All the unsigned footnotes in this volume are by the writer of the article to which they are appended. The interpretation of the initials signed to the others is: I. G. = Israel Gollancz, M.A.; H. N. H.= Henry Norman Hudson, A.M.; C. H. H.= C. H. Herford, Litt.D. INTRODUCTION By HENRY NORMAN HUDSON, A.M. In our Introduction to The First Part of Henry IV authority was produced, such as to put it well nigh beyond question, that the original name of Falstaff was Oldcastle. It was seen, also, that if such were the case, the change must have been made before February 25, 1598, at which time the play was entered in the Stationers' Register, and "the conceited mirth of Sir John Falstaff" mentioned in the entry. That The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth was also written before that date, appears highly probable, to say the least, in that the quarto edition retains Old. as prefix to a speech in Act I, sc. ii, which unquestionably belongs to Falstaff. And the same thing might be further argued from Falstaff's being spoken of, in Act III, sc. ii, as having been "page to Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk;" which was true of Sir John Oldcastle, and has been justly adduced by Mr. Halliwell as evidence that Falstaff originally bore that name. Nothing more has been discovered from which to infer the probable date of the writing. The play was published in 1600, in a quarto pamphlet of forty-three leaves, the title-page reading as follows: "The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, continuing to his death, and coronation of Henry the Fifth: With the humours of Sir John Falstaff, and swaggering Pistol. As it hath been sundry times publicly acted by the Right Honourable, the Lord Chamberlain his servants. Written by William Shakespeare. London: Printed by V. S. for Andrew Wise and William Aspley. 1600." The play is not known to have been published again till in the folio of 1623. These two editions differ greatly, several of the best parts having first appeared in the folio, and on the other hand a few passages of inferior quality being found only in the quarto. And there are many smaller differences of text, too numerous to mention, and of such a nature as to infer that the folio must have been printed from an independent manuscript, and that the play had been carefully revised by the author, and perhaps rewritten, after the first issue. And it is quite remarkable that in some copies of the quarto the whole first scene of the third act is wanting; from which we may gather that the edition was brought out hastily, and that the oversight was detected while it was in press, and corrected after a part of it had gone beyond the publisher's hand. All which of course goes to enhance the authority of the folio in comparison of the quarto. Accordingly, in this, as in all good modern editions, the text of the folio is followed in the main, with the addition of such passages from the quarto as had been omitted, and with the exception of one set of changes which, there is the best reason to believe, proceeded from the strictness of the law, not from the judgment of the Poet. We refer to such expressions as "zounds," ""sblood," "by my faith," "by the mass," and sundry others, which, in compliance with a statute made in the third year of James I, were used to be trimmed away or softened down by the Master of the Revels, as savoring of profanity. And in respect of the passages restored from the quarto, even granting them to have been thrown out by the author himself, yet a modern edition ought by all means to retain them, both as illustrating the history of the Poet's mind, and because no right-minded reader would be content to lack any thing known to have come from Shakespeare's pen. Various particulars, and among them all the historical matter, pertaining to the Second Part, were given in our Introduction to the preceding play. Every one, upon reading the two dramas, must be sensible of a falling-off in the latter; for, besides the disappearance of Hotspur and Glendower, whose presence shed into the First Part a vast addition of life and glory, besides the lack of these, Prince Henry and Falstaff, though still themselves, are not presented in so great opulence of transpiration; the plot itself not yielding any such opportunities either for humor or for heroism as were furnished by the battle of Shrewsbury. As Sir John and the prince are the very summit of Shakespeare's art and excellence in comic representation, what was wanting in them could nowise be made good by the coming in of such characters as Shallow and Silence, rich and rare as are the treasures presented in the latter. It is true, something of compensation is given in the nobleness of mind, the wisdom and intrepidity of the Chief Justice and the Archbishop; but it was not for them, nor for thousands like them, to replace the unspeakable delectations which we miss. And indeed the defects in question were of a kind not to be squared up by any thing else that ever entered into the wit of man to conceive. From what hath been said of Bolingbroke it is plain enough what order and state of things would be likely to spring up around him. His prodigious force of character must needs give shape and tone to the manners and sentiments of the court and the council-board; while at the same time his being is so compact of subtlety and intricacy as might well render the place any thing but congenial and inviting to a young man of free and generous aptitudes. One can easily conceive that Prince Henry, as we have described him, would breathe somewhat hard in such an atmosphere, though he might not know why: however much he might respect such a father, and even if in thought he approved the public counsels, still he would reluct to mingle in them, as going against his grain; and so would naturally be drawn away either to such occupations where his high-strung energies could act without crossing his honorable feelings, or else to some tumultuous merrymakings where, laying off all distinct purpose, and untying his mind into perfect dishabille, he could let his bounding spirits run out in transports of frolic and fun. The ques |