Notes and Queries, Number 55, November 16, 1850 | Page 2

MR. SPEDDING alludes, be
accepted, the writer of the introductory notice to _Henry VIII._ in the
_Illustrated Shakspeare_, published by Tyas, will recognise the

"reverent disciple" whom he hints at, but does not name. In short, I
think that {402} Fletcher was the pupil of Shakspeare; and this view, it
appears to me, demands the serious attention of the biographer who
next may study or speculate upon the great poet's life.
I don't know that I can add anything to MR. SPEDDING'S able
analysis of _Henry VIII._ There are certain tricks of expression he, no
doubt, has observed that characterise Fletcher's style, and which
abound in the play. It might be useful to make notes of these; and, at
some future time, I may send you a selection. I now beg to send you the
following extracts, made some time ago, showing the doubts
entertained by previous writers on the subject:--
"Though it is very difficult to decide whether short pieces be genuine or
spurious, yet I cannot restrain myself from expressing my suspicion
that neither the prologue nor epilogue to this play is the work of
Shakspeare. It appears to me very likely that they were supplied by the
friendship or officiousness of Jonson, whose manner they will be
perhaps found exactly to resemble."--_Johnson._
"Play revived in 1613." "Prologue and epilogue added by Jonson or
some other person."--_Malone._
"I entirely agree with Dr. Johnson, that Ben Jonson wrote the prologue
and epilogue to this play. Shakspeare had a little before assisted him in
his Sejanus.... I think I now and then perceive his hand in the
dialogue."--_Farmer._
"That Jonson was the author of the prologue and epilogue to this play
has been controverted by Mr. Gifford. That they were not the
composition of Shakspeare himself is, I think, clear from internal
evidence."--_Boswell._
"I entirely agree with Dr. Johnson with respect to the time when these
additional lines were inserted.... I suspect they were added in 1613,
after Shakspeare had quitted the stage, by that hand which tampered
with the other parts of the play so much as to have rendered the
versification of it of a different colour from all the other plays of
Shakspeare."--_Malone._
"If the reviver of this play (or tamperer with it, as he is called by Mr.
Malone) had so much influence over its numbers as to have entirely
changed their texture, he must be supposed to have new-woven the
substance of the whole piece; a fact almost incredible."--_Steevens._

The double character of Wolsey drawn by Queen Katherine and her
attendant, is a piece of vigorous writing of which any other author but
Shakspeare might have been proud; and the celebrated farewell of the
Cardinal, with his exhortation to Cromwell, only wants that quickening,
that vital something which the poet could have breathed into it, to be
truly and almost incomparably great.
"Our own conviction is that Shakspeare wrote a portion only of this
play.
"It cannot for a moment be supposed that any alteration of Shakspeare's
text would be necessary, or would be allowed; as little is it to be
supposed that Shakspeare would commence a play in his
old-accustomed, various, and unequalled verse, and finish it in the easy,
but somewhat lax and familiar, though not inharmonious numbers of a
reverent disciple."--_Tyas's Shakspeare_, vol. iii. p. 441.
At the same time I made the following notes from Coleridge:--
"Classification, 1802. 3rd Epoch. Henry VIII. Gelegenheitsgedicht.
Classification, 1819. 3rd Epoch. Henry VIII., a sort of historical
masque, or show-play."
"It (the historical drama) must likewise be poetical; that only, I mean,
must be taken which is the permanent in our nature, which is common,
and therefore deeply interesting to all ages."--_Lit. Rem._, vol. ii.
p.160.
What is said in this last extract might be applied (as Coleridge, I feel no
doubt, had he gone one step farther into the subject, would have applied
it) to the Shakspearian drama generally; and tried by this test _Henry
VIII._ must certainly be found wanting.
Before I conclude I am anxious to make an observation with regard to
the extract from Mr. Emerson's Representative Men (vol. ii. p. 307.).
The essay from which this is taken, I presume to be the same, in a
printed form, as a lecture which I heard that gentleman deliver. With
abundant powers to form a judgment for himself, I should say that his
mind had never been directed to questions of this nature. Accident,
perhaps, had drawn his attention to the style of _Henry VIII._; but, with
reference to the general subject, he had received implicitly and
unquestioned the conclusions of authorities who have represented
Shakspeare as the greatest borrower, plagiarist, and imitator that all
time has brought forth. This, however, did not shake his faith in the

poet's greatness; and to reconcile what to