There are, as I have said, incalculable chances to one that the
playwright's version of a given event will not coincide with that of the
Recording Angel: but it may be true and convincing in relation to human
nature in general, in which case it will belong to the sphere of great
art; or, on a lower level, it may be agreeable and entertaining without
being conspicuously false to human nature, in which case it will do no
harm, since it makes no pretence to historic truth. It may be objected
that the sixteenth-century public, and even, in the next century, the
great Duke of Marlborough, got their knowledge of English history from
Shakespeare, and the other writers of chronicle-plays. Well, I leave it
to historians to determine whether this very defective and, in great
measure, false vision of the past was better or worse than none. The
danger at any rate, if danger there was, is now past and done with. Even
our generals no longer go to the theatre or to the First Folio for their
history.
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