the ambition of Macbeth is as distinct from the ambition of Richard III. as it is from the meekness of Duncan; the real madness of Lear is as different from the feigned madness of Edgar as from the babbling of the fool; the contrast between wit and folly in Falstaff and Shallow is not more characteristic though more obvious than the gradations of folly, loquacious or reserved, in Shallow and Silence; and again, the gallantry of Prince Henry is as little confounded with that of Hotspur as with the cowardice of Falstaff, or as the sensual and philosophic cowardice of the Knight is from the pitiful and cringing cowardice of Parolles. All these several personages were as different in Shakespear as they would have been in themselves: his imagination borrowed from the life, and every circumstance, object, motive, passion, operated there as it would in reality, and produced a world of men and women as distinct, as true, and as various as those that exist in nature. The peculiar property of Shakespear's * See also our ed. of 1 Hen. VI. p. 16 fol., and 2 Hen. VI. p. 15 fol. + Characters of Shakespear's Plays, by William Hazlitt, edited by W. Carew Hazlitt (London, 1869), p. 154 fol. We imagination was this truth, accompanied with the unconsciousness of nature: indeed, imagination to be perfect must be unconscious, at least in production; for nature is so. shall attempt one example more in the characters of Richard II. and Henry VI. The characters and situations of both these persons are so nearly alike that they would have been completely confounded by a commonplace poet. Yet they are kept quite distinct in Shakespear. Both were kings, and both unfortunate. Both lost their crowns owing to their mismanagement and imbecility; the one from a thoughtless, wilful The abuse of power, the other from an indifference to it. manner in which they bear their misfortunes corresponds exactly to the causes which led to them. The one is always lamenting the loss of his power which he has not the spirit to regain; the other seems only to regret that he had ever been king, and is glad to be rid of the power, with the trouble; the effeminacy of the one is that of a voluptuary, proud, revengeful, impatient of contradiction, and inconsolable in his misfortunes; the effeminacy of the other is that of an indolent, good-natured mind, naturally averse to the turmoils of ambition and the cares of greatness, and who wishes to pass his time in monkish indolence and contemplation. Richard bewails the loss of the kingly power only as it was the means of gratifying his pride and luxury; Henry regards it only as a means of doing right, and is less desirous of the advantages to be derived from possessing it than afraid of exercising it wrong. In knighting a young soldier, he gives him ghostly advice: "Edward Plantagenet, arise a knight, real character. And learn this lesson,-draw thy sword in right." Richard II. in the first speeches of the play betrays his In the first alarm of his pride, on hearing of Bolingbroke's rebellion, before his presumption has met with any check, he exclaims: |