the whole realme would fave my lyfe, I am able either by pollicie to get it, or by riches to bye it. Fye! will not death be hyered, nor will money do nothynge?" From this the writer of the old play formed these lines:

"O death, if thou wilt let me live

"But one whole year, I'll give thee as much gold
"As will purchase fuch another island."

which Shakspeare new-modelled thus:

"If thou be'ft death, I'll give thee England's treasure, Enough to purchase such another island,

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"So thou wilt let me live, and feel no pain."

If Shakspeare had been the author of The First Part of the Contention, &c. finding in his Holinfhed the name Hun, he would either have preferved it, or foftened it to Hune. Working on the old play, where he found the name of Hum, which founded ridiculous to his ear, he changed it to Hume. But whoever the original writer of the old play was, having used the name of Hum, he must have formed his play on Hall's Chronicle, where alone that name is found. Shakspeare therefore having made Holinfhed, and not Hall, his guide, could not have been the writer of it.

It may be remarked, that by the alteration of this priest's name, he has deftroyed a rhyme intended by the author of the original play, where Sir John begins a foliloquy with this jingling line:

"Now, Sir John Hum, no word but mum : "Seal up your lips, for you must filent be." which Shakspeare has altered thus:

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But how now, Sir John Hume?

"Seal up your lips, and give no words but mum."

Lines rhyming in the middle and end, fimilar to that above quoted, are often found in our old English plays, (previous to the time of Shakspeare,) and are generally put into the mouths of priests and friars.

It has already been observed, that in the original play on which The Second Part of King Henry VI. is founded," Abradas, the Macedonian pirate," is mentioned. This hero does not appear in Shakspeare's new-modelled play, " Bargulus, the strong Illyrian pirate," being introduced in his room. Abradas is fpoken of (as Mr. Steevens has remarked) by Robert Greene, the very person whom I suppose to have been one of the joint au thors of the original plays, in a pamphlet, entitled Penelope's Web, 1589:-" Abradas, the great Macedonean pirate, thought every one had a letter of mart that bare fayles in the ocean." Of this pirate or his achievements, however celebrated he may VOL.

XIV.

S

have been, I have not found the slightest trace in any book whatfoever, except that above quoted: a fingular circumftance, which appears to me ftrongly to confirm my hypothesis on the prefent fubject; and to fupport my interpretation of Greene's words in his Groatsworth of Witte, in a former part of the prefent difquifition.

However this may be, there are certainly very good grounds for believing that The First Part of the Contention of the Two Houfes of York and Lancaster, &c. and The true Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, were written by the author or authors of the old King John, printed in 1591.

In The true Tragedie &c. we find the following lines: "Let England be true within itself,

"We need not France, nor any alliance with her." The firft of thefe lines is found, with a very minute variation, in the old King John, where it runs thus :

"Let England live but true within itself,—.”

Nor is this the only coincidence. In the defervedly admired fcene in which Cardinal Beaufort's death is reprefented, in the original play, (as well as in Shakspeare's Second Part of King Henry VI) he is called upon to hold up his hand, as a proof of his confidence in God: ·

"If thou dieft affured of heavenly bliffe,

"Hold up thy hand, and make fome fign to us.

[The Cardinal dies. "O' fee, he dies, and makes no fign at all:

"O God, forgive his foule!"

I quote from the original play.-It is remarkable that a fimilar proof is demanded in the old play of King John also, when that king is expiring:

Again:

"Then, good my lord, if you forgive them all,
"Lift up your hand, in token you forgive."

"And figne thou diest the servant of the Lord,
"Lift up thy hand, that we may witnesse here
"Thou dieft the fervant of our Saviour Chrift.-
"Now joy betide thy foul!"

This circumftance appears to me to add confiderable support to my conjecture.

One point only remains. It may be asked, if The First Part of King Henry VI. was not written by Shakspeare, why did Heminge and Condell print it with the rest of his works? The only way that I can account for their having done fo, is by fuppofing, either that their memory at the end of thirty years was not accurate concerning our author's pieces, as appears indeed

evidently from their omitting Troilus and Creffida, which was not recollected by them, till the whole of the first folio, and even the table of contents, (which is always the last work of the prefs,) had been printed; or, that they imagined the infertion of this hiftorical drama was neceffary to understanding the two pieces that follow it; or laftly, that Shakspeare, for the advantage of his own theatre, having written a few lines in The First Part of King Henry VI. after his own Second and Third Part had been played, they conceived this a fufficient warrant for attributing it, along with the others, to him, in the general collection of his works. If Shakspeare was the author of any part of this play, perhaps the second and the following scenes of the fourth A&t were his; which are for the most part written in rhyme, and appear to me fomewhat of a different complexion. from the reft of the play. Nor is this the only inftance of their proceeding on this ground; for is it poffible to conceive that they could have any other reason for giving Titus Andronicus a place in their edition of Shakspeare's works, than his having written twenty or thirty lines in that piece, or having retouched a few verfes of it; if indeed he did so much?

Shakspeare's referring in the Epilogue to King Henry V. which was produced in 1599, to these three parts of King Henry VI. of which the firft, by whom foever it was written, appears from the teftimony of a contemporary to have been exhibited with great applause ;* and the two latter having been, as I conceive, eight years before new-modelled and almoft re-written by our author, we may be confident were performed with the most brilliant fuccefs; his fupplicating the favour of the audience to his new play of King Henry V. "for the fake" of these old and popular dramas, which were fo clofely connected with it, and in the compofition of which, as they had for many years been exhibited, he had fo confiderable a fhare; the connection between the last scene of King Henry VI. and the first scene of King Richard III. the Shakspearian diction, verfification, and figures, by which The Second and Third Part of K. Henry VI. are diftinguifhed; "the easiness of expreffion and the fluency of numbers," which, it is acknowledged, are found here, and were poffeffed by no other author of that age; all these circumstances are accounted for by the theory now stated, and all objections † that have been founded upon them, in my apprehension, vanish away.

On the other hand, the entry on the Stationers' books of the

* See p. 231 of this Differtation.

See these feveral objections ftated by Dr. Johnson in the notes at the end of The Third Part of King Henry VI.

old play, entitled The First Part of the Contention of the Two Houfes of Yorke and Lancaster, &c. without the name of the author; that piece, and The true of Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke, &c. being printed in 1600, anonymously; their being founded on the Chronicle of Hall, who was not Shakspeare's hiftorian, and represented by the fervants of Lord Pembroke, by whom none of his uncontefted dramas were represented; the colour, diction, and verfification of these old plays, the various circumstances, lines and speeches, that are found in them, and not in our author's new-modification of them, as published in folio by his original editors; the resemblances that have been noticed between his other works and fuch parts of these dramas as are only exhibited in their folio edition; the discordances (in matters of fact) between certain parts of the old plays printed in quarto, and Shakspeare's undoubted performances; the tranfpofitions that he has made in these pieces; the repetitions; and the peculiar Shakspearian inaccuracies, and phrafeology, which may be traced in the folio, and not in the old quarto plays; these and other circumftances, which have been ftated in the foregoing pages, form, when united, fuch a body of argument and proofs, in fupport of my hypothefis, as appears to me, (though I will not venture to affert that "the probation bears no hinge or loop to hang a doubt on,") to lead directly to the door of truth.

It it obfervable that several portions of the English History had been dramatized before the time of Shakspeare. Thus, we have King John in two parts, by an anonymous writer; Edward I. by George Peele; Edward II. by Chriftopher Marlowe ; Edward III. anonymous; Henry IV. containing the depofition of Richard II. and the acceffion of Henry to the crown, anonymous;* Henry V. and Richard III. both by anonymous authors. Is it not then highly probable, that the whole of the ftory of Henry VI. had alfo been brought upon the scene? and that the first of the plays now in question, formerly (as I believe) called The Hiftorical Play of King Henry VI. and now named The Firft Part of King Henry VI. as well as The First Part of the Contention of the Two Houfes of Yorke and Lancaster, &c. and The true Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, &c. (which three pieces comprehend the entire reign of that King from his birth to his death,) were the compofition of some of the authors, who had produced the hiftorical dramas above enumerated?

In confequence of an hafty and inconfiderate opinion formed by Mr. Pope, without any minute examination of the subject,

* See the Prolegomena to King Richard II. Vol. XI.

+ Entered on the Stationers' books in 1594.

King John in two parts, printed in 1591, and The old Taming of the Shrew, which was entered at Stationers' Hall in 1594, and printed in 1607, paffed for half a century for the compofition of Shakspeare. Further inquiries have shown that they. were the productions of earlier writers) and perhaps a more profound investigation of this fubject than I have been able to make, may hereafter prove decifively, that the first of the three Henries printed in folio, and both the parts of The Whole Contention of the Two famous Houfes of Yorke and Lancaster, as exhibited in quarto, and printed in 1600, ought to be classed in the fame predicament with the two old plays above mentioned. For my own part, if it fhould ever be thought proper to reprint the old dramas on which Shakspeare founded fome of his plays, which were published in two volumes a few years ago, I have no doubt that The First Part of the Contention of the Two Houfes of Yorke and Lancaster, &c. and The true Tragedie of the Duke of Yorke, &c. fhould be added to the number.

Gildon fomewhere fays, that" in a conversation between Shakfpeare and Ben Jonson, Ben afked him the reason why he wrote his hiftorical plays." Our author (we are told) replied, that "finding the nation generally very ignorant of hiftory, he wrote them in order to inftruct the people in that particular." This anecdote, like many other traditional ftories, ftands on a very weak foundation; or to fpeak more juftly, it is certainly a fiction. The malignant Ben does indeed, in his Devil's an Afs, 1616, fneer at our author's hiftorical pieces, which for twenty years preceding had been in high reputation, and probably were then the only historical dramas that had poffeffion of the theatre; but from the lift above given, it is clear that Shakspeare was not the first who dramatized our old chronicles; and that the principal events of the English Hiftory were familiar to the ears of his audience, before he commenced a writer for the ftage:* though undoubtedly

* This point is established not only by the lift referred to, but by a paffage in a pamphlet already quoted, entitled Pierce Pennilesse his Supplication to the Devil, written by Thomas Nafhe, quarto, 1592: "Whereas the afternoone being the eldest time of the day, wherein men that are their own mafters (as gentlemen of the Court, the Innes of court, and the number of captaines and foldiers about London) do wholly beftow themselves upon pleafure, and that pleasure they divide (how virtuously it skilles not,) into gaming, following of harlots, drinking, or seeing a play; is it not then better, fince of foure extreames all the world cannot keepe them but they will choose one, that they should betake them to the laft, which is Playes? Nay, what if I prove playes to be no extreame, but a rare exercise of vertue? First, for the subject of them; for the most part it is borrowed out of our ENGLISH CHRONICLES, wherein our fore-fathers' valiant actes, that have been long buried in ruftie braffe, and worme eaten bookes, are revived, and they themselves raifed from the grave of oblivion, and brought to plead their aged honours in open prefence;