his servants. However, this conjectural glutton." In our opinion, there was either evidence is quite unnecessary. Henslowe, another play besides 'The Famous Victories' the head of the Lord Admiral's company, as in which the name of Oldcastle was introwe learn by his diary, on the 16th of October, duced, or the remarks of contemporary 1599, paid "for The first part of the Lyfe of writers applied to Shakspere's Falstaff, who Sir Jhon Ouldcastell, and in earnest of the had originally borne the name of Oldcastle. Second Pte, for the use of the company, ten The following passage is from Fuller's pound;" and the money was received by 'Church History:'-"Stage-poets have them"Thomas Downton" "to pay Mr. Monday, selves been very bold with, and others very Mr. Drayton, Mr. Wilson, and Hathaway." merry at, the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, We might here dismiss the question of the whom they have fancied a boon companion, authorship of this play, did it not furnish a a jovial royster, and a coward to boot. The very curious example of the imperfect man- best is, Sir John Falstaff hath relieved the ner in which it was attempted to imitate the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, and of late is excellence and to rival the popularity of substituted buffoon in his place." This deShakspere's best historical plays at the time scription of Fuller cannot apply to the Sir of their original production. It is not the John Oldcastle of 'The Famous Victories.' least curious also of the circumstances con- The dull dog of that play is neither a jovial nected with 'The First Part of Sir John companion nor a coward to boot. Whether Oldcastle,' that, whilst the bookseller affixed or not Falstaff was originally called Oldthe name of Shakspere to the performance, castle, Shakspere was, after the character it has been supposed that the Falstaff of his was fairly established as Falstaff, anxious to 'Henry IV.' was pointed at in the following vindicate himself from the charge that he prologue :had attempted to represent the Oldcastle of history. In the epilogue to 'The Second Part of Henry IV.' we find this passage:"For anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man." "The Second Part of Henry IV.,' the epilogue of which contains this passage, was entered in the Stationers' registers in 1600, and was published in that year. When 'The First Part of Sir John Oldcastle' was published in the same year, Falstaff is distinctly recognised as the companion of Prince Henry. In that play

"The doubtful title, gentlemen, prefix'd

Upon the argument we have in hand,

May breed suspense, and wrongfully disturb
The peaceful quiet of your settled thoughts.
To stop which scruple, let this brief suffice:
It is no pamper'd glutton we present,
Nor aged counsellor to youthful sin,
But one, whose virtue shone above the rest,
A valiant martyr, and a virtuous peer;
In whose true faith and loyalty, express'd
Unto his sovereign and his country's weal,
We strive to pay that tribute of our love
Your favours merit. Let fair truth be grac'd,
Since forg'd invention former time defac'd."

Henry V. is represented as robbed by the parson of Wrotham, a very queer hedgeThe line in the prologue which we have priest indeed, bearing the name of Sir John, just quoted

"Since forg'd invention former time defac'd,"
might appear to point to an earlier period of
the stage than that in which Shakspere's
'Henry IV.' was produced. Indeed, the old
play of 'The Famous Victories' contains the
character of Sir John Oldcastle. He is a
low, ruffianly sort of fellow, who may be
called "
an aged counsellor to youthful sin ;"
but he is not represented as "a pampered

as if in rivalry of another Sir John; and the following dialogue takes place :

"Sir John. Sirrah, no more ado; come, come, cannot stand all day. give me the money you have. Despatch; I

K. Henry. Well, if thou wilt needs have it, here it is. Just the proverb, one thief robs another. Where the devil are all my old thieves? Falstaff, that villain, is so fat, he cannot get on his horse; but methinks Poins and Peto should be stirring hereabouts.

Sir John. How much is there on 't, o' thy the person with which he undertook to play a word?"

Falstaff is again mentioned in the same scene with the priest, who asserts that the king was once a thief; and in answer to the question "How canst thou tell?" replies,

"How? because he once robbed me before I fell to the trade myself, when that foul villainous guts, that led him to all that roguery, was in his company there, that Falstaff."

We have here tolerable evidence that Falstaff was 66 not the man" Oldcastle in 1600. And yet the following very remarkable letter, or dedication, is written some years after :

"To my noble friend Sir Henry Bourchier: "Sir Harry Bourchier, you are descended of noble ancestry, and in the duty of a good man love to hear and see fair reputation preserved from slander and oblivion. Wherefore to you I dedicate this edition of 'Ocleve,' where Sir John

Oldcastle appears to have been a man of valour and virtue, and only lost in his own times because he would not bow under the foul superstition of Papistry, from whence, in so great a light of Gospel and learning, that there is not yet a more universal departure, is to me the greatest scorn of men. But of this more in another place, and in preface will you please to hear me that which follows? A young gentle lady of your acquaintance, having read the works of Shakespeare, made me this question: How Sir John Falstaffe, or Fastolf, as it. is written in the statute-book of Maudlin College in Oxford, where every day that society were bound to make memory of his soul, could be dead in Harry's the Fifth's time and again live in the time of Harry the Sixth to be banished for cowardice? Whereto I made answer that this was one of those humours and

buffoon was not Falstaff, but Sir John Oldcastle; and that, offence being worthily taken by personages descended from his title, as peradventure by many others also who ought to have him in honourable memory, the poet was put to make an ignorant shift of abusing Sir John Falstophe, a man not inferior of virtue, though not so famous in piety as the other, who gave witness unto the trust of our reformation with a constant and resolute martyrdom, unto which he was pursued by the priests, bishops, monks, and friars of those days. Noble sir, this is all my preface. God keep you and me, and all Christian people, from the bloody designs of that cruel religion.

"Yours in all observance,

"RICH. JAMES." This letter is contained in a manuscript preserved in the Bodleian Library, written by Dr. Richard James, who died in 1638. The manuscript to which it is prefixed is entitled 'The Legend and Defence of the Noble Knight and Martyr, Sir John Oldcastel,' and has been published by Mr. Halliwell, having been pointed out to him by the Rev. Dr. Bliss *.

The "young gentle lady" who, according to this letter, was so well employed in studying Shakspere's historical plays, read them as many other persons read, without any very accurate perception of what essentially belongs to the province of imagination, and of what is literally true. Whatever similarity there may be in the names of Sir John Falstaff and Sir John Fastolf, the young lady might have perceived that the poet had not the slightest intention of proposing the Fastolf of Henry VI.' as the Falstaff of 'Henry Assuredly the Falstaff that we last see in the closing scene of 'The Second Part of mistakes for which Plato banished all poets out Henry IV-a jester, surfeit-swelled, old,

of his commonwealth; that Sir John Falstaff was in those times a valiant soldier, as appears by a book in the Heralds' office dedicated unto him by a herald who had been with him, if I well remember, for the space of 25 years in the French wars; that he seems also to have been a man of learning, because in a library of Oxford I find a book of dedicating churches sent from him for a present unto Bishop Wainfleet, and inscribed with his own name. That in Shakespeare's first show of Harry the Fifth,'

IV.'

profane, as the king denounces him-is not the Fastolf that makes his appearance at the battle of Patay, in 'The First Part of Henry VI.,' and is subsequently degraded from being a knight of the Garter for his conduct on that occasion. In these scenes of 'Henry VI.' Shakspere drew an historical character and represented an historical fact. The degradation of Fastolf was in all probability

* On the Character of Sir John Falstaff,' 1841.

The play opens with a quarrel in the street of Hereford between Lord Herbert, Lord Powis, and their followers; which is put down by the judges, who are holding the assize in the town. The commencement of the conflict, in which blood was shed, is thus described :

"Lord Powis detracted from the power of Rome,

an unjust sentence-as unjust as that pro- | time familiar, and presented Sir John Oldnounced by the worthy writer of the letter castle upon the stage, in a manner that would in the Bodleian Library, that the wittiest of be agreeable to "personages descended from all Shakspere's creations was "a buffoon," his title," and to the great body of the and that he might be confounded with the people "who ought to have him in honourfighting knight whose chief distinction was able memory." Whether the reputation of the garter on his leg. Fastolf was a respect- Oldcastle derived much benefit from their able personage no doubt in his day, but not labours remains to be seen. "sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff." It appears to us, therefore, that, in the same manner as the "young gentle lady" and Dr. Richard James, somewhat ignorantly as we think, confounded Fastolf and Falstaff, so they erred in a similar way by believing that "in Shakspere's first show of Harry the Fifth the person with which he undertook to play a buffoon was not Falstaff, but Sir John Oldcastle.” Fuller, in his 'Worthies,' speaking of Sir John Falstaff, has the same complaint, as we have seen, against "stage-poets." Now, admitting what appears possible, that Shakspere in his 'Henry IV.' originally had the name of Oldcastle where we now find that of Falstaff, is it likely that he could have meant the champion of the Reformation of Wickliff, who was cruelly put to death for heresy in the fourth year of Henry V., to have been the boon companion of the youthful prince; and who, before the king went to the French wars, died quietly in his bed, "e'en at the turning of the tide ?" And yet there is little doubt that, when Shakspere adopted a name familiar to the stage, he naturally raised up this species of absurd misconception, which had the remarkable fate of being succeeded by a mistake still more absurd, that Falstaff and Fastolf were one and the same. It is, however, extremely probable that there were other plays in which the character of Sir John Oldcastle was presented historically, and falsely presented; that from this circumstance Shakspere saw the necessity of substituting another name for Oldcastle, and of making the declaration " Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man ;" and that the authors of the play before us, 'The First Part of Sir John Oldcastle,' adopted a subject with which the public mind was at that

Affirming Wickliff's doctrine to be true,
And Rome's erroneous: hot reply was made
By the Lord Herbert; they were traitors all
That would maintain it. Powis answered,
They were as true, as noble, and as wise
As ye; they would defend it with their lives;
He nam❜d for instance, sir John Oldcastle,
The Lord Cobham: Herbert replied again,
He, thou, and all are traitors that so hold.
The lie was given, the several factions drawn,
And so enrag'd that we could not appease it."
The second scene introduces us to the Bishop
of Rochester, denouncing Lord Cobham
(Oldcastle), as an heretic, to the Duke of
Suffolk. The bishop is supported by Sir John
of Wrotham, whose zeal is so boisterous as
to receive the following rebuke from the
Duke :-

"Oh, but you must not swear; it ill becomes
One of your coat to rap out bloody oaths."

The king appears, to hear the complaint of the churchman; and he promises to send for Oldcastle "and school him privately." In the third scene we have Lord Cobham and an aged servant, and Lord Powis arrives in disguise, and is concealed by Cobham. In the second act we have a comic scene, amusing enough, but anything but original; a sumner arrives to cite Lord Cobham before the Ecclesiastical Court, and the old servant of the noble reformer makes the officer eat the citation. Nashe tells us in his 'Pierce Pennylesse' that he once saw Robert Greene "make

an apparitor eat his citation, wax and all, | play of high poetical power. The interview very handsomely served 'twixt two dishes.” between Henry and his faithful friend and We have something like the same incident adherent; the anxiety of the reformer to in the play of the 'Pinner of Wakefield.' vindicate himself from disloyalty, whilst he The scene changes to London, where we have honestly supported his own opinions; the an assembly of rebels, who give out that natural desire of the king to resist innovaOldcastle will be their general. In the next tion, whilst he respected the virtues of the scene, which is probably the best sustained innovator,-points like these would have of the play, we have Henry and Lord Cobham been handled by Shakspere, or one imbued in conference:with his spirit, in a manner that would have

"K. Henry. "T is not enough, Lord Cobham, lived and abided in our memories. The

to submit ;

You must forsake your gross opinion.
The bishops find themselves much injured;
And though, for some good service you have
done,

We for our part are pleased to pardon you,
Yet they will not so soon be satisfied.

Cob. My gracious lord, unto your majesty,
Next unto my God, I do owe my life;
And what is mine, either by nature's gift,
Or fortune's bounty, all ig at your service.
But for obedience to the pope of Rome,
I owe him none; nor shall his shaveling
priests,

That are in England, alter my belief.
If out of Holy Scripture they can prove
That I am in an error, I will yield,
And gladly take instruction at their hands:
But otherwise I do beseech your grace
My conscience may not be encroach'd upon.
K. Henry. We would be loth to press our
subjects' bodies,

Much less their souls, the dear redeemed
part

Of Him that is the ruler of us all:

Yet let me counsel you, that might command.
Do not presume to tempt them with ill words,
Nor suffer any meetings to be had
Within your house; but to the uttermost
Disperse the flocks of this new gathering sect.
Cob. My liege, if any breathe, that dares
come forth,

And say, my life in any of these points
Deserves the attainder of ignoble thoughts,
Here stand I, craving no remorse at all,

But even the utmost rigour may be shown." The Bishop of Rochester appears, and denounces Cobham for the contempt shown to his citation; the king reproves the bishop, and dismisses Oldcastle in safety. It is evident that the dramatic capabilities of such a scene furnish an occasion for the dis

lines that we have quoted, which are the best in the scene, furnish a sufficient proof that the subject was in feeble hands.

The third act opens to us the conspiracy of Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey. The conspirators meet Lord Cobham. The mode in which they introduce their purpose is spirited and dramatic. Cobham has invited them to his house, and promises them hunters' fare and a hunt. Cambridge thus replies, before he presents the paper which discloses the plot :

"Cam. Nay, but the stag which we desire to
strike,

Lives not in Cowling: if you will consent,
And go with us, we 'll bring you to a forest
Where runs a lusty herd; among the which
There is a stag superior to the rest,

A stately beast, that, when his fellows run,
He leads the race, and beats the sullen earth,
As though he scorn'd it with his trampling

hoofs;

Aloft he bears his head, and with his breast, Like a huge bulwark, counterchecks the wind:

And, when he standeth still, he stretcheth
forth

His proud ambitious neck, as if he meant
To wound the firmament with forked horns.
Cob. 'Tis pity such a goodly beast should
die.

Cam. Not so, sir John; for he is tyrannous,
And gores the other deer, and will not keep
Within the limits are appointed him.
Of late he's broke into a several,
Which doth belong to me, and there he spoils
Both corn and pasture. Two of his wild race,
Alike for stealth and covetous encroaching,
Already are removed; if he were dead,
I should not only be secure from hurt,
But with his body make a royal feast."

T

Cobham then dissembles, and asks

"Is not this a train laid to entrap my life?" They offer to swear fidelity; but he requires them only to subscribe the writing. The time and place of mecting are appointed, and they part. Cobham puts the paper in his pocket, and goes off to betray them to the king. The state-morality of the age of Elizabeth might perhaps have made this incident more palatable to an audience of that day than to ourselves; but we doubt whether Shakspere would have put this burthen upon the soul of one whom he wished to represent as a hero and a martyr. We have more scenes of the rebels ; followed by the scene which we have already noticed of the parson robbing the king. The same worthy divine is afterwards found in the king's camp, dicing with his majesty; and then the robbery is discovered, and the robber pardoned. The rebels who were in the field, headed by Sir Roger Acton, are routed. The Bishop of Rochester affirms that they were incited by Cobham, who arrives at the moment of the accusation to prove his loyalty by denouncing Scroop, Grey, and Cambridge. The king is satisfied; but subsequently the Bishop of Rochester seizes Cobham, and confines him in the Tower, from which he very soon escapes. With the exception of a scene in which Cambridge and the other conspirators are seized by the king, the whole of the fifth act is occupied by the wanderings of Cobham and his wife, their disguises and their escapes. The following scene is prettily imagined, and gracefully expressed :

Extremities admit no better choice,
And, were it not for thee, say froward time
Imposed a greater task, I would esteem it
As lightly as the wind that blows upon us:
But in thy sufferance I am doubly task'd;
Thou wast not wont to have the earth thy
stool,

Nor the moist dewy grass thy pillow, nor
Thy chamber to be the wide horizon.

L. Cob. How can it seem a trouble, having
you

A partner with me in the worst I feel?
No, gentle lord, your presence would give

ease

To death itself, should he now seize upon me.
[She produces some bread and cheese,
and a bottle.

Behold, what my foresight hath underta'en,
For fear we faint; they are but homely cates;
Yet, sauced with hunger, they may seem as
sweet

As greater dainties we were wont to taste.

Cob. Praise be to Him whose plenty sends
both this

And all things else our mortal bodies need!
Nor scorn we this poor feeding, nor the state
We now are in; for what is it on earth,
Nay, under heaven, continues at a stay?
Ebbs not the sea, when it hath overflow'd?
Follows not darkness when the day is gone?
And see we not sometimes the eye of heaven
Dimm'd with o'er-flying clouds? There's not
that work

Of careful nature or of cunning art,

How strong, how beauteous, or how rich it be, But falls in time to ruin. Here, gentle madam,

In this one draught I wash my sorrow down. [Drinks."

The persecuted pair fall asleep; and, a mur

"Cob. Come, madam, happily escaped. Here dered body being found near them, they are

let us sit;

apprehended as the murderers, and conducted to trial. They are discharged through the discovery of the real murderer, and fly with Lord Powis into Wales.

It will be evident from this analysis that "The First Part of Sir John Oldcastle' is

entirely deficient in dramatic unity. Shakspere in representing a series of historical events did not of course attempt to sustain that unity of idea which we see so strikingly in his best tragedies and comedies. We have not one great action, but a succession of