His English histories are ten in number. Of these _King John_ and _Henry VIII._ are isolated plays. The others form a consecutive series, in the following order: _Richard II._ the two parts of _Henry IV., Henry V.,_ the three parts of _Henry VI.,_ and _Richard III._ This series may be divided into two, each forming a tetralogy, or group of four plays. In the first the subject is the rise of the house of Lancaster. But the power of the Red Rose was founded in usurpation. In the second group, accordingly, comes the Nemesis, in the civil wars of the Roses, reaching their catastrophe in the downfall of both Lancaster and York, and the tyranny of Gloucester. The happy conclusion is finally reached in the last play of the series, when this new usurper is overthrown in turn, and Henry VII., the first Tudor sovereign, ascends the throne and restores the Lancastrian inheritance, purified, by bloody atonement, from the stain of Richard II.'s murder. These eight plays are, as it were, the eight acts of one great drama; and, if such a thing were possible, they should be represented on successive nights, like the parts of a Greek trilogy. In order of composition the second group came first. _Henry VI_. is strikingly inferior to the others. _Richard III_. is a good acting play, and its popularity has been sustained by a series of great tragedians, who have taken the part of the king. But, in a literary sense, it is unequal to _Richard II.,_ or the two parts of _Henry IV_. The latter is unquestionably Shakspere's greatest historical tragedy, and it contains his master-creation in the region of low comedy, the immortal Falstaff. The constructive art with which Shakspere shaped history into drama is well seen in comparing his _King John_ with the two plays on that subject which were already on the stage. These, like all the other old "Chronicle histories," such as _Thomas Lord Cromwell_ and the _Famous Victories of Henry V._, follow a merely chronological, or biographical, order, giving events loosely, as they occurred, without any unity of effect, or any reference to their bearing on the catastrophe. Shakspere's order was logical. He compressed and selected, disregarding the fact of history oftentimes, in favor of the higher truth of fiction; bringing together a crime and its punishment as cause and effect, even though they had no such relation in the chronicle, and were separated, perhaps, by many years.