BOOK V.

CHAPTER I.

KING JOHN.

by its glowing patriotism and warlike feelings; and he also assigns it for the most part to Shakspere. But he believes that the poet here wrought upon even an older production, or that it was written in companionship with some other dramatic author. In the comic scenes, particularly those between Faulconbridge and the monks and nuns, he can discover little of Shakspere's "facetious grace," but can trace only rudeness and vulgarity. He suffered, however, says Ulrici, the scenes to remain, because they suited the humour of the people. Ulrici perceives, further, a marked difference in the style of this old play and the undoubted works of our poet. In the greater portion, he maintains, the language and characterization are worthy of the great master. Still it is a youthful labour-imperfect, feeble, essentially crude. He considers that the notice of Meres applies to this elder performance. It is a transition to the 'Henry VI.,' in which Shakspere is more himself. Horn is more decided. In this old play Shakspere, in his opinion, manifested his knowledge of the relations between poetry and history, and in his youthful hand wielded the magic wand which was to become so potent in his

THERE can be no doubt that Shakspere's | Catholicism, which he describes as fanatical, 'King John' is founded on a former play. That play, which consists of two Parts, is entitled 'The Troublesome Raigne of John King of England, with the Discoverie of King Richard Cordelion's base son, vulgarly named the Bastard Fauconbridge; also the death of King John at Swinstead Abbey.'This play was first printed in 1591. The first edition has no author's name in the titlepage; the second, of 1611, has, "Written by W. Sh. ;" and the third, of 1622, gives the name of "William Shakspeare." We think there can be little hesitation in affirming that the attempt to fix this play upon Shakspere was fraudulent; yet Steevens, in his valuable collection of "Twenty of the Plays" that were printed in quarto, says, "the author (meaning Shakspere) seems to have been so thoroughly dissatisfied with this play as to have written it almost entirely anew." Steevens afterwards receded from this opinion. Coleridge, too, in the classification which he attempted in 1802, speaks of the old 'King John' as one of Shakspere's "transition-works-not his, yet of him." The German critics agree in giving the original authorship to Shakspere. Tieck holds that the play first printed in the folio of 1623 is amongst the poet's latest works-riper years. not produced before 1611; and that pro- Assuming that Shakspere did not write the duction, he considers, called forth a new 'King John' of 1591, it is impossible now, edition of the older play, which he deter- except on very general principles, to determines to have been one of the earliest works mine why a poet, who had the authentic maof Shakspere. Ulrici holds that 'The Trou- terials of history before him, and possessed blesome Reign of King John' was written beyond all men the power of moulding those very soon after the defeat of the Spanish materials, with reference to a dramatic acArmada, which is shown by its zeal against | tion, into the most complete and beautiful

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the crude efforts of an unformed mind. The contrast is so remarkable that we cannot believe in this theory, even with the whole body of German critics in its favour.

Bale's "pageant" of 'Kynge Johan' has been published by the Camden Society, under the judicious editorship of Mr. J. P. Collier. This performance, which is in two Parts, has been printed from the original manuscript in the library of the Duke of Devonshire. Supposing it to be written about the middle of the sixteenth century, it presents a more remarkable example even than 'Howleglas,' or 'Hick Scorner' (of which an account is given in Percy's agreeable Essay on the Origin of the English Stage')*, of the extremely low state of the drama only forty years before the time of Shakspere. Here is a play written by a bishop; and yet the dirty ribaldry which is put into the mouths of some of the characters is beyond all description, and quite impossible to be exhibited by any example in these pages. We say nothing of the almost utter absence of any poetical feeling-of the dull monotony of the versification-of the tediousness of the dialogue-of the inartificial conduct of the story. These matters were not greatly amended till a very short period before Shakspere came to "reform them altogether." Our object in mentioning this play is to show that the King John' upon which Shakspere built was, in some degree, constructed upon the 'Kynge Johan' of Bale; and that a traditionary King John' had thus possessed the stage for nearly half a century before the period when Shakspere wrote his

forms, should have subjected himself, in the | employment of language, as compared with full vigour and maturity of his intellect, to a general adherence to the course of the conventional "history" of the stage. But so it is. The King John' of Shakspere is not the 'King John' of the historians whom Shakspere had unquestionably studied; it is not the King John' of his own imagination, casting off the trammels which a rigid adoption of the facts of those historians would have imposed upon him; but it is the 'King John,' in the conduct of the story, in the juxtaposition of the characters, and in the catastrophe in the historical truth, and in the historical error-of the play which preceded him some few years. This, certainly, was not an accident. It was not what, in the vulgar sense of the word, is called a plagiarism. It was a submission of his own original powers of seizing upon the feelings and understanding of his audience, to the stronger power of habit in the same audience. The history of John had been familiar to them for almost half a century. The familiarity had grown out of the rudest days of the drama, and had been established in the period of its comparative refinement which immediately preceded Shakspere. The old play of 'The Troublesome Reign' was, in all likelihood, a vigorous graft upon the trunk of an older play, which "occupies an intermediate place between moralities and historical plays," that of 'Kynge Johan,' by John Bale, written probably in the reign of Edward VI. Shakspere, then, had to choose between forty years of stage tradition and the employment of new materials. He took, upon principle, what he found ready to his hand. But upon this theory, that "The Troublesome Reign' is by another poet, none of the transformations of classical or oriental fable, in which a new life is transfused into an old body, can equal this astonishing example of the life-conferring power of a genius such as Shakspere's. On the other hand, if 'The Troublesome Reign' be a very early play by Shakspere himself (and we doubt this greatly), the undoubted King John' offers the most marvellous example of the resources of a mature intellect, in the creation of characters, in the conduct of a story, and the

King John.' There might, without injury to this theory, have been an intermediate play. We avail ourselves of an extract from Mr. Collier's Introduction to the play of Bale :

"The design of the two plays of 'Kynge Johan' was to promote and confirm the Reformation, of which, after his conversion, Bale was one of the most strenuous and unscrupulous supporters. This design he executed in a manner until then, I apprehend, unknown. He took some of the lead* Reliques of English Poetry,' vol. 1.

ing and popular events of the reign of King | the crown to Pandulph-and the poisoning John, his disputes with the pope, the suffer- of John by a monk at Swinstead Abbey. ing of his kingdom under the interdict, his The action goes on very haltingly ;—but not subsequent submission to Rome, and his im- so the wordy war of the speakers. A vocabuputed death by poison from the hands of a lary of choice terms of abuse, familiarly used monk of Swinstead Abbey, and applied them in the times of the Reformation, might be to the circumstances of the country in the constructed out of this curious performance. latter part of the reign of Henry VIII. Here the play of 1591 is wonderfully re* * * * This early application of historical formed; and we have a diversified action, events, of itself, is a singular circumstance, in which the story of Arthur and Constance, but it is the more remarkable when we re- and the wars and truces in Anjou, are brought collect that we have no drama in our lan- to relieve the exhibition of papal domination guage of that date in which personages con- and monkish treachery. The intolerance of nected with, and engaged in, our public Bale against the Romish church is the most affairs, are introduced. In 'Kynge Johan' fierce and rampant exhibition of passion we have not only the monarch himself, who that ever assumed the ill-assorted garb of figures very prominently until his death, but religious zeal. In the John of 1591 we have Pope Innocent, Cardinal Pandulphus, Ste- none of this violence; but the writer has exphen Langton, Simon of Swinsett (or Swin-hibited a scene of ribaldry, in the incident of stead), and a monk called Raymundus; Faulconbridge hunting out the "angels" of besides abstract impersonations, such as the monks; for he makes him find a nun England, who is stated to be a widow, concealed in a holy man's chest. This, no Imperial Majesty, who is supposed to take doubt, would be a popular scene. Shakspere the reins of government after the death of has not a word of it. Mr. Campbell, to our King John, Nobility, Clergy, Civil Order, surprise, thinks that Shakspere might have Treason, Verity, and Sedition, who may be retained "that scene in the old play where said to be the Vice, or Jester, of the piece. Faulconbridge, in fulfilling King John's inThus we have many of the elements of his- junction to plunder religious houses, finds a torical plays, such as they were acted at our young smooth-skinned nun in a chest where public theatres forty or fifty years after the abbot's treasures were supposed to be dewards, as well as some of the ordinary ma- posited."* When did ever Shakspere lend terials of the old moralities, which were his authority to fix a stigma upon large gradually exploded by the introduction of classes of mankind, in deference to popular real or imaginary characters on the scene. prejudice? One of the most remarkable Bale's play, therefore, occupies an interme- characteristics of Shakspere's 'John,' as opdiate place between moralities and historical posed to the grossness of Bale and the ribaldry plays, and it is the only known existing spe- of his immediate predecessor, is the utter cimen of that species of composition of so absence of all invective or sarcasm against early a date." the Romish church, apart from the attempt of the pope to extort a base submission from the English king. Here, indeed, we have his nationality in full power ;-but how different is that from fostering hatreds between two classes of one people!

That the Kynge Johan' of the furious Protestant bishop was known to the writer of the 'King John' of 1591, we have little doubt. Our space will not allow us to point out the internal evidences of this; but one minute but remarkable similarity may be mentioned. When John arrives at Swinstead Abbey, the monks, in both plays, invite him to their treacherous repast by the cry of "Wassail." In the play of Bale we have no incidents whatever beyond the contests between John and the pope-the surrender of

It may amuse such of our readers as have not access to the play of Bale, or to the 'King John' of 1591, to see an example of the different modes in which the two writers treat

*Remarks on Life and History of Shakspere,' prefixed to Moxon's edition, 1838.

With such like outrages, neither honest, true, between the 'King John' of 1591, and the