OF ILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. WITH LIFE OF THE POET, EXPLANATORY FOOT-NOTES, CRITICAL Darvard Edition. BY THE REV. HENRY N. HUDSON, PROFESSOR OF SHAKESPEARE IN BOSTON UNIVERSITY. IN TWENTY VOLUMES. VOL. XI. BOSTON: PUBLISHED RV CINN & LLATU Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. NSON rightly observes that the First and Second Parts of ing Henry the Fourth are substantially one drama, the whole arranged as two only because too long to be one. For this it seems best to regard them as one in the introductory r, and so dispose of them both together. The writing of must be placed at least as early as 1597, when the author _hirty-three years old. The First Part was registered at the oners' for publication in February, 1598, and was published e course of that year. It was reprinted in 1599, and again in ; also a fourth time in 1608, and a fifth in 1613. In the first the authorship was not stated; but each later issue has the e of "W. Shakespeare" printed in the title-page as the or. The Second Part was first published in 1600, and there ot known to have been any other edition of it till it reappeared g with the First Part in the folio of 1623. is beyond question that the original name of Sir John FalI was Sir John Oldcastle; and a curious relic of that name ives in Act i. scene 2, where the Prince calls Falstaff " my lad of the castle." And we have several other strong proofs the fact; as in the Epilogue to the Second Part: " For anyng I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be ed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and s is not the man." Also, in Amends for Ladies, a play by thaniel Field, printed in 1618: Did you never see the play here the fat Knight, hight Oldcastle, did tell you truly what this nour was?" which clearly alludes to Falstaff's soliloquy about onour in Part First, Act. v. scene 1. Yet it is certain that the ange from Oldcastle to Falstaff was made before the play was tered at the Stationers' in 1598, as that entry mentions "the 66 |