Part II, there are even fewer records than there are

of Part I. James Wright in his Historia Histrionica (1699) says that ‘before the wars’ Lowin acted Fal¬ staff ‘with mighty applause.’ Pepj's, who attended at least three revivals of the first part of the play be¬ tween 1660 and 1668, makes no mention of any Res¬ toration revival of the second part. In 1700 Better- ton, after a triumphant revival of Part I, undertook a revision and revival of Part II. His version held the stage for many years, and is reprinted in Lacy’s Acting Edition of Old Plays. Chetwood tells an amusing anecdote concerning Betterton’s interpreta¬ tion of the part of Falstaff in Part II. Johnson, an actor, while playing in Dublin, had seen Baker, a master-pavior, play Falstaff. Upon his return to England he gave Mr. Betterton the manner of Baker’s playing, which the great actor not only approved of, but imitated, and allowed that it was better than his own.
Betterton’s arrangement of the play was as fol¬ lows :
Act I begins with I. ii. ; then follow the scene at the Archbishop’s, and the arrest of Falstaff from Act II.
148
The Second Part of
Act II contains the rest of Shakespeare’s Act II, with the Warkworth Castle scenes omitted.
Act III begins with the scene at Shallow’s house, but the rest of the act follows Shakespeare.
Act IV begins with the King’s soliloquy on sleep, taken from Act III; then comes the scene of the King’s death, followed by the scene in which Silence sings; and the act closes with the interview between the Lord Chief Justice and King Henry V.
In Act V, Betterton omits the comic scenes (i. and iv.), and opens the act with the King’s progress to Westminster Abbey. Falstaff is rebuked, but is not sent to the Fleet, and the play concludes with an abridgment of the first Act of Henry V.
Betterton had the good taste not to tamper with Shakespeare’s wording to any great extent.
On December 17, 1720, at Drury Lane, the play was revived again. It was acted five nights succes- sively and once afterwards. It was in this revival that Cibber first appeared as Justice Shallow and made ‘one of the great successes of the day.’ Mills was Falstaff, and Wilks the Prince. Eleven years later (1731) came another Drury Lane revival, with Mills as the Prince, Harper as Falstaff, and Cibber still playing Shallow. Five years later (1736) the same company, with the exception of Plarper, pro¬ duced the play again at Drury Lane for the benefit •of the great Quin, who played Falstaff. In 1744 and 1749 there were revivals at the Covent Garden Theatre, Quin again playing Falstaff.
A performance at Drury Lane in 1758 was made notable by Garrick’s first appearance in the role of the King. He had appeared as Hotspur in Tart I twelve years before, but had not achieved great suc¬ cess in that role. As the King in Part II ‘his figure did not assist him, but the forcible expression of his countenance, and his energy of utterance, made ample amends for the defect of person/
149
King Henry the Fourth
On December 11, 1761, and for twenty-two con¬ secutive days, King Henry IV, Part II, was presented at Covent Garden in honor of the coronation of King George III. For this performance an elaborate coronation pageant was devised which was used again in 1821 by Macready at the time of the coronation of William IV. Other revivals occurred at Drury Lane in 1764 and 1777, and at Covent Garden in 1773, 1784, and 1804. A sensational feature of the 1773 performance was the appearance of an anonymous ‘Gentleman’ as the King, ‘his first per¬ formance on any stage,’ and of Mrs. Lessingham, for whose benefit the play was given, as Prince Hal. In the 1804 production John Philip Kemble played the King, and Charles Kemble the Prince. Charles Kemble again appeared as the Prince in Macready’s production in June, July, and August, 1821.
Of Macready’s performance he himself writes in his Reminiscences ; ‘Kemble had revived the play in 1804, but produced little effect. Garrick had not given the prominence he had expected to the part of the King, and for these reasons I begged to be excused from appearing in it. But my objections were set aside. ... To every line of if I gave the most deliberate attention, and felt the full power of its pathos. The audience hung intently on every word. The admission of the perfect success of the performance was without dissent. The revival re¬ warded the managers with houses crowded to the ceiling for many nights, nor was this attributable to the pageant only, for the acting was of the highest order. Fawcett was the best Falstaff then upon the stage, but he more excelled in other parts.’ The per¬ fection of Macready’s success was not, however, ‘without dissent.’ ‘An old playgoer/ in a letter to Tallis’s Dramatic Magazine for April, 1851, says of Macready’s Henry IV : “In this role he approached nearest to an elocutionist, but generally the effect of
150 Second Part of King Henry the Fourth
his declamation was unpleasant, harsh, and grating, Kemble’s poses were studied but graceful, not like the stiff upright poses of Macready wherein I have often wondered how he could preserve his equilib¬ rium.”
On March 17, 1853, in his ninth season at Sadler’s Wells, Samuel Phelps produced King Henry IV,