I. THE HISTORY OF THE PLAY.

The First Part of King Henry the Fourth was first published in quarto form in 1598, with the following title-page (as given in the Cambridge ed.):

The History of | Henrie the | Fovrth; | With the battell at Shrewsburie, | betweene the King and Lord | Henry Percy, surnamed Henrie Hotspur of the North. | With the humorous conceits of Sir John Falstalffe. | AT LONDON, Printed by P. S. for Andrew Wise, dwelling | in Paules Churchyard, at the signe of the Angell.

1598.

It had been entered by Wise on the Stationers' Registers, under date of February 25, 1597-8, as "a booke intituled The

historye of Henry the iiijth with his battaile of Shrewsburye against Henry Hottspurre of the Northe with the conceipted. mirthe of Sir John ffalstoff." A second quarto edition was brought out in 1599, followed by others in 1604, 1608, and 1613. Each of these appears to have been printed from its predecessor; and a partially corrected* copy of the last in the series seems to have furnished the text of the play for the 1st folio. Subsequent editions in quarto were printed in 1622 (probably too late for the folio editors), 1632, and 1639.

The play was probably written in 1596 or 1597. Chalmers and Drake advocate the former, Malone the latter date. Furnivall assigns it to "1596-7;" Fleay to “1596, or more probably 1597;" Stokes, to 1597, "and to the end of that year, for the date of the entry seems to suggest that it was a Christmas play." It is mentioned by Meres (see M. N.D. p. 9) in 1598.

II. THE SOURCES OF THE PLOT.

As we have stated in our edition of Henry V. (p. 10), Shakespeare drew the materials of both that play and this from Holinshed's Chronicles and from the old play of The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth. A Sir John Oldcastle appears in the latter as one of Prince Henry's wild companions. That the poet adopted the name is evident from allusions of subsequent writers, from the circumstance that in the first (1600) quarto edition of 2 Henry IV. the prefix "Old." is found before one of Falstaff's speeches, and from Henry's calling the knight "my old lad of the castle" (i. 2. 38). In 2 Hen. IV. iii. 2. 28, moreover, Falstaff is said to have been "page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk," which the historical Oldcastle actually was. "This historical Oldcastle is better known as Lord Cobham, the

*"In many places the readings coincide with those of the earlier quartos, which were probably consulted by the corrector" (Camb. ed.).

Lollard martyr. Shakespeare changed the name because he did not wish wantonly to offend the Protestant party nor gratify the Roman Catholics (see 2 Hen. IV. epil.).A Sir John Fastolfe had figured in the French wars of Henry VI.'s reign, and was introduced as playing a cowardly part in 1 Henry VI. That he also was a Lollard appears not to have been suspected, but a tradition may have lingered of his connection with a certain Boar's Head Tavern, of which Fastolfe was actually owner. By a slight modification of the name this Fastolfe of history became the more illustrious Falstaff of the dramatist's invention" (Dowden).

III. CRITICAL COMMENTS ON THE PLAY.

[From Hazlitt's "Characters of Shakespear's Plays."*]

Falstaff is perhaps the most substantial comic character that ever was invented. Sir John carries a most portly presence in the mind's eye; and in him, not to speak it profanely, "we behold the fulness of the spirit of wit and humour bodily." We are as well acquainted with his person as his mind, and his jokes come upon us with double force and relish from the quantity of flesh through which they make their way, as he shakes his fat sides with laughter or "lards the lean earth as he walks along." Other comic characters seem, if we approach and handle them, to resolve themselves into air, "into thin air;" but this is embodied and palpable to the grossest apprehension: it lies "three. fingers deep upon the ribs," it plays about the lungs and diaphragm with all the force of animal enjoyment. His body is like a good estate to his mind, from which he receives rents and revenues of profit and pleasure in kind, according to its extent and the richness of the soil. Wit is often a meagre substitute for pleasurable sensation; an effusion of spleen and petty spite at the comforts of others, from

Characters of Shakespear's Plays, by William Hazlitt, edited by W. Carew Hazlitt (London, 1869), p. 133 fol.

ness.

feeling none in itself. Falstaff's wit is an emanation of a fine constitution; an exuberance of good-humour and goodnature; an overflowing of his love of laughter and good-fellowship; a giving vent to his heart's ease, and over-contentment with himself and others. He would not be in character if he were not so fat as he is; for there is the greatest keeping in the boundless luxury of his imagination and the pampered self-indulgence of his physical appetites. He manures and nourishes his mind with jests, as he does his body with sack and sugar. He carves out his jokes, as he would a capon or a haunch of venison, where there is cut and come again; and pours out upon them the oil of gladHis tongue drops fatness, and in the chambers of his brain "it snows of meat and drink." He keeps up perpetual holiday and open house, and we live with him in a round of invitations to a rump and dozen, Yet we are not to suppose that he was a mere sensualist. All this is as much in imagination as in reality. His sensuality does not engross and stupefy his other faculties, but "ascends me into the brain, dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it, makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes." His imagination keeps up the ball after his senses have done with it. He seems to have even a greater enjoyment of the freedom from restraint, of good cheer, of his ease, of his vanity, in the ideal exaggerated description which he gives of them, than in fact. He never fails to enrich his discourse with allusions to eating and drinking, but we never see him at table. He carries his own larder about with him, and he is himself " a tun of man." His pulling out the bottle on the field of battle is a joke to show his contempt for glory accompanied with danger, his systematic adherence to his Epicurean philosophy in the most trying circumstances. Again, such is his deliberate exaggeration of his own vices, that it does not seem quite certain whether the account of his hostess's bill,

found in his pocket, with such an out-of-the-way charge for capons and sack with only one halfpenny-worth of bread, was not put there by himself as a trick to humour the jest upon his favourite propensities, and as a conscious caricature of himself. He is represented as a liar, a braggart, a coward, a glutton, etc., and yet we are not offended, but delighted with him; for he is all these as much to amuse others as to gratify himself. He openly assumes all these characters to show the humorous part of them. The unrestrained indulgence of his own ease, appetites, and convenience has neither malice nor hypocrisy in it. In a word, he is an actor in himself almost as much as upon the stage, and we no more object to the character of Falstaff in a moral point of view than we should think of bringing an excellent comedian, who should represent him to the life, before one of the police offices. We only consider the number of pleasant lights in which he puts certain foibles (the more pleasant as they are opposed to the received rules and necessary restraints of society), and do not trouble ourselves about the consequences resulting from them, for no mischievous consequences do result. Sir John is old as well as fat, which gives a melancholy retrospective tinge to his character; and by the disparity between his inclinations and his capacity for enjoyment, makes it still more ludicrous and fantastical.

The secret of Falstaff's wit is for the most part a masterly presence of mind, an absolute self-possession, which nothing can disturb. His repartees are involuntary suggestions of his self-love; instinctive evasions of everything that threatens to interrupt the career of his triumphant jollity and selfcomplacency. His very size floats him out of all his difficulties in a sea of rich conceits; and he turns round on the pivot of his convenience, with every occasion and at a moment's warning. His natural repugnance to every unpleasant thought or circumstance, of itself makes light of objec