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committed against us, our state and peers. Firft, for thy haynous crimes thou shalt two daies in London do penance barefoot in the Streets, with a white Sheete about thy bodie, and a wax taper burning in thy hand: that done, thou shalt be banished for ever into the Isle of Man, there to end thy wretched daies; and this is our fentence irrevocable.-Away with her." But in Shakfpeare's play, (p. 243,) the King pronounces fentence in verse against the Duchefs and her confederates at the fame time; and only fays in general, that " after three days open penance, the fhall be banished to the Ifle of Man."

In Shakspeare's play, (p. 274,) when the Duke of York undertakes to fubdue the Irish rebels, if he be furnished with a fufficient army, Suffolk fays, that he "will fee that charge performed." But in the old play the Queen enjoins the Duke of Buckingham to attend to this bufinefs, and he accepts the office.

In our author's play Jack Cade is defcribed as a clothier, in the old play he is " the dyer of Ashford.” In the fame piece, when the King and Somerfet appear at Kenelworth, a dialogue paffes between them and the Queen, of which not one word is preferved in the correfponding scene in The Second Part of King Henry VI. (p. 357.) In the old play, Buckingham states to the King the grounds on which York had taken up arms; but in Shakspeare's piece, (p. 373,) York himself affigns his reafons for his conduct.

In the old play near the conclufion, young Clifford when he is preparing to carry off the dead body of his father, is affaulted by Richard, and after putting him to flight, he makes a speech confifting of four lines. But in Shakspeare's play, (p. 389,) there is no combat between them, nor is Richard introduced in that scene. The four lines therefore above mentioned are neceffarily omitted.

In the old play the Queen drops her glove, and finding the Duchefs of Glotter makes no attempt to take it up, the gives her a box on the ear.

"Give me my glove; why, minion, can you not see ?" But in Shakspeare's play, (p. 210,) the Queen drops not a glove, but a fan:

"Give me my fan: What, minion, can you not?"

In Shakspeare's Second Part of King Henry VI. (p. 311,) Suffolk difcovers himself to the Captain who had seized him, by fhowing his George. In the old play he announces his quality by a ring, a feal-ring we may fuppofe, exhibiting his arms. fame scene of Shakspeare's play, he obferves that the Captain threatens more

"Than Bargulus, the ftrong Illyrian pyrate.” But in the elder drama Suffolk fays, he

In the

"Threatens more plagues than mighty Abradas,
"The great Macedonian pirate."

In the fame scene of the original play the Captain threatens to fink Suffolk's fhip; but no fuch menace is found in Shakfpeare's play.

In The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke, &c. Richard (afterwards Duke of Glofter,) informs Warwick that his father the Earl of Salisbury was killed in an action which he describes, and which in fact took place at Ferrybridge in Yorkshire. But Shakspeare in his Third Part of King Henry VI. (p. 73,) formed upon the piece above mentioned, has rightly deviated from it, and for father fubftituted brother, it being the natural brother of Warwick, (the baftard fon of Salisbury,) that fell at Ferrybridge. The Earl of Salisbury, Warwick's father, was beheaded at Pomfret.

In the fame old play a fon is introduced who has killed his father, and afterwards a father who has killed his fon. King Henry, who is on the stage, says not a word till they have both appeared, and spoken; he then pronounces a speech of seven lines. But in Shakspeare's play (p. 85,) this fpeech is enlarged, and two speeches formed on it; the firft of which the King fpeaks after the fon has appeared, and the other after the entry of the father.

In our author's play, (p. 134,) after Edward's marriage with Lady Grey, his brothers enter, and converse on that event. The King, Queen, &c. then join them, and Edward asks Clarence how he approves his choice. In the elder play there is no previous dialogue between Glofter and Clarence; but the fcene opens with the entry of the King, &c. who defires the opinion of his brothers on his recent marriage.

In our author's play (p. 116,) the following line is found: "And fet the murderous Machiavel to school." This line in The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke, &c. ftood thus:

"And fet the afpiring Catiline to school."

Catiline was the perfon that would naturally occur to Peele or Greene, as the most splendid claffical example of inordinate ambition; but Shakspeare, who was more converfant with English books, fubftituted Machiavel, whofe name was in fuch frequent ufe in his time that it became a specifick term for a confummate politician; and accordingly he makes his hoft in The Merry Wives of Windfor, when he means to boast of his own fhrewdpefs, exclaim, "Am I fubtle? am I a Machiavel ?"

Many other variations beside those already mentioned might

* See Vol. XIII. p. 169, n. 7.

be pointed out; but that I may not weary the reader, I will only refer in a note to the most striking diverfities that are found be tween Shakspeare's Second and Third Part of King Henry VI. and the elder dramas printed in quarto.*

The fuppofition of imperfect or fpurious copies cannot account for fuch numerous variations in the circumftances of these pieces; (not to infift at prefent on the language in which they are clothed ;) so that we are compelled (as I have already observed) to maintain, either that Shakspeare wrote two plays on the ftory which forms his Second Part of King Henry VI. a hasty sketch, and an entirely diftinct and more finished performance; or else we must acknowledge that he formed that piece on a foundation laid by another writer, that is, upon the quarto copy of The First Part of the Contention of the Two Houfes of Yorke and Lancaster, &c.—and the fame argument precisely applies to The Third Part of King Henry VI. which is founded on The true Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, &c. printed in quarto, 1600.

Let us now advert to the Refemblances that are found in these pieces as exhibited in the folio, to paffages in our author's undifputed plays; and alfo to the Inconfiftencies that may be traced between them; and, if I do not deceive myself, both the one and the other will add confiderable fupport to the foregoing obfervations.

In our author's genuine plays, he frequently borrows from himself, the fame thoughts being found in nearly the fame expreffions in different pieces. In The Second and Third Part of King Henry VI. as in other dramas, these coincidencies with his other works may be found;† and this was one of the circumstances that once weighed much in my mind, and convinced me of their authenticity. But a collation of these plays with the old pieces on which they are founded, has fhewn me the fallacy by which I was deceived: for the paffages of these two parts of King Henry VI. which correfpond with others in our author's undifputed plays, exift only in the folio copy, and not in the quarto; in other words, in those parts of these new-modelled

*See The Second Part of King Henry VI. p. 202, n. 7; p. 214, n. 6; p. 217, n. 1; p. 220, n. 6; p. 242, n.3; p. 265, n.1; p. 272, n. 5; p. 277, n. 5; p. 309, n. 8; p. 311, n.2; p. 317, n. 3; p. 352, n. 5; p. 358, n. 4; p. 373, n. 2 and 3; p. 394, n. 1.-Third Part of King Henry VI. p. 10, p. 16, n. 2; p. 23, n. 6; p. 25, n. 9; p. 27, n. 2; p. 64, p. 77, n. 1; p. 83, n. 4; p. 117, n. 5; p. 123, n. 5; p. 134, n. 8; p. 142, n. 7; p. 143, n. 8 and 9; p. 146, n. 6; p. 149, n. 3; p. 165, n. 3; p. 184, n. 3.

n. 9; p. 13, n. 5;

n. 2; p. 73, n. 3;

+ See The Second Part of King Henry VI. p. 187, n.6; p. 207, n. 3; p. 299, n. 5; p. 306, n. 2; p. 320, n. 6; p. 353, n. 5; p. 395, n. 4.----Third Part, p. 80, n. 6; p. 100, n. 6; p. 188, n. 9; p. 193, n. 2.

pieces, which were of Shakspeare's writing, and not in the originals by another hand, on which he worked. This, I believe, will be found invariably the case, except in three instances.

The first is, "You have no children, butchers;" which is, it must be acknowledged, in The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke, &c. 1600; (as well as in The Third Part of King Henry VI.) and is also introduced with a flight variation in Macbeth.*

Another inftance is found in King John. That king, when charged with the death of his nephew, asks

"Think you, I bear the fhears of destiny?

"Have I commandment on the pulse of life?"

which bears a ftriking resemblance to the words of Cardinal Beaufort in The First Part of the Contention of the Two Houses, &c. which Shakspeare has introduced in his Second Part of King Henry VI:

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- Died he not in his bed?

"Can I make men live whe'r they will or no?"

The third instance is found in The true Tragedy of Richarde Duke of Yorke, &c. In that piece are the following lines, which Shakspeare adopted with a very flight variation, and inferted in his Third Part of King Henry VI:

66

doves will peck in rescue of their brood."Unreasonable creatures feed their young; "And though man's face be fearful to their eyes, "Yet, in protection of their tender ones, "Who hath not seen them even with those fame wings "Which they have sometimes ufed in fearful flight, "Make war with him that climb'd unto their nest, "Offering their own lives in their young's defence ?" So, in our author's Macbeth:

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the poor wren—

"The most diminutive of birds, will fight,

"Her young ones in the nest, against the owl."

But whoever recollects the various thoughts that Shakspeare has borrowed from preceding writers, will not be furprized that in a fimilar fituation, in Macbeth, and King John, he should have used the expreffions of an old dramatist, with whose writings he had been particularly converfant; expreffions too, which he had before embodied in former plays: nor can, I think, thefe three inftances much diminish the force of the foregoing obfervation. That it may have its full weight, I have in the present edition distinguished by afterisks all the lines in The Second and Third Part of King Henry VI. of which there is no trace in the

* See p. 197 of this volume, and Vol. X. 249, n.7.

the old quarto plays, and which therefore I fuppofe to have been written by Shakspeare. Though this has not been effected without much trouble, yet, if it fhall tend to fettle this long-agitated queftion, I shall not confider my labour as wholly thrown away.

Perhaps a fimilar coincidency in The First Part of King Henry VI. may be urged in oppofition to my hypothefis relative to that play. "Lean famine, quartering fteel, and climbing fire," are in that piece called the attendants on the brave Lord Talbot; as, in Shakspeare's King Henry V. " famine, sword, and fire, are leafh'd in like hounds, crouching under the martial Henry for employment." If this image had proceeded from our author's imagination, this coincidency might perhaps countenance the fuppofition that he had fome hand at least in that fcene of The First Part of King Henry VI. where these attendants on war are perfonified. But that is not the cafe; for the fact is, that Shakspeare was furnished with this imagery by a paffage in Holinfhed, as the author of the old play of King Henry VI. was by Hall's Chronicle: "The Goddeffe of warre, called Bellonas-hath thefe three hand-maides ever of neceffitie attendyng on her, bloud, fyre, and famine.*"

In our prefent inquiry, it is undoubtedly a very ftriking circumftance that almost all the paffages in The Second and Third Part of King Henry VI. which resemble others in Shakspeare's undifputed plays, are not found in the original pieces in quarto, but in his Rifacimento published in folio. As thefe Refemblances to his other plays, and a peculiar Shakspearian phrafeology, afcertain a confiderable portion of these disputed dramas to be the production of Shakspeare, fo on the other hand certain paffages which are difcordant (in matters of fact) from his other plays, are proved by this difcordancy, not to have been compofed by him; and thefe difcordant paffages, being found in the original quarto plays, prove that thofe pieces were compofed by another writer.

Thus, in The Third Part of King Henry VI. (p. 105,) Sir John Grey is faid to have loft "his life in quarrel of the house of York;" and King Edward ftating the claim of his widow, whom he afterwards married, mentions, that his lands after the battle of Saint Albans, (February 17, 1460-1,) "were feized on by the conqueror. Whereas, in fact, they were feized on by Edward himself after the battle of Towton, (in which he was conqueror,) March 29, 1461. The conqueror at the second battle of Saint Albans, the battle here meant, was Queen Margaret. This statement was taken from the old quarto play; and, from carelessness was adopted by Shakspeare without any material alteration. But at a subsequent period when he wrote his

* Hall's Chron. Henry VI. fol. xxix.

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