THE COMEDIES, HISTORIES, TRAGEDIES, AND POEMS OF WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. EDITED BY CHARLES KNIGHT. "It is a thing scarcely believable how much, and how boldly, as well the Udall's Preface to Erasmus's Apophthegms (applied there to Plutarch). THE SECOND EDITION. VOLUME VII. LONDON: CHARLES KNIGHT AND CO., LUDGATE STREET. MDCCCXLIII. AN ESSAY ON THE THREE PARTS OF KING HENRY VI., WITH REFERENCE TO THE OPINION THAT THE THREE PARTS OF KING HENRY VI. WERE NOT WRITTEN ORIGINALLY BY SHAKSPERE. VOL. VII. B AN ESSAY, § I. THE Dramas of Shakspere are in no particular more remarkable than in the almost complete absence of any allusion to their author -any reference to his merely personal thoughts and circumstances -any intimation, that might naturally enough have been conveyed in Prologue or Epilogue, of the relations in which the Poet stood with regard to his audience. There are only ten of his plays in which any one of the characters, at the conclusion, comes forward as an actor to deprecate censure or solicit applause. There are only two out of these ten plays in which the Author, through the actor, directly addresses the spectators. In the Epilogue to 'The Second Part of Henry IV.' the Dancer says, in a light manner, "Our humble Author will continue the story." In the concluding Chorus to Henry V.,' the Poet, then in the very zenith of his popularity, addresses himself to the audience, of course through the actor, more seriously and emphatically : 6 "Thus far, with rough and all unable pen, Our bending author hath pursued the story; That they lost France, and made his England bleed: "The story" which the author "hath pursued thus far" is the story which began with the deposition of Richard II. The story of the triumphant progress of the house of Lancaster, up to the |