Upon which verdict, I, their judge, condemn them. Cou. O perjured beauty! more corrupted judge! When, to the great star-chamber o'er our heads, The universal sessions calls to count This packing evil, we both shall tremble for it. Edw. What says my fair love? is she resolute? Cou. Resolute to be dissolved; and, therefore, this, Keep but thy word, great king, and I am thine. Stand where thou dost, I'll part a little from thee, And see how I will yield me to thy hands. [Turning suddenly upon him, and showing two daggers. Here by my side do hang my wedding knives: Take thou the one, and with it kill thy queen, And learn by me to find her where she lies; Stir not, lascivious king, to hinder me; And hear the choice that I will put thee to: Shall stain thy earth with that which thou wouldst stain, My poor chaste blood. Swear, Edward, swear, Or I will strike, and die, before thee here. Edw. Even by that Power I swear, that gives me now The power to be ashamed of myself, In any word that tends to such a suit. The remarks of Ulrici upon this portion of the play are conceived upon his usual principle of connecting the action and characterization of Shakspere's dramas with the development of a high moral, or rather Christian, principle. He is sometimes carried too far by his theory; but there is something far more satisfying in the criticism of his school than in the husks of antiquarianism with which we have been too long familiar: "We see, in the first two acts, how the powerful king (who in his rude greatness, in his reckless iron energy, reminds us of the delineations of character in the elder 'King John,' 'Henry VI.,' and 'Richard III.') sinks down into the slough of common life before the virtue and faithfulness of a powerless woman; how he, suddenly enchained by an unworthy passion, abandons his great plans in order to write verses and spin intrigues. All human greatness, power, and splendour fall of themselves, if not planted upon the soil of genuine morality: the highest energies of mankind are not proof against the attacks of sin, when they are directed against the weak unguarded side this is the substance of the view of life here taken, and it forms the basis of the first Part. But true energy is enabled again to elevate itself! it strengthens itself from the virtues of others, which by God's appointment are placed in opposition to it. With this faith, and with the highest, most masterly, deeply penetrating, and even sublime picture of the far greater energy of a woman, who, in order to save her own honour and that of her royal master, is ready to commit self-murder, the second act closes. This forms the transition to the following second Part, which shows us the true heroic greatness, acquired through self-conquest, not only in the king, but also in his justly celebrated son. For even the prince has also gone through the same school: he proves this, towards the end of the second act, by his quick silent obedience to the order of his father, although directly opposed to his wishes." In the third act we are at once in the heart of war; we have the French camp, where John with his court hears of the arrival of Edward's fleet, and the discom- | dramatist has worked out this circumstance fiture of his own. The descriptions of these with remarkable spirit; it is, we think, the events are, as we think, tedious and over- best business scene in the play-not overstrained; at any rate they are undramatic. wrought, but simple, and therefore most The writer is endeavouring to put out his effective*. power, where the highest power would be wasted. There is less ambition, but much more force, in the following speech of a poor Frenchman who is flying before the invaders : "Fly, countrymen, and citizens of France ! Sweet-flow'ring peace, the root of happy life, Is quite abandon'd and expulsed the land: Instead of whom, ransack-constraining war Sits like to ravens on your houses' tops; Slaughter and mischief walk within your streets, And, unrestrain'd, make havoc as they pass: There is a fine scene where the Prince of Wales is surrounded by the French army before the batttle of Poitiers; but it is something too prolonged and rhetorical; it has not the Shaksperean rush which belongs to such a situation. One specimen will suffice, where the prince exhorts his companion in arms, old Audley, to fly from the danger : "Now, Audley, sound those silver wings of thine, And let those milk-white messengers of time Thyself art bruised and bent with many broils, Aud. To die is all as common as to live; If then we hunt for death, why do we fear it? Pri. Ah, good old man, a thousand thou- These words of thine have buckled on my Ah, what an idiot hast thou made of life, Seek him, and he not them, to shame his glory. *Of the historical portions of Edward III.' we shall have to give full extracts in the proposed volume of this series- The Dramatic History of England.' I will not give a penny for a life, The victory of Poitiers ensues; but, previous to the knowledge of this triumph, the celebrated scene of the surrender of Calais is dramatized. It appears to us very inferior, in the higher requisites of poetry, to the exquisite narrative of Froissart. The concluding scene, in which the Prince of Wales offers up to the Most High a prayer and thanksgiving, is imbued with a patriotic spirit, but it has not the depth and discrimination of Shakspere's patriotism :— "Now, father, this petition Edward makes: To Thee [kneels], whose grace hath been his strongest shield, That, as thy pleasure chose me for the man of being a very youthful performance of any man. Its great fault is tameness; the author does not rise with the elevation of his subject. To judge of its inferiority to the matured power of Shakspere, dealing with a somewhat similar theme, it should be compared with the 'Henry V.' The question then should be asked, Will the possible difference of age account for this difference of power? We say possible, for we have no evidence that the ‘Edward III.' was produced earlier than 1595, nor have we evidence that the 'Henry V.,' in some shape, was produced later. Ulrici considers that this play forms an essential introduction to that series of plays commencing with Richard II.' If Shakspere wrote that wonderful series upon a plan which necessarily included 'Henry V., we think he would advisedly have omitted 'Edward III.;' for the main subject of the conquest of France would be included in each play, The concluding observation of Ulrici is—“Truly, if this piece, as the English critics assert, is not Shakspere's own, it is a shame for them that they have done nothing to recover from forgetfulness the name of this second Shakspere, this twin-brother of their great poet." Resting this opinion upon one play only, the expres The heat, and cold, and what else might dis- sion "twin-brother" has somewhat an un please, I wish were now redoubled twenty-fold; As not the territories of France alone, tries else That justly would provoke fair England's ire, We have thus presented to our readers some of the striking passages of this play. It does not, in our opinion, bear the marks necessary strength. Admitting, which we do not, that the best scenes of this play display the same poetical power, though somewhat immature, which is found in Shakspere's historical plays, there is one thing wanting to make the writer a "twin-brother," which is found in all those productions. Where is the comedy of 'Edward III.' The heroic of Shakspere's histories might be capable of imitation; but the genius which created Faulconbridge, and Cade, and Pistol, and Fluellen (Falstaff is out of the question) could not be approached. CHAPTER V. THE MERRY DEVIL OF EDMONTON. "THE Merry Deuill of Edmonton: As it hath been sundry times acted by his Maies- | ties Servants, at the Globe on the Bankeside,' was originally published in 1608. Kirkman, a bookseller, first affixed Shakspere's name to it in his catalogue. In 'The Companion to the Playhouse,' published in 1764, it is stated, upon the authority of a laborious antiquary, Thomas Coxeter, who died in 1747, to have been written by Michael Drayton; and in some posthumous papers of another diligent inquirer into literary history, Oldys, the same assertion is advanced. Charles Lamb, who speaks of this play with a warmth of admiration which is probably carried a little too far-and which, indeed, may in some degree be attributed to his familiarity with the quiet rural scenery of Enfield, Waltham, Cheshunt, and Edmonton, in which places the story is laid-says, "I wish it could be ascertained that Michael Drayton was the author of this piece: it would add a worthy appendage to the renown of that panegyrist of my native earth; who has gone over her soil (in his Polyolbion) with the fidelity of a herald, and the painful love of a son; who has not left a rivulet (so narrow that it may be stepped over) without honourable mention; and has animated hills and streams with life and passion above the dreams of old mythology."* "The Merry Devil' was undoubtedly a play of great popularity. We find, from the account-books of the Revels at Court, that it was acted before the King in the same year, 1618, with 'Twelfth Night' and 'A Winter's Tale.' In 1616, Ben Jonson, in his Prologue to 'The Devil is an Ass,' thus addresses his au Its popularity seems to have lasted much longer: for it is mentioned by Edmund Gayton, in 1654, in his 'Notes on Don Quixote.'t The belief that the play was Shakspere's has never taken any root in England. Some of the recent German critics, however, adopt it as his without any hesitation. Tieck has translated it; and he says that it undoubtedly is by Shakspere, and must have been written about 1600. It has much of the tone, he thinks, of The Merry Wives of Windsor,' and "mine host of the George" and "mine host of the Garter" are alike. It is surprising that Tieck does not see that the one character is, in a great degree, an imitation of the other. Shakspere, in the abundance of his riches, is not a poet who repeats himself. Horn declares that Shakspere's authorship of 'The Merry Devil' is incontestable. Ulrici admits the bare possibility of its being a very youthful work of Shakspere's. The great merit, on the contrary, of the best scenes of this play consists in their perfect finish. There is nothing careless about them; nothing that betrays the very young adventurer; the writer is a master of his art to the extent of his power. But that is not Shakspere's power. Fuller, in his Worthies,' thus records the merits of Peter Fabel, the hero of this play: "I shall probably offend the gravity of some to insert, and certainly curiosity of others to omit, him. Some make him a friar, others a lay gentleman, all a conceited person, who, with his merry devices, deceived the Devil, who by grace may be resisted, not deceived by wit. If a grave bishop in his sermon, speaking of Brute's coming into this land, said it was but a bruit, I hope I may say without offence that this Fabel was but a fable, supposed to live in the reign of King Henry the Sixth." His fame is more confidingly recorded in the Prologue to 'The Merry Devil :'— + Collier's Annals of the Stage,' vol. iii. p. 417. ""T is Peter Fabel, a renowned scholar, Not full seven miles from this great famous That, for his fame in sleights and magic won, That whilst he lived he could deceive the We are The Prologue goes on to suppose him at Cambridge at the hour when the term of his compact with the fiend is run out. not here to look for the terrible solemnity of the similar scene in Marlowe's 'Faustus;' but, nevertheless, that before us is written with great poetical power. Coreb, the spirit, thus addresses the magician : : “Coreb. Why, scholar, this is the hour my I must depart, and come to claim my due. Coreb. Fabel, thyself. Farther than reason (which should be his pilot) Hath skill to guide him, losing once his com pass, He falleth to such deep and dangerous whirl pools, As he doth lose the very sight of heaven: But the magician has tricked the fiend; the produced by the devices of Fabel, they are such as might have been accomplished by human agency, and in fact appear to have been so accomplished. Tieck observes, "It is quite in Shakspere's manner that the magical part becomes nearly superfluous." This, as it appears to us, is not in Shakspere's manner. In 'Hamlet,' in 'Macbeth,' in "The Midsummer Night's Dream,' in 'The Tempest,' the magical or supernatural part Fabel. O let not darkness hear thee speak is so intimately allied with the whole action that word, Lest that with force it hurry hence amain, that it impels the entire movement of the piece. Shakspere knew too well the soundness of the Horatian maxim, "Nec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus," to produce a ghost, a witch, or a fairy, without necessity. However, the magical part here finishes; and we are introduced to the society of no equivocal mortal, the host of the George at Waltham. Sir Arthur Clare, his wife Dorcas, his daughter Millisent, "Fabel. O that this soul, that cost so dear and his son Harry, arrive at the inn, where While the fiend sits down in the necromantic chair, Fabel thus soliloquises : a price As the dear precious blood of her Redeemer, Which makes a man so mean unto the powers, more Than man should know! For this alone God cast the angels down. The infinity of arts is like a sea, the host says, "Knights and lords have been This company have arrived at the George to drunk in my house, I thank the destinies." meet Sir Richard Mounchensey, and his son Raymond, to whom Millisent is betrothed; but old Clare informs his wife that he is resolved to break off the match, to send his daughter for a year to a nunnery, and then to bestow her upon the son of Sir Ralph Into which when man will take in hand to Jerningham. Old Mounchensey, it seems, sail has fallen upon evil days : U |