Edward Stuart, backed by the Church of Rome, using SHAKESPEARE'S King John as political fuel for the flames. His alteration bore the clumsy title Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John; it was produced at Drury Lane in 1745, CIBBER himself playing the rôle of Pandulph. It was not received with favor either by the critics or public, and after ten performances was withdrawn, CIBBER retiring from the stage with its last presentation.

In the dedication to the Earl of Chesterfield CIBBER declares that he endeavored to make his version 'more of a play than he found it in SHAKESPEARE'; possibly he thought he had, but the wilful public preferred SHAKESPEARE'S tragedy as produced at the rival house, Covent Garden, and Papal Tyranny sank into dramatic oblivion, where it still deservedly remains. Needless to say it did not have the political effect intended by its author. Nearly sixty years later, in 1800, R. VALPY, Head-Master of Reading School, produced an alteration of King John even more drastic than CIBBER'S. As had CIBBER, VALPY omitted the whole of the First Act, beginning his play with the scene before Angiers, leading to that between Philip and John. But VALPY apparently was not satisfied with any speech or series of speeches as written by SHAKESPEARE, and, with fool-hardy presumption, therefore rewrote and recast all to conform to a style, which he strangely imagined, was more forceful and impressive. As adaptations go, VALPY'S may take its place with DAVENANT'S perversion of Macbeth; TAIT's desecration of King Lear; and DRYDEN'S travesty of The Tempest. It was prepared for the use of his scholars, and for such a purpose it should have had but a very limited audience, but VALPY was ambitious, and shortly after its performance at Reading School it was produced in London; like Papal Tyranny, it had but a brief career, and has never since been revived.

SHAKESPEARE's King John has, of course, survived both of these attempts upon its dramatic life; but among his English Histories it has never been one of the favorite or stock-plays, such as Henry IV. or Richard III. Various are the reasons assigned for this, but chiefly that the titular hero is not the protagonist.

Faulconbridge carries all before him from his first scene, where he at once captivates the King and Queen Elinor, to the final words of the play put in his mouth as the one best typifying the

rugged warrior Englishman of the time. Critics have not been slow to note the gradual change in his character. The braggart of the early scenes is drawn on the same plan as that of the Faulconbridge of The Troublesome Raigne, and in the older play he maintains practically the same character throughout. It was the intuitive perception of SHAKESPEARE that grasped the dramatic possibilities of such a character and showed how a man of Faulconbridge's temperament attains to full strength and fineness by responsibility placed upon him, and by the confidence of one who trusts him implicitly. 'Have thou the ordering of the present time' are almost the last conscious words addressed to Faulconbridge by the King, as he hands over to him the conduct of the campaign against the Dauphin's invasion, and this after Faulconbridge's scathing comment on the King's announcement that Pandulph has offered to make a compromise with the invaders. Once only can we detect a slight wavering in his allegiance. The dead body of Arthur, found under such suspicious circumstances, almost shakes his faith, and wrings from him the admission that he begins to lose his way amid the thorns and dangers of this world; and that Heaven itself frowns upon the land where such deeds can be committed. His righteous indignation is forgotten as he stands beside the dead body of the King; his last words breathed in the dead ears are, that he but stays to avenge the murder, and then his soul shall wait on his benefactor to heaven as it has been but his servant upon earth. In adapting the older play it must have been at once apparent to the Playwright that King John's was not a character which lent itself to dramatic treatment. He was utterly perfidious, a poltroon, and a moral coward without one redeeming feature. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, ruthless and cruel though he was, had at least the saving grace of a grim humor; and his resourcefulness on all occasions excites a dreadful interest in his fate. But John was without even these signs of strength; his defiance of the Pope is mere bluster, he cringes abjectly when he is made actually to realize the power of the Church, and accedes to all the conditions, forcing himself to believe that all this was done not on compulsion, but as a voluntary act on his part.

That the full title of this Play in the Folio is misleading cannot be gainsaid. The action, in fact, deals with but a small number of the vicissitudes of John's stormy career as King; and that incident which in later ages was regarded as the bul

wark of the people against the despotic acts of the crownMagna Charta—is entirely omitted. SHAKESPEARE's reasons for ignoring an episode of such historic interest has been the source of varied speculation and comment. The anonymous author of The Troublesome Raigne had before him in the Chronicles a full account of the signing at Runnymede. It evidently did not appeal to him as a matter of importance politically, and quite unnecessary dramatically, as his main object was to make hateful to his hearers the acts of the Pope, and with such the Great Charter had had no connection whatever. What more natural, then, that what his predecessor had cast aside as extraneous SHAKESPEARE should likewise neglect? It is more than doubtful that Magna Charta, in the days of Elizabeth, was regarded as of any import, and equally certain that the people of that period actually preferred a monarch uncurbed by conditions, who should rule absolutely without recourse to appeals to Church or state. Had SHAKESPEARE accepted the incident of John's signing the Charter for a subject of a part of his drama, it is impossible to believe that we should not have had a scene equally as fine as many in his other historical plays, for example, the scene of Richard's renunciation of the crown to Bolingbroke. I, for one, wish that he had attempted it.

The words put by SHAKESPEARE into the mouth of John when defying the Pope are thought to indicate that SHAKESPEARE was merely using King John as a mouthpiece to voice his own opinions as to Papal authority; such sentiments also render doubtful the question whether JOHN SHAKESPEARE was a Romanist or had conformed to the acts first issued by Elizabeth. That there is quite as much to be said in favor of one as the other will be seen by a reference to the notes on III, i, 78, and to the views of various commentators in the article Shakespeare and Roman Catholicism in the Appendix to this volume. I cannot reconcile myself to the opinion that SHAKESPEARE ever made use of his dramatic art for the purpose of instructing, or as a means of enforcing his own views, any more than I believe that his poetic inspiration was dependent on his personal experience.

In conclusion let it be admitted that King John as an acting play is not to be ranked with the greater productions of SHAKESPEARE, but this is not, by any means, to say that it is lacking in dramatic interest. What other playwright has ever produced

the thrilling horror of King John's veiled hints at murder and death in his instigation of Hubert? Where will be found words of grief and despair equalling those of Constance on the loss of Arthur? What moralist could picture a scene of retribution more complete than John's miserable death by poison in the orchard of Swinstead Abbey? These scenes, be it remembered, written by a dramatist not yet thirty-five years old. How incredulous would have been that young playwright had there stood beside his elbow a seer, who in strange words should inform him, as he finished the last ringing lines of his play, that four hundred years from that time those words should still find a responsive echo in the ears of his countrymen. And that he, the humble playwright, and not all the historians, had placed upon King John's unworthy brows the wreath of immortality.

It is again my pleasant task to return thanks to the Librarian of the Philadelphia Library, Mr. George M. Abbot, and his efficient assistants, Mr. Govan and Mr. Knoblauch, for unfailing courtesy in response to many demands. Also to Mr. H. S. Jones for painstaking research in the Libraries of New York and Boston; likewise to Dr. H. C. Folger and Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan for placing at my disposal their unrivalled collections of Folios for purposes of collation.

June, 1919.

H. H. F., JR.