style had undergone much change, and when his power was
not enough greater to make up for the less inspiration that
would naturally attend a revisal.

Nor is Malone a whit stronger in his arguing of the
question from external evidence. In the first place, he
urges the fact that Shakespeare's name Avas not mentioned
in the entry of the Second Fart at the Stationers', jNIarch
12, 1594, nor in the title-pages of the first two editions.
But this, as we have repeatedly' seen, was a common prac-
tice. For example, King Richard II was entci'ed at the
Stationers', August 29, 1597, and published the same year;
The First Fart of Henry IV was entered, February 25,
1598, and published that year; also. King Richard III
was entered, October 20, 1597, and published that 3'ear ;
in every one of which cases there was no mention of the
author's name. Again, he alleges the circumstance that in
the title of the quarto the Third Fart is said to have been
acted by the earl of Pembroke's servants, a company to
which Shakespeare never belonged. Which point wc may
safely leave where it was left in our Introduction to the
First Fart. Another circumstance urged is, that in the
title-page of Pavier's quarto the plays are said to have
been "newly corrected and enlarged by William Shake-
speare," as if this inferred that Shakespeare did not write
them ; whereas the "By William Shakespeare" evidently re-
fers no less to the writing than to the correcting and en-
larging.

There is, however, one piece of external evidence which
nnist be allowed to carry some weight. We have seen that
Malone's argument from the discrepancies of statement
would, if admitted, necessarily conclude four authors in
the case, one for each of the three parts as first written,
and a fourth for the additions of the folio. And in fact
Malone himself supposes four, and the fortlicoming item
Silk- Ml) XV



Introduction THE SECOND PART OF

of external evidence, so far as it may hold good, will infer
as many, and probably one to boot. It is a passage from
Greene's Groatsurorth of Wit: "Yes, trust them not; for
there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that,
with his tiger's heart wrapp'd in a player's hide, supposes
he is as well able to bombast out a blank-verse as the
best of you, and, being an absolute Johannes-fac-totum,
is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country."
Greene died September 3, 1592, and this was a part of his
death bed repentance. The tract was addressed to his
"quondam acquaintance," Marlowe, Lodge, and Peele, who
may all be set down as included in the words, "beautified
with our feathers :" there is no doubt that the "upstart
crow" meant Shakespeare; and "his tiger's heart wrapp'd
in a player's hide" is a parody of an original line in The
Third Part of Henry VI, Act. i. sc. 4: 'O tiger's heart,
wrapp'd in woman's hide !" thus ascertaining at least that
that play, as it stands in the quarto, was written before
Greene's death.

The parodied line, however, is thought to identify the
plays in question as the particular feathers with which the
upstart crow had beautified himself. And, surely, if
Shakespeare had indeed been guilty of such an enormous
piece of literary theft as the case supposes, he most richly
deserved all that was said of him, and as much more of the
same kind as could be said; and, obviously, the best course
for himself and his friends to take had been not to com-
plain of the charge, but just to keep as quiet as they pos-
sibly could. A short time after Greene's death, his tract
was published by Henry Chettle. The tract gave great
offence to the parties attacked ; and a few months later
their complaints were answered by Chettle in a pamphlet
entitled Kind-Heart's Dream, which has the following ref-
erence to Shakespeare: "I am as sorry as if the original
fault had been my fault, because myself have seen his de-
meanor no less civil, than he excellent in the quality he
professes: besides, divers of worship have reported his up-
rightness of dealing, which argues his ' honesty, and his

xvi



KING HENRY VI Introduction

facetious grace in writing, that approves his art." Surely,
if, with a full knowledge of the facts, he had especially
undertaken to clear Shakespeare from the charge, and
from all suspicion, of having beautified hitnself with stolen
plumes, he coidd scarce have used words more apt for his
purpose. This acquittal, moreover, is greatly confirmed
by Thomas Nash, who, the writing of Greene's tract hav-
ing been by some attributed to him, has the following in
an epistle prefixed to the second edition of his Pierce Penni-
less: "Otlier news I am advertised of, that a scald, trivial,
lying pamphlet, call'd Greene's Groatszcorth of Wit, is
given out to be of my doing. God never have care of my
soul, but utterly renounce me, if the least word or syllable
in it proceeded from my pen, or if I were any way privy
to the writing or printing of it."

Now, whatsoever motives may be thought to have
prompted tliese disavowals of Chettle and N^ash, it will
hardly be questioned that the acquittal was as well-
grounded as the indictment had been. For if Greene's
charges had been true, it is difficult to conceive how they
should have been more disreputable to the author than to
the subject of them. And in the passage quoted from him
he is evidently far more vituperative of others' sins than
repentant of his own ; which, to say the least, is as little
suited to a preparation for death, as the matter charged is
to an honorable standing in life. At all events, it may
well be thought that in Greene's case the expectation of
death, instead of making him bold to speak the truth, had
rather taken off from his envy the restraints of fear, and
thus emboldened him to lie.

Mr. Collier, however, quotes as in confirmation of
Greene's charge, a passage from a tract by R. B., entitled
Greene's Funerals, and published in 1594, wherein the
writer, speaking of others' obligations to Greene, adds, —

"Nay, more, the men that so eclips'd his fame
Purloin\} his plumes, — can they deny the same?"

This might indeed amount to something, if it had the

XV ii



Introduction THE SECOND PART OF

appearance of being an independent authority ; but does it
not sound too much as a mere echo of what Greene him-
self had said before? Or, if it be thought that Greene's
envy must have had somewhat to Avork upon, else it would
scarce have taken so specific a shape, perhaps there was
matter enough short of such a wholesale appropriation of
other men's works. For example, in The First Part of
Henry VI, Act v. so. 3, occurs the following:

"She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd;
She is a woman, therefore to be won."

The latter of these lines, as Mr. Collier tells us, is found
in Greene's Planet omachia, which was printed as early as
1585. Again, two of the original lines in the Third Part,
Act V. sc. 6, are these, uttered by Richard while stabbing
Henry :

"If any spark of life remain in thee,
Down, down to hell, and say I sent thee thither."

And in Greene's Alphonsus, King of Arragon, the hero
speaks thus to Flaminius while killing him :

"Go, pack thee hence unto the Stygian lake,
And make report unto thy traitorous sire.
How well thou hast enjoy'd the diadem.
Which he by treason set upon thy head:
And if he ask thee who did send thee down,
Alphonsus say, who now must wear thy crown."

Might not a few such borrowed feathers as these suffice
to start and to set Greene's exaggerations of envy and
spleen .P But, if these be not enough, there is strong rea-
son, as was seen in our Introduction to that play, to think
that Greene was the author of the old play whereon Shake-
speare founded his Taming of the Shrew.

Mr. Dyce, also, collates a number of original passages
from the two plays in question with similar ones in Mar-
lowe's Edward II. Thus in the Second Part, Act i. sc. 3 :

"She bears a duke's whole revenues on her back." And ia

xviii



KING HENRY VI Introduction

Edxcard II: "He wears a lord's revenue on his back."
Again, in the Third Part, Act v. sc. 2: "Thus yields the
cedar to the axe's edge, whose arms gave shelter to the
princely eagle." And in Edward II: "A lofty cedar-tree,
fair-flourishing, on whose top-branches kingly eagles
perch." And there are several others, in some of which the
resemblances arc still closer. It need scarce be said that
such resemblances infer a borrowing one way or the other.
Now the argument from Greene's tract supposes both the
oriffinals and the additions of the Second and Third Parts
to have been written before September, 1592. jNIarlowe
was killed, June 1, 1593, in his 29th year, and his Ed-
ward II was entered at the Stationers', July 6, 1593. It
is on all hands allowed to be far the best, and probably the
last-written of his plays. Its superiority of style to his
Tamhiirlaine, which was probably written as earh' as 1587,
is so great, as naturally to suggest the influence of new
and better models; since without such help one could scarce
make so much advance in so short a time. Might it not
well be, then, that m so close a study of those models divers
passages got planted in his memory, and when, shortly
after, he went to writing on a kindred subject, transferred
themselves to his page.^ Or, if v/e suppose his Edxcard II
to have preceded the originals of the two plays in hand,
then why may not the resembling passages collated by ]Mr.
Dyce have been a part of the very matter referred to in
Greene's "upstart crow beautified with our feathers".?

It is remarkable that, with the exception of the resem-
blances pointed out by Mr. Dyce, those who have con-
curred with ISIalone in taking the old plays from Shake-
speare, have added nothing to Malone's arguments. And
it is equally remarkable that those who agree that Shake-
speare did not write them are at considerable odds amongst
themselves as to who did. ]Malone at first thought that
either Greene and Peele wrote them conjointly, or that
Greene wrote the one and Peele tlie other; but afterwards
he was "inclined to believe that ]\Iarlowe was the author of
one, if not of both." Mr. Collier, speaking of the Co-n-



XIX



Introduction THE SECOND PART OF

tention, says, — "By whom it was written we have no in*
formation ;" and of the True Tragedy he says, — "Al-
though there is no ground whatever for giving it to Mar-
lowe, there is some reason for supposing that it came from
the pen of Robert Greene." Mr. Hallam says, — "It seems
probable that the old plays were in great part by Mar-
lowe, though Greene seems to put in for some share in
their composition." And in another place he speaks thus :
"The greater part of the plays is, in the judgment, I con-
ceive, of all competent critics, far above the powers either
of Greene or Peele, and exhibits a much greater share
of the spirited versification, called by Jonson the 'mighty
line' of Christopher Marlowe." Concurrent with this lat-
ter is the judgment of Mr. Dyce: "Greene may have con-
tributed his share ; so also may Lodge, and so may Peele
have done : but in both pieces there are scenes characterized
by a vigour of conception and expression, to which, as
their undisputed works demonstratively prove, neither
Greene, nor Lodge, nor Peele could possibly have risen."

The other part of the question may be despatched with
comparative brevity and ease ; the main points of the argu-
ment having been some of them stated, and all of them
suggested in our Introduction to the preceding play. For
the conclusion, urged from the Epilogue to Henry V in
case of the First Part, holds equally strong in reference
to the Second and Third. The three plays have a com-
mon subject, namely, the showing how, in the reign of
Henry VI, "so many had the managing, that they lost
France, and made his England bleed." The losing of
France is the special matter of the First Part; the making
England bleed, of the Second and Third; both of which,
the Poet, when writing that Epilogue, took upon him to
say, "oft our stage hath shown." And with what pro-
priety could he beg the audience to accept a play of his
making, because they had already accepted plays not of
his making? Would he ask them to smile on what he had
written, inasmuch as they had been wont to smile on what
he had stolen.'' Or, to put the thing more fairly, their hav-

XX



KING HENRY VI Introduction

ing liked some plajs that he had merely enlarged was
surely an odd reason why they should like a play originated
by him. So that we seem to have from the Poet himself
an implied claim of authorship in the case.

We have another point of external evidence, perhaps
equally strong, in the simple fact of the plays' being given
to the world as Shakespeare's, b}^ those who had every
opportunity to know the truth, and no apparent motive to
put forth any thing as his, which was known to be from
another. Their Preface shows that the editors of the first
folio knew well what they were about, and why. Nor may
this argument be so easily nonsuited by supposing their
action in this case to have stood on the ground of Shake-
speare's acknowledged additions. For the quartos were
at hand, their authorship apt to be known ; and any care-
ful reader might see that the entire conception and more
than half the execution of the plays in question were there.
And when the editors speak of "divers maimed and de-
formed copies," as being '"now offer'd to your view cur'd,
and perfect of their limbs," what more likely than that
those very quartos may have been among the copies meant.'*
At all events, their purpose, as it ought to have been, mani-
festly was, to set forth none but perfect copies of what
they knew Shakespeare to have written.

Malone's argument from the internal evidence views the
plays separately and without any reference to one an-
other. As what strength it has seems chiefly owing to
this mode of viewing them apart, so it ma}^ doubtless be
best met by viewing them together. If, then, we take the
three parts of Henry VI together with Richard III, we
shall find them all to be so connected that each former
play of the series is a necessary introduction to the fol-
lowing, and each later one a necessary sequel to the pre-
ceding; that is, they will appear to be four plays only be-
cause too long to be one, or two, or three. Perhaps the
force of this argument may be best approved by trying
it in another case. Now, it is quite manifest that Richard

II is essentially a play to be continued: it was evidently

xxi



Introduction THE SECOND PART OF

written with the matter and design of the following play
in mind. Hence the several forecastings and givings-out
which it has, concerning events and passages that are left
unrepresented in the pla}'^ itself. These are as germs
thrown in with purpose of future development: the Poet is
not content to set forth the transactions of the play clearly
for what they are in themselves, but takes care that we
shall also regard them as the first beginnings of things yet
to be, thus awakening an expectation of something further,
and preparing the reader's mind for his intended sequel.
Such, it scarce need be said, are the prophetic remonstx-ances
of the intrepid Bishop, in Act iv. sc. i :

"And if you crown him, let me prophesy.
The blood of English shall manure the ground;
And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars
Shall kin %vith kin, and kind with kind confoimd;" —

the predictions of Richard to Northumberland in Act v,
sc. 1 :

"The time shall not be many hours of age
More than it is, ere foul sin, gatheriiig head,
Shall break into corruption: Thou shalt think,
Though he divide the realm, and give thee half,
It is too little, helping him to all;
And he shall think that thou, which know'st the way
To plant unrightful kings, will know again.
Being ne'er so little urg'd, another way
To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne;" —

and above all the dialogue touching Prince Henry in Act
V. sc. 3, closing up with Bolingbroke's happy forecast of
his son:

"As dissolute as desperate; yet, through both,
I see some sparks of better hope, which elder days
May happily bring forth."

Now these are manifest impertinences but that the}' look

to a further representation. It were hardly possible for

the Poet to give out promise of a sequel in clear terms.

xxii



KING HENRY VI Introduction

Viewed in this light, the things are great beauties; other-
wise, they are blemishes altogether.

Of course the anticipations thus raised are met and an-
swered in Henry IV, which in turn has many minute and
careful references to events set forth in the foregoing
play. Such are Hotspur's mad snappish retrospections of
Bolingbroke in Act i. so. S ; his reference in Act iv. so. 3,
to the circumstances of the king's first landing, "when his
blood was poor, upon the naked shore at Ravenspurg;"
the king's recurrence, in Part II, Act iii. sc. 2, to the fore-
cited prophecy of Richard; and especially the alternate
riotings, repentings, and heroisms of the prince.

Thus the two plays are closely connected by a variety
of reciprocal allusions ; insomuch that, if Henry IV had
come down to us as Shakespeare's, and Richard II as
anonymous, there could be almost as little doubt, it should
seem, as to the authorship of the latter, as of the former.
So much, then, might be reasonably inferred from the
mere logical adjustment and correspondence of the plays
to each other. Still stronger were the inference from the
manifest unity of design and action, running the two
plays together as a consistent and continuous whole, the
first bespeaking the second, and the second in turn suppos-
ing the first. For, granting that the second, though taken
up as an afterthought, might be thus logically and dra-
matically fitted to the first, still there is the forethought
of the second pervading the first, which were hardly recon-
cilable with diversity of authorship. Then, over and
above all this, there is an identity of conception and char-
acterization in the two plays, resulting in a vital, organic
unity and continuity. And this is the strongest argument
of all. For it might be safely afl^rmed, that none but the
beffinner of Bolingbroke's character in Richard II could
have thus continued it in Henry IV.

Now this argument will hold good in every particular,

and, if possible, with still greater force, between Henry

VI and Richard III. Not only is the latter dramatically

and logically fitted to the former, but the design and pur-

xxiii



Introduction THE SECOND PART OF

pose of the latter were evidently in the author's mind while
writing the former. And the unity of characterization, in
Edward, Margaret, and especially in Richard, is every whit
as perfect, as organic, and as strong, as in case of Boling-
broke. We may safely affirm that The Third Part of
Henry VI, as it stands in the quarto, is, in its design,
structure, and conception, essentially a drama to be con-
tinued. But this point needs illustrating, and our speci-
mens shall all be from the original form of the play.
Thus in Richard's soliloquy. Act iii. sc. 2 :

"Ay, Edward will use women honorably.
Would he were wasted, marrow, bones, and all !
That from his loins no issue might succeed,
To hinder me from the golden time I look for:
For I am not yet look'd on in the world.
First is there Edward, Clarence, and Henry,
And his son, and all they look for issue
Of their loins, ere I can plant myself."

Thus also in Henry's prophecy to Richard in the Tower,
Act V. sc. 6:

"That many a widow for her husband's death.
And many an infant's water-standing eye.
Widows for their husbands, children for their fathers.
Shall curse the time that ever thou wert born."

And in Richard's dark mutterings to himself in the same
scene, after killing Henry:

"Clarence, bev-are; thou keep'st me from the light;
But I will sort a pitchy day for thee:
For I will buz abroad such prophecies.
Under pretence of outward-seeming ill.
As Edward shall be fearful of his life.
And then to purge his fear I'll be thy death."

And again, the breaking out of his bloody designs in the
last scene ; the third line of course referring to his head
and his hand:

â– "This shoulder was ordain'd so thick, to heave;
And heave it shall some weight, or break my back 5
Work thou the way, — and thou shalt execute."

xxiv



KING HENRY VI Introduction

And, above all, the episodical dialogue and prophecy of
Henry touching young Richmond, Act iv. sc. 6 :

"Come hither, pretty lad: If heavenly powers
Do aim aright to my divining thoughts,
Thou, i)retly boy. shalt prove tliis country's bliss."

It were needless to urge how out of place these things
are, save as bespeaking a continuation of the subject, and
just such a continuation, withal, as we have in Richard III.
In the latter play the seeds, which had been thus dropped
for future bearing, "become the hatch and brood of time."
Among the very first things we meet with therein is the
avowal of "inductions dangerous" already set on foot in
fulfilment of the promise touching Clarence. And in Act
iv. sc. 2, we have Richard remembering how Henry

"Did prophesy that Richmond should be king.
When Richmond was a little peevish boy."

And the latter play abounds quite unusually in references
to what was said and done in the former. For instance, in
Act i. sc. 4f, we find that Clarence has been dreaming of
his perjury to Warwick, and of his stabbing Prince Ed-
ward in the field by Tewksbury ; both which events oc-
curred in Act V. scenes 1 and 5 of the preceding play.
Again, in the former play. Act i. sc. 4, we have the nap-
kin dipped in Rutland's blood, and given to his father, and
York saying to his tormentors, who had mockingly
crowned him with paper, — "Here, take the crown, and with
the crown my curse," — and when the savage cruelties are
over, Margaret says, — "What ! weeping-ripe, my lord
Northumberland.''" All which things are minutel}'^ re-
ferred to in Act i. sc. 3, of the latter play, where INIargaret
is put to a recollection of her cruelty, Buckingham telling
her how "Northumberland, then present, wept to see it
and Richard reminding her of

"The curse my noble father laid on thee,
When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper,
And with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes;

XXV



5



Introduction THE SECOND PART OF

And then, to dry them, gav'st the duke a clout
Steep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland !"

These things, to be sure, are all just what we might ex-
pect from an author, continuing his own work, with the
same characters and the same course of events, and writing
under a vivid remembrance of what he had formerly set
forth. In this case, and in this alone, it was natural that
the two plays in question should be thus closely knit to-
gether by mutual references, the weak beginnings of things
suggesting the thought of distant results, and the harvest
putting the reapers in mind hovv^ and what they had sown.
And so it might be shown that the substance and body
of Richard III is in great part but a development of things
presignified in the foregoing play. The continuing of
Margaret on the scene, which is all against the truth of
history, was to the very end, apparently, that the parties
might have a terrible present remembrancer of their former
deeds ; even as the manhood of Richard was by many years
anticipated for the seeming purpose of carrying on a live-
lier recollection of the first beginnings into the final issues
of this multitudinous tragedy.

The unity and continuity of the characterization will be
better made appear in our Introduction to the Third Party
when we come to speak of the characters in detail. For
the present, suffice it to say, on this score, that in Richard
preeminently, and proportionably in several others, the
Second and Third Paris, in their original form, exemplify
in large measure Shakespeare's most peculiar method of
conceiving and working out character. Strong indeed
must be the external evidence, to persuade us that any
mind but Shakespeare's could have originated and ex-
pressed the conception of that terrible man, — so merry-
hearted, subtle-witted, and bloody-handed, whose mental
eflicacy turns perjury, murder, and what is v.orse, if aught
worse there be, to poetry, — as he grows up from 3'outh to
manhood in the two plays under consideration, at once the
offspring and the avenger of civil butchery.

As to the general style and toning of these plays, their

xxvi



KING HENRY VI Introduction

logical and metrical cast and complexion, nothing better,