mon authorship, that the ruin of the duchess is here borrowed from the time of the preceding play, as the death of the Talbots was there borrowed from the period of this, the two events being thus assorted into their respective connections; while, as regards the main action of the play, their effect is the same, whether set forth in their actual order or not.

In all other points the opening of the present play takes up the thread of history precisely where it was left at the close of the former. And the proceedings of the Second Part for the most part grow forth naturally and in course from the principles of the First, the two plays being as closely interwoven as any two acts of either. The criminal passion of Margaret and Suffolk, which was there presented in the bud, here blossoms and goes to seed, setting him near the throne, and thereby at once feeding his pride and chafing the pride of his enemies; while the losses in France, before represented, are ever and anon recurring as matter of continual twittings and jerks, the rust of former miscarriages thus at the same time keeping the old wounds from healing, and causing the new ones to fester and rankle. As the amiable imbecility of the king invites and smooths the way for the arrogance and over weening of the queen and her favorites, this naturally sets the aspiring and far-reaching York upon the policy of hewing away one after another the main supports of the rival house, that so at last he may heave it to the ground, and out of its ruins build up his own. The fall of Gloster is the first practicable breach, though, in making York a secret plotter and instigator of the conspiracy against him, it may be questionable whether the interest of the drama be not served too much at the expense of history. Then, in strict accordance with the suspicions of the time, York is represented as scheming afar off the insurrection of Cade, as a sort of feeler of the public pulse, and then taking advantage of it to push his designs. That insurrection comes in aptly as the first outbreak of the great social schism, the elements of which had been long working in

secret, and growing to a head. The passages of humor, interspersed through the scenes of Cade and his followers, being mostly the same in the original form of the play, yield strong evidence in the question of authorship. It seems hard to believe that any one but Shakespeare could have written them, no instances in that line at all approaching these having been elsewhere given by any other writer of that time. For in poetry merely, Shakespeare, though immeasurably above any or all of his senior contemporaries, differs from them but in degree; but in the article of humor he shows a difference from them in kind. And it is remarkable that the instinct and impulse of humor seem in this case to have put him upon blending together the elements of two widely-separated passages of history: the persons and events being those of the insurrection known as Jack Cade's; while the sentiments and designs are the same, in part, which became matter of history some seventy years before in the rebellion of Wat Tyler and Jack Straw. This curious fact was first pointed out by Mr. Courtenay, who cites the following from Holinshed's account of the earlier insurrection: "They began to show proof of those things which they had before conceived in their minds, beheading all such men of law as they might catch, alleging that the land could never enjoy her true liberty, till all those sorts of people were despatched out of the way. This talk liked well the ears of the common people, and they purposed to burn and destroy all records, evidences, court-rolls, and other monuments, that their landlords might not have whereby to challenge any right at their hands. What wickedness was it, to compel teachers of children in grammar schools to swear never to instruct any in this art! For it was dangerous among them to be known for one that was learned; and more dangerous, if any one were found with a penner and ink-horn at his side. At Blackheath, when the greatest multitude was there got together, John Ball made a sermon, taking this saying for his theme:

"When Adam delv'd and Eve span,

Who was then a gentleman?”

After the quelling of Cade's insurrection, which was in July, 1450, the Poet overleaps the events, with one exception, of more than four years, and enters upon the preliminaries of the battle of St. Albans, which was the first ripe fulfilment of the presage and promise given out far back in the scene of the Temple Garden, and the forethought of which is more or less apparent in the whole preceding matter of the dramatic series. As to the rest, the main events of the play, with the historical passages whereon they are founded, will be set forth in notes from time to time, as they occur.

The Second Part of Henry VI is manifestly a great advance upon the First, and that in nearly all the particulars of dramatic excellence. The several members are well knit together; the characterization is bold, but, in the main, firm and steady; the action clear, free, and generally carried on in that consecutiveness that every later part seems the natural growth and issue of what had gone before. Much of this superiority, no doubt, was owing to the nature of the materials, which, besides yielding a greater variety of interest, were of themselves more limber and pliant to the shaping of art, and presented less to distract and baffle the powers of dramatic assortment and composition. The losses in France having been despatched in the former play, nothing of them remained for the Poet's use, but the domestic irritations they had engendered; which irritations were as so many eggs of discord in the nest of English life, and Queen Margaret the hot-breasted fury that hatched them into effect. The hatching process is the main subject of this play, and to that end the representation is ordered with considerable skill.

Nor is the superiority of this play any greater in the general effect, than in the force and beauty of particular scenes and passages. Of single speeches, that of Gloster in Act iii. sc. 1, beginning,—“Ah, gracious lord! these days are dangerous;" that of Warwick in the next scene

but one, describing the signs of Gloster's having been murdered; and that of Suffolk in the same scene, telling how he would curse his enemies; also, the longer speech of Lord Say, in Act iv. sc. 7, pleading for his life; and that of young Clifford in Act v. sc. 2, where he finds his father dead: all these may be mentioned as superior to any thing of the kind in the First Part, and such, indeed, as would hardly discredit the Poet's best dramas. And of whole scenes, the second in Act iii., and the seventh in Act iv., may be cited as instances of high and varied excellence. Far above all others, however, is the death-scene of Cardinal Beaufort, which is awfully impressive, running into the very heights of moral sublimity, and apt to remind us of the sleep-walking scene in Macbeth. Schlegel justly remarks concerning it,-"Can any other poet be named, who has drawn aside the curtain of eternity at the close of this life with such overpowering and awful effect? And yet it is not mere horror with which the mind is filled, but solemn emotion. A blessing and a curse stand side by side: the pious king is an image of the heavenly mercy which, even in the sinner's last moments, labors to enter his soul."

COMMENTS

By SHAKESPEAREAN SCHOLARS

HENRY VI AND MARGARET

The relations of the King to Margaret throughout the play are delicately and profoundly conceived. He clings to her as to something stronger than himself; he dreads her as a boy might dread some formidable master:

Exeter. Here comes the Queen, whose looks betray her anger:
I'll steal away.

Henry. And so will I.

Yet through his own freedom from passion, he derives a sense of superiority to his wife; and after she has dashed him all over with the spray of her violent anger and her scorn, Henry may be seen mildly wiping away the drops, insufferably placable, offering excuses for the vituperation and the insults which he has received.

Poor Queen, how love to me and to her son
Hath made her break out into terms of rage.

-DOWDEN, Shakspere-His Mind and Art.

RICHARD, DUKE OF YORK

Margaret's chief opponent in the Second Part, the Duke of York, also has assigned to him a somewhat more commanding role than in the Chronicle. Till near the close he plays a waiting game; but he plays it with more far-reaching and more unscrupulous policy than his historic prototype. Holinshed's York watches the two great obstacles in his path, Gloucester and Suffolk, successively