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definition of an historical play, which is, at the best, not to understand Coleridge. Colley Cibber, in 1744, altered 'King John,' and he says in his dedication that he endeavoured "to make his play more like one than what he found it in Shakspere." He gave us some magnificent scenes between John and the pope's nuncio, full of the most orthodox denunciations of Rome and the Pretender. He obtained room for these by the slight sacrifice of Constance and the Bastard. We have no doubt that, upon the same principle, an ingenious adapter, into whom the true spirit of Historical Plays considered historically' should be infused, might give us a new King John,' founded upon Shakspere's, with Magna Charta at full length, and if Arthur and Hubert were sacrificed for this end, as well as Constance and Faulconbridge, the lovers of poetry might still turn to the obsolete old dramatist,—but the student of history would be satisfied by dramatic evidence, as well as by the authority of his primer, that

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The end and object of the drama, and of the Shaksperian drama especially, is to maintain that "law of unity which has its foundations, not in the factitious necessity of custom, but in Nature itself -the unity of feeling." In Shakspere's 'King John' this object is attained as completely as in 'Macbeth.' The history at once directs and subserves the plot. We have shown this fully in our Supplementary Notice; and we think, therefore, that the omission of Magna Charta in 'King John' may find another solution than that which Mr. Courtenay's theory supplies.

SOURCES OF THE HISTORY' OF KING JOHN.

IN the Historical Illustrations which we have subjoined to each act we have followed out the real course of events in the life of King John, as far as appeared to us necessary for exhibiting the dramatic truth of the poet, as sustained by, or as deviating from, the historic truth of the chroniclers. But to understand the Shaksperian drama from this example, to see the propriety of what it adopted, and what it laid aside, we must look into less authentic materials of history than even those very imperfect materials which the poet found in the annalists with whom he was familiar. It is

* Coleridge's Literary Remains, vol. ii., p. 77.

upon the conventional "history" of the stage that Shakspere built his play. It is impossible now, except on very general principles, to determine why a poet, who had the authentic materials of history before him, and possessed beyond all men the power of moulding those materials, with reference to a dramatic action, into the most complete and beautiful forms, should have subjected himself, in the full vigour and maturity of his intellect, to a general adherence to the course of that conventional dramatic history. 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, unquestionably, 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 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. Whoever really wishes thoroughly to understand the resources which Shakspere possessed, in the creation of characters, in the conduct of a story, and the employment of language, will do well, again and again, to compare the old play of 'The Troublesome Reign' and the King John' of our dramatist.

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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

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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 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 :

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"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 leading and popular events of the reign of King John, his disputes with the pope, the suffering of his kingdom under the interdict, his subsequent submission to Rome, and his imputed death by poison from the hands of a monk of Swinstead Abbey, and applied them to the circumstances of the country in the latter part of the reign of Henry VIII. **** This early application of historical events, of itself, is a singular circumstance, but it is the more remarkable when we recollect that we have no drama in our language of that date in which personages connected with, and engaged in, our public affairs are introduced. In 'Kynge Johan' we have not only the monarch himself, who figures very prominently until his death, but Pope Innocent, Cardinal Pandulphus, Stephen Langton, Simon of Swynsett (or Swinstead), and a monk called Raymundus; besides abstract impersonations, such as England, who is stated to be a widow, Imperial Majesty, who is supposed to take the reins of government after the death of

* Reliques of English Poetry, vol. i.

King John, Nobility, Clergy, Civil Order, Treason, Verity, and Sedition, who may be said to be the Vice, or Jester, of the piece. Thus we have many of the elements of historical plays, such as they were acted at our public theatres forty or fifty years afterwards, as well as some of the ordinary materials of the old moralities, which were gradually exploded by the introduction of real or imaginary characters on the scene. Bale's play, therefore, occupies an intermediate place between moralities and historical plays, and it is the only known existing specimen of that species of composition of so early a date."

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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 the crown to Pandulph,—and the poisoning of John by a monk at Swinstead Abbey. The action goes on very haltingly ;-but not so the wordy war of the speakers. A vocabulary of choice terms of abuse, familiarly used in the times of the Reformation, might be constructed out of this curious performance. Here the play of 1591 is wonderfully reformed;—and we have a diversified action, in which the story of Arthur and Constance, and the wars and truces in Anjou, are brought to relieve the exhibition of papal domination and monkish treachery. The intolerance of Bale against the Romish church is the most fierce and rampant exhibition of passion that ever assumed the ill-assorted garb of religious zeal. In the John of 1591 we have none of this violence; but the writer has exhibited a scene of ribaldry, in the incident of Faulconbridge hunting out the "angels" of the monks; for he makes him find a nun concealed in a holy man's chest. This, no doubt, would be a popular scene. Shakspere has not a word of it. Mr. Campbell, to our surprise, thinks that Shakspere might have retained "that scene in the old play where Faulconbridge, in fulfilling King John's injunction to plunder religious houses, finds a young smooth-skinned nun in a chest where the abbot's treasures were supposed to be deposited." When did ever Shakspere lend his authority to fix a stigma upon large classes of mankind, in deference to popular prejudice? One of the most remarkable characteristics of Shakspere's 'John,' as opposed to the grossness of Bale and the ribaldry of his immediate

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

predecessor, is the utter absence of all invective or sarcasm against 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 !*

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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 the same subject-the surrender of the crown to Pandulph

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THE KING JOHN' OF 1591..

Pandulph. John, now I see thy hearty
penitence,

I rew and pitty thy distrest estate:
One way is left to reconcile thy selfe,
And onely one, which I shall shew to thee.
Thou must surrender to the sea of Rome
Thy crowne and diadem, then shall the pope
Defend thee from th' invasion of thy foes.
And where his holinesse hath kindled
Frannce,

And set thy subiects hearts at warre with
thee,

Then shall he curse thy foes, and beate them
downe,

That seeke the discontentment of the king.
John. From bad to worse, or I must loose

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This point will be more fully noticed in William Shakspere: a Biography.' VOL. IV.

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