usually is, whereas Henry, the Prince, would surely have been too
certain of his own qualities to need adventitious aids to pride. Percy
might have been shown to us raging over imaginary slights; Worcester
says he was "governed by a spleen"; while the Prince should have been
given that high sense of honour and insatiate love of fame which were
the poles of chivalry. Finally, the dramatist might have painted
Hotspur, the soldier, as disdainful of women and the arts of music
and poetry, while gracing Prince Henry with a wider culture and sympathy.
If I draw attention to such obvious points it is only to show how
incredibly careless Shakespeare was in making the conqueror a poor copy
of the conquered. He was drawn to Hotspur a little by his quickness and
impatience; but he was utterly out of sympathy with the fighter, and
never took the trouble even to think of the qualities which a leader of
men must possess.
CHAPTER VI
SHAKESPEARE'S MEN OF ACTION (concluded): KING HENRY VI. AND
RICHARD III.
I think it hardly necessary to extend this review of Shakespeare's
historical plays by subjecting the Three Parts of "King Henry VI." and
"Richard III." to a detailed and minute criticism. Yet if I passed them
over without mention it would probably be assumed that they made against
my theory, or at least that I had some more pertinent reason for not
considering them than their relative unimportance. In fact, however,
they help to buttress my argument, and so at the risk of being tedious I
shall deal with them, though as briefly as possible. Coleridge doubted
whether Shakespeare had had anything to do with the "First Part of Henry
VI.," but his fellow-actors, Heminge and Condell, placed the Three Parts
of "King Henry VI." in the first collected edition of Shakespeare's
plays, and our latest criticism finds good reasons to justify this
contemporary judgement. Mr. Swinburne writes: "The last battle of Talbot
seems to me as undeniably the master's work as the scene in the Temple
Gardens, or the courtship of Margaret by Suffolk"; and it would be easy
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