The miracle is
that anything should have been made of _The Troublesome Raigne_ at all.
The _Variorum_ extracts show that, of the many commentators who studied
the old play with Shakespeare's version, only Swinburne saw, or had the
courage to say, how utterly null the old play really is. To have made
Shakespeare's Falconbridge out of the old lay figure, to have created
the scenes between Hubert and John, and Hubert and Arthur, out of that
decrepit skeleton--that is the work of a commanding poetical genius on
the threshold of full mastery of its powers, worthy of all wonder, no
doubt, but doubly worthy of close examination.
But 'ideas of treachery'! Into what cloud cuckoo land have we been
beguiled by Coleridge's laudanum trances? A limbo--of this we are
confident--where Shakespeare never set foot at any moment in his life,
and where no robust critical intelligence can endure for a moment. We
must save ourselves from this insidious disintegration by keeping our
eye upon the object, and the object is just a good (not a very good)
play.
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