the other hand, it is entirely reasonable to suspect Shakespearean penciling in scenes where the handling is too light or too perfunctory to leave any definite impression of genius. In particular, Mr. Gray finds evidence of the greater writer in the opening of III. i and in the Vernon—Basset quarrel (III. iv. 28 ff. and IV. i. 78 ff.). I am impressed by Henneman's suggestion that IV. i as a whole is the reviser's replica of III. iv (cf. note on IV. i): there seems to be nothing in the later scene which Shakespeare might not have written, and a positive clue may perhaps be found in the fact that Talbot's account of the Battle of Patay is here certainly taken from Holinshed rather than Halle.[1] Another hint of the same kind appears in I. ii in the adoption from Holinshed's second edition of the favorable view of Joan of Arc (which Holinshed explains that he derives from French sources), whereas the remainder of the play gives an inharmonious conception drawn from the earlier English chronicles.[2]
The reviser's hand, presumably Shakespeare's, is evident in the way the close of 1 Henry VI is shaped to fit it as an introduction to Part II of the trilogy. Henneman states the relationship of the three parts with accuracy, if with undue caution: 'So specifically does I prepare for II and III in certain particulars that it is conceivable that I was written after II and that III had already been planned.' If he means in
- ↑ Holinshed reports that Talbot had 'not past six thousand men' (cf. IV. i. 20 and also I. i. 112), while Halle gives him five thousand.
- ↑ Two small points, which I have not seen mentioned, may have some bearing on the date of Shakespeare's revision: (1) The Mortimer scene, especially lines 67-81, sounds rather like a reminiscence of 1 Henry IV. (2) Margaret's vain efforts to make Suffolk attend to her questions and the retribution she takes (V. iii. 72–109) repeat Falstaff's tactics with the Chief Justice (2 Henry IV, II. i. 184-211). It is possible, but hardly so likely, that the sequence was the other way.
