[HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE]
(1) Two letters from Hazlitt under the heading ‘Historical Illustrations of Shakespeare’ appeared in the number for January 1819 (vol. IV. p. 39) and ran as follows: ‘Mr. Editor, I daresay you will agree with me in thinking, that whatever throws light on the dramatic productions of Shakespeare, deserves to be made public. I have already, in the volume called Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays,[[81]] shewn, by a reference to the passages in North’s translation of Plutarch, his obligations to the historian in his Coriolanus, and the noble way in which he availed himself of the lights of antiquity in composing that piece. I shall, with your permission, pursue the subject in the present and some future articles. The parallel is even more striking between the celebrated trial-scene in Henry VIII., and the following narrative of that event, as it actually took place, which is to be found in Cavendish’s Negociations of Cardinal Wolsey,’