; none had worse than _King Henry V_. With
_Romeo and Juliet_, the _Merry Wives of Windsor_, and _Hamlet_, it shares
the remarkable and undesirable honour of having been seized and boarded
by pirates even before it had left the dockyard. The masterbuilder's
hands had not yet put the craft into seaworthy condition when she was
overhauled by these Kidds and Blackbeards of the press. Of those four
plays, the two tragedies at least were thoroughly recast, and rewritten
from end to end: the pirated editions giving us a transcript, more or
less perfect or imperfect, accurate or corrupt, of the text as it first
came from the poet's hand; a text to be afterwards indefinitely modified
and incalculably improved. Not quite so much can be said of the comedy,
which certainly stood in less need of revision, and probably would not
have borne it so well; nevertheless every little passing touch of the
reviser's hand is here also a noticeable mark of invigoration and
improvement. But _King Henry V_., we may fairly say, is hardly less than
transformed. Not that it has been recast after the fashion of _Hamlet_,
or even rewritten after the fashion of _Romeo and Juliet_; but the
corruptions and imperfections of the pirated text are here more flagrant
than in any other instance; while the general revision of style by which
it is at once purified and fortified extends to every nook and corner of
the restored and renovated building.
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