the interpreters have overlooked that some of the emendations on which their interpretations ultimately rest have long since been abandoned.

6. Stage History of "King John"

In the stage history of King John there are certain peculiar circumstances strongly flavored with misleading assumptions. Since it is not necessary to review the entire stage history of the play, only pertinent facts will be mentioned here. 56

The first mention of Shakespeare's King John is by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia 1598.57 Scholars know of no existing data directly concerning the popularity of King John in Shakespeare's day. 58 Even the indirect evidence is not very enlightening. For instance, in May 1606, an act was passed "for the preventing and avoiding of the great abuse of the Holy Name of God in Stage playes, Interludes, Maygames, Shows and such like."59 Now, it has been pointed out that in the 1623 Folio edition the examples of "Heaven" markedly outnumber those of 'God', but still it must remain doubtful whether such indications can be taken as evidence of revivals.60 Again, the fact that illegal editions of Troublesome Raigne were risked in 1611 and 1622 with the caption "by W. Sh." and "by W. Shakespeare" respectively, would indicate the popularity of Shakespeare himself as much as the popularity of Shakespeare's King John. Moreover, in connection with the stage, King John is mentioned only once from the days of Shakespeare until 1736. This single reference is merely its inclusion in a list.

56Cf. Harold Child, "History of Play”, King John, edited by J. Dover Wilson (Cambridge, 1936) lxiv-lxxix.

57 Ingleby, Smith & Furnivall, The Shakespeare Allusion Book (London, 1932) I, 46.

58 Chambers, William Shakespeare, I, 366.

59 Virginia C. Gildersleeve, Government Regulations of the Eliza

bethan Drama (New York, 1908) 19-20.

60 Chambers, William Shakespeare, I, 241.

dated Jan. 12, 1669, of "part of his Mates Servants Playes as they were formerly acted at the Blackfryers and now allowed of to his Mates Servants at the New Theatre"; but there is no evidence that the King's company performed it. 61 As the case stands to-day, except for Meres reference in 1598, there is no record of the actual performance of King John before 1737.62

It cannot be said that King John was unknown, for it was printed in every edition of Shakespeare's works. Moreover, there are records of other Shakespearean productions from Meres till 1737.63 It is therefore commonly supposed that King John was not performed during this period.

lxiii.

This gap in the stage history of King John seems very

61Harold Child, "History of Play", King John (Cambridge, 1936)

62 Little significance can be attached to the fact that when the play was revived at Drury Lane in Feb. 1745, the play bill advertised it as "not acted 50 years." (Ibid., lxiv.) Davies writing in 1785 likewise believed that King John had not been acted since Shakespeare's day. (Dramatic Miscellanies, I, 4.) In a letter relative to his revision of King John, Colley Cibber writes in the Daily Advertiser for Feb. 4, 1737, "But as many of that Fam'd Author's Pieces, for these Hundred Years past, have lain dormant, from, perhaps, a just Suspicion, that they were too weak, for a compleat Entertainment, those that are in Possession of the Stage, are too few in number, with out frequent Repetition, to hold out the Service of the Season." See Emmett Avery. "Cibber, King John, and the Students of the Law", Modern Language Notes 53 (1938): 273.

SO

63In speaking of the popularity of Shakespeare's plays at the time of the First Folio Edition (1623), Sidney Lee states that of the histories, the Two Parts of Henry IV, Henry V, Richard III and Henry VIII could still count on an appreciative hearing. See Sidney Lee, "Introduction", Facsimile of The First Folio Edition from the Chatworth Copy (Oxford, 1902) xix. In writing of the theatre of the Restoration, Downes mentions the following plays of Shakespeare which were staged at various times after 1659: Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Henry VIII, King Lear, King Henry IV, Julius Caesar, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Macbeth. See John Downes, Roscius Anglicanus (London, 1708) passim.

significant. If King John is a manifestly anti-Catholic play, it is difficult to understand that it was not utilized in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, when wave after wave of anti-Catholic bigotry swept over England, just as in 1745 when Cibber's Papal Tyranny won success, because it crested such a wave.64 Yet the worthy Dr. Johnson makes the following comment on John's defiance in the play: "This must have been at the time when it was written, in our struggles with popery, a very captivating scene."65 George Chalmers and William Birch66 repeat the words of Johnson, and again and again the echoes of Johnson's statement are discernible in the works of commentators and interpreters. Thus the gap has been lightly passed over by a number of the critics, 67 and the anti-Catholic interpretation has been with an apparent erudite presumption insinuated into Shakespeare's very day. Until positive proof be produced, if any inference at all can be made from the silence or non-existence of records, that inference must stand decidedly not in favor of the Anti-Catholic interpretation.

If one accepts the opinion that Shakespeare never intended his play to be anti-Catholic, there is certainly no reason to be surprised if Protestant England should have ignored it for over a hundred years. Though due regard be taken for the period (1642-1660) in which the theatres were closed, though consideration be conceded for the period from 1660 till 1688, in which both Catholics and Protestants may have considered King John too dangerous for production, 68 though allowance be made for the popularity of loose comedy from the Restoration till the end of the century, there are fully a hundred years still unaccounted for. While these hundred years are marked by waves of bigotry which would have made an anti-Catholic play most opportune, the very tenor of the Protestantism, which prevailed during this time in England, was so consistently pitched that an anti-Catholic play would have been welcome at almost any time. It becomes quite probable then that the real reason that King John was not publicly staged in Protestant England during this time was that it seemed too fair to the Catholic cause. This probability is certainly confirmed by Colley Cibber's dedication of Papal Tyranny, which will be considered presently.69 Now, as soon as Colley Cibber drew attention to Shakespeare's King John in a manner, which greatly fostered an anti-Catholic interpretation, it immediately became a popular theatre number and continued popular for the next hundred and fifty years. 70 Only in modern times has its popularity as a theatre attraction waned.

Since Colley Cibber (1671-1757) drew attention to King John in a manner highly charged with interest for our subject, a closer examination of the situation will afford a better understanding of the nature of his influence. It was probably some time in 1727 that Colley Cibber, poetlaureate, though an actor by profession, revised Shakespeare's King John.71 It was actually an alteration, which

68Child, op. cit., lxiv.
69See below, p. 49.

70 Furness, Variorum of King John 656-660.

71In a letter appealing for his revision of King John, Colley Cibber states in the Daily Advertiser for Feb. 4, 1737: "The same Gentleman therefore, who stops at no Expence to gratify his Audiences, was desir'd, by some of the Ladies I have mention'd to treat with me for the Play of King John of Shakespear, which I had finish'd the Revisal of above Ten Years since, and which I had lately the Honour of reading to them: "For the full letter, see Emmett Avery, "Cibber, King John, and the Students of the Law," Modern Language Notes 53 (1938): 272-275.

Cibber called Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John (published 1745). About the beginning of 1737 or earlier, he offered the play to Mr. Fleetwood, the manager of Drury Lane Theatre. Davies72 continues the story thus,

73

This was no sooner known to the public than Cibber was most severely attacked by the critics in the newspapers; Fielding wrote a farce upon the subject, which was played at the little theatre in the Haymarket However, the parts in the Papal Tyranny, were distributed, and a time fixed for its performance, but the clamour against the author, whose presumption was highly censured for daring to alter Shakespeare, increased to such a height that Colley, who had smarted more than once for dabbling in tragedy, went to the playhouse, and, without saying a word to anybody, took the play from the prompter's desk and marched off with it in his pocket. Pope, in his new edition of the Dunciad, which he had taken the pains to alter, in order to dethrone Theobald and place Cibber in his room, in the following line hints at the cautious conduct of the poetlaureat:

"King John in silence modestly expires."74

But Cibber's hopes as well as his favorite child survived, although in hiding.

In condemning Cibber's attempt on Shakespeare, critics lavished much praise on the latter. Rich, manager of Covent Garden, sensed the significance of the occasion75 and for several nights he produced Shakespeare's King Johnthe first showing being on Feb. 26, 1737.76 The play was performed at various times during the following years. Early in 1745 fate became more kindly disposed toward Cibber's Papal Tyranny. The country was going through one of

72Davies, Dramatic Miscellanies, I, 4-5.

73 For pertinent exerpts from Fielding's farce, see Furness, op.

cit., 538-539.

74 Alexander Pope, The Complete Works (Cambridge, 1902) 229. 75Davies, op. cit., I, 5-9.

76 Furness, op. cit., 656.