MARGARET.
[FIRST PART OF KING HENRY VI.]
Here we see the beautiful daughter of Count Reignier as yet a maid. Suffolk enters, leading her as captive, but ere he himself is aware she
very doubtful matter whether the Maid was ever burned at all, and whether she did not marry and become the mother of a large family. As regards witchcraft, had Heine lived in Shakespeare's time he would certainly have believed in it heart and soul. But there is no proof that Shakespeare was superstitious in any respect. Joan of Arc gave it out, and perhaps herself believed, that was was visited by spirits, and in a credulous age she naturally brought upon herself the charge of being a sorceress. Shakespeare simply used the generally accredited tradition as a dramatist. Heine appears here to have totally forgotten that in Germany, long after the time of Joan of Arc, many thousands of witches, who did not pretend to supernatural gifts, and who had not made themselves violently obnoxious to great political powers, were put to death far more cruelly. If the very doubtful death of Joan of Arc in a very Catholic age is a proof of British barbarism, what do the witch burnings of the Protestants in the seventeenth century indicate as regards German humanity?
It may be remarked that in the concluding paragraph Heine remarks that Shakespeare could not have worked over or retouched (bearbeitet) this play on Henry VI. because they bear 'in many parts' the Vollgepräge or perfect stamp of his genius. It might be asked to what purpose he reworked or finished up the dramas, if it was not to give them such a stamp or effect? The whole article indicates that it was
intended to flatter the Germans through Schiller, and especially to gratify the French by abuse of England.
