The first and second parts of a play, named after Sir John Oldcastle, were entered at Stationers' Hall, on August 11th, 1600; and the same year there appeared an edition of the work ascribed to Shakespeare; this play, which had probably been produced a year or two before, refers in two or three places to Shakespeare's Falstaff; and it has been thought by some that that celebrated character had been at first named after Sir John Oldcastle; the point will be discussed under part ii.; all that need be noticed here is that I Henry IV. preceded 1 Sir J. Oldcastle. A writer in one of the last numbers of the North British Review (April, 1870) contended for an early date (1590) for this play, on the following insufficient grounds :— (1) Nash, in 1592, make Piers Penniless refer to Hotspur. (2) Some of "the quotations which make up Pistol's fustian farrago" are taken from, or are parodies on, Marlowe, Peele, &c.; "these allusions would be more racy in 1590 than in 1598." (3) The reviewer speaks of two stages of euphuism, and says that the euphuism of Falstaff is of the first stage of Lyly's influence. Again, in favour of the date 1596, Chalmers urged the following reasons :— (1) The passage 66 "So shaken as we are, so wan with care, Find we a time for frighted peace to pant; "plainly alludes" to the expedition against Spain in 1596. (2) Falstaff, when commencing a robbery for "recreation sake," remarks that "the poor abuses of the time want countenance;" this Chalmers refers to certain abuses recorded by Camden under 1596, and alluded to in a proclamation issued in the same year. (3) Alluding to the death of Robin the ostler, we have, in Act ii. Sc. I, the expression "the poor fellow never joyed since the price of oats rose." Again this is referred to 1596 on the strength of a Proclamation for the Dearth of Corn, &c. (4) In Hotspur's statement about Glendower having held him "at least nine hours" [which Gervinus so strangely takes literally] "in reckoning up the several devils' names," Chalmers sees a stroke at Lodge's Devils Incarnate, 1596. If, however, these allusions have any weight, they would not be very inappropriate to the following year, 1597, to which the play has been above assigned. It may be noted that this date is supported by the following strange point; in v. 4, 40, 41, we read : The spirits Of [valiant] Shirley, Stafford, Blunt, are in my arms;" where the word "valiant" was perhaps inserted by the actor as a compliment to the celebrated Shirleys, who were knighted by the Queen in 1597. The line "That I did pluck allegiance from men's mouths" (iii. 2, 52) is perhaps an echo of the line "And pull obedience from thy subjects' hearts," in [Marlowe's] Lust's Dominion (1593?). The following early allusions to Falstaff may be pointed out; Ben Jonson ends his Every Man Out of His Humour with the remark "you may in time make lean Macilente as fat as Sir John Falstaff;" and Sir Tobie Matthews, in a letter printed in 1660, but apparently written at the beginning of the century, says: "For I must tell you I never dealt so freely with you in any; and (as that excellent author Sir John Falstaff says) what for your business, news, device, foolery, and liberty, 'I never dealt better since I was a man (see 1 Henry IV. ii. 4, 188). 2 HENRY IV. "It is meet That noble minds keep ever with their likes."-Julius Cæsar. It has been said that "the second, as well as the first part of Henry IV. was written previously to the date of the entry of the first in February, 1598. This is proved by the fact that this entry makes mention of the conceipted Mirth of Sir John Falstaffe," while in one passage of the quarto edition of the second part, "Old," i.e. Oldcastle, is by mistake left standing as the prefix to one of Falstaff's speeches. Moreover, there is an allusion to Justice Silence in Ben Jonson's Every Man Out of His Humour (1599). [Prof. Ward, Eng. Dram. Lit., vol i., p. 396, and other writers.] It has been before remarked that Shakespeare perhaps at first gave to his celebrated comic character the name of Oldcastle, borrowing it from the old play on Henry V.; this is supported by the tradition mentioned by Rowe and others; by the pun in Part i., Act i., Sc. 2, where Prince Henry calls Falstaff "my old lad of the castle," by the statement, in Part ii., Act iii., Sc. 2, that Falstaff had been in his boyhood "page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk," which the historical Oldcastle was; by the abbreviation “Old.” above referred to; and by the allusion in the prologue of the play Sir John Oldcastle. But I cannot help thinking that the following remarks refute the inference as to date of 2 Henry IV. made in the above quotation :— (1) The mention of Falstaff as "the fat knight, hight Oldcastle," by Nat. Field in 1618, and two similar allusions in 1604, would suggest (as Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps has remarked) that some of the theatres long retained the name; this would, of course, weaken the inference from the abbreviation "Old." 66 (2) The entry in the Register on February 25th, 1598 [see it quoted in extenso on p. 186], speaks of The Historye of Henry the iiiith, &c. ; it does not say “ Part i.,” which I think it would have done had Part ii. been in existence then; compare the entries under dates March 12th, 1593: 11th August, 1600; August 23rd, 1600, &c. (3) A consideration of the words of the entry, and the fact that they reappear on the title-page of the first quarto of 1 Henry IV., show that they were intended to apply to Part i. only, and hence imply that Part ii. had not yet been produced. (4) Meres, writing ["early," says Mr. Halliwell-Phillips] in 1598, does not seem to know of two parts; and (5) When the second edition of the first part was called for in 1599 (the second part having then appeared), it is called Henry IV., Part i., "newly augmented by Wm. Shakespeare;" while (6) As to the allusion to Justice Silence in Every Man Out of His Humour (v. 2) (1599) ; the reference surely rather favours the date 1598—1599.* The second part of Henry IV. was entered at the Stationers' Hall on the 23rd of August, 1600, by Andrew Wise and William Aspley, and a quarto edition was brought out by these publishers in the same year; on the title-page it is said to have been “sundry times publikely acted.” Kemp, the comedian, is thought to have appeared as Justice Shallow, and is also supposed to have left the Lord Chamberlain's Company about the end of 1598 [see Appendix, p. 197]; if this be so, we have a confirmation of the above date. Speaking of Justice Shallow, we may notice that Dekker, in his Satiromastix (1602), refers to these spangle 66 1 It may be noticed with regard to this allusion that the quotation of it has given rise to a series of most curious literary mistakes. Dr. Drake long ago pointed out that Malone says there is an allusion to Justice Shallow in Every Man Out of His Humour, and Chalmers tells us there is a reference to Justice Silence in Every Man in His Humour. Mr. Fleay (Shakespeare Manual, p. 36) now tries a double variation, and informs us that Justice Shallow is alluded to in Every Man in His Humour. babies, these true heirs of Master Justice Shallow ;" and may quote the following from the late Mr. R. Simpson's paper in the New Shakspere Society's Transactions, 1874, vol. ii., p. 414: "One of the Percies, Sir Charles, was settled at Dumbleton in Gloucestershire, in the neighbourhood of Stratford, and in a letter of 1609 speaks familiarly of himself as Justice Shallow. This man, who refers to these very plays, may have furnished some of the matter of Henry IV." In the same gentleman's edition of A Larum for London (which he dates 1598 or 1599), the expression "we'll mourn in sack" (p. 44) may be compared with the repenting in sack of the young prince [not of Falstaff, as Mr. Simpson puts it] (2 Henry IV. i., 2, 222). In the lines, iv. 4, 118—120, "The incessant care and labour of his mind Hath wrought the muse that should confine it in So thin that life looks through and will break out;" there seems to be a remembrance of Daniel's Civil Warres (1595), b. iii., st. 116, "Wearing the wall so thin, that now the mind Might well look through, and his frailty find." This is given by Malone [Variorum Edn., vol. ii., p. 358; he was apparently in a careless mood, for having a line or two before written "Justice Shallow" for "Justice Silence," he here writes "the last act" for "the fourth act"]. In the lines, v. 2, 56—59, "Brothers, you mix your sadness with some fear. Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds, But Harry, Harry ;" it is highly probable (as Mr. Malone remarked) that Shakespeare had in contemplation the cruelty practised by the Turkish emperor, Mahomet, who after the death of his father, Amurath the Third, in February, 1596, invited his |