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alternate rhymes; both of which abound in our author's undifputed early plays. This observation indeed may likewife be extended to the second and third part of these hiftorical dramas; and perhaps it may be urged, that if this argument has any weight, it will prove that he had no hand in the compofition of those plays. But there being no alternate rhymes in those two plays may be accounted for, by recollecting that in 1591, Shakspeare had not written his Venus and Adonis, or his Rape of Lucrece; the measures of which perhaps insensibly led him to employ a fimilar kind of metre occafionally in the dramas that he wrote shortly after he had composed those poems. The paucity of regular rhymes must be accounted for differently. My folution is, that working up the materials which were furnished by a preceding writer, he naturally followed his mode : and in the original plays from which these two were formed very few rhymes are found. Nearly the fame argument will apply to the first part; for its date also, were that piece Shakspeare's, would account for the want of alternate rhymes. The paucity of regular rhymes indeed cannot be accounted for by faying that here too our author was following the track of another poet; but the folution is unnecessary; for from the beginning to the end of that play, except perhaps in some scenes of the fourth Act, there is not a fingle print of the footsteps of Shakspeare.

I have already observed, that it is highly improbable that The First Part of the Contention of the Two Houses of York and Lancaster, &c. and The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke, &c. printed in 1600, were written by the author of The First Part of King Henry VI. By whom these two plays were written, it is not here neceffary to inquire; it is sufficient, if probable reasons can be produced for fuppofing this two-part piece not to have been the compofition of Shakspeare, but the work of fome preceding writer, on which he formed those two plays which appear in the first folio edition of his works, comprehending a period of twenty-fix years, from the time of Henry's marriage to that of his death.

II. I now therefore proceed to state my opinion concerning The Second and Third Part of King Henry VI.

"A book entituled, The First Part of the Contention of the Two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancafier, with the Death of the good Duke Humphrie, and the Banishment and Deathe of the Duke of Yorke, and the tragical Ende of the proud Cardinal of Winchester, with the notable Rebellion of Jack Cade, and the Duke of Yorke's first Claime unto the Crown, was entered at Stationers' Hall, by Thomas Millington, March 12, 1593-4. This play, however, (on which The Second Part of King Henry VI. is formed) was not then printed; nor was The true Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the Death of good King Henry the Sixt, &c. on which Shakspeare's Third Part of King Henry VI. is founded) entered at Stationers' Hall at the fame time; but they were both printed for T. Millington in 1600.*

The first thing that strikes us in this entry is, that the name of Shakspeare is not mentioned; nor, when the two plays were published in 1600, did the printer ascribe them to our author in the title-page, (though his reputation was then at the highest,) as furely he would have done, had they been his compofitions.

In a subsequent edition indeed of the same pieces, printed by one Pavier, without date, but in reality in 1619, after our great poet's death, the name of Shakspeare appears; but this was a bookseller's trick, founded upon our author's celebrity; on his having new-modelled these plays; and on the proprietors of the Globe and Blackfriars' theatre not having published Shakspeare's Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI. The very same deception was practised with respect to King John. The old play (written perhaps by the fame person who was the author of The Contention of the Two famous Houses &c.) was printed in 1591, like that piece, anonymously. In 1611, (Shakspeare's King John, founded on the same story, having been probably often acted and admired,) the old piece in two parts was reprinted; and, in order to deceive the purchaser, was faid in the title-page to be written by W. Sh. A fubfequent printer in 1622 grew more bold, and affixed Shakspeare's name to it at full length.

It is observable that Millington, the bookseller, by whom The first Part of the Contention of the Two famous Houses, &c. was entered at Stationers' Hall, in 1593-4, and for whom that piece and The Tragedie of the Duke of York, &c. were printed in 1600, was not the proprietor of any one of Shakspeare's undifputed plays, except King Henry V. of which he published a fpurious copy, that, I think, must have been imperfectly taken down in short hand in the play-house.

The next obfervable circumftance, with respect to these two quarto plays, is, that they are faid, in their title-pages, to have been "fundry times acted by the earle of Pembrooke his fervantes." Titus Andronicus and The old Taming of a Shrew, were acted by the fame company of comedians; but not one of our author's plays is faid, in its title-page, to have been acted by any but the Lord Chamberlain's, or the Queen's, or King's servants.* This circumstance alone, in my opinion, might almost decide the queftion.

* They were probably printed in 1600, because Shakspeare's alterations of them were then popular, as King Leir and his Three Daughters was printed in 1005, because our author's play was probably at that time firft produced.

This much appears on the first superficial view of these pieces; but the passage quoted by Mr. Tyrwhitt from an old pamphlet, entitled Greene's Groatsworth of Witte, &c. affords a still more decisive support to the hypothefis that I am endeavouring to maintain; which, indeed, that pamphlet first suggested to me. As this passage is the chief hinge of my argument, though it has already been printed in a preceding page, it is necessary to lay it again before the reader. -" Yes," says the writer, Robert Greene, (addressing himself, as Mr. Tyrwhitt conjectures with great probability, to his poetical friend, George Peele,) "truft them [the players) not; for there is an upstart crowe BEAUTIFIED WITH OUR FEATHERS, that with his tygres heart wrapt in a player's hide supposes hee is as well able to bombafte 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."-" O tyger's heart, wrapt in a woman's hide!" is a line of the old quarto play, entitled The first Part of the Contention of the two Houses, &c.

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That Shakspeare was here alluded to, cannot, I think, be doubted. But what does the writer mean by calling him " crow beautified with our feathers?" My solution is, that GREENE and PEELE were the joint authors of the two quarto plays, entitled The first Part of the Contention of the Two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, &c. and The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke, &c. or that Greene was the author of one, and Peele of the other. Greene's pamphlet, from whence the foregoing paffage is extracted, was written recently before his death, which happened in September, 1592. How long he and Peele had been dramatick writers, is not precisely afcertained. Peele took the degree of Master of Arts at Oxford, in 1579: Greene took the fame degree in Cambridge, in 1583. Each of them has left four or five plays, and they wrote several others, which have not been published. The earliest of Peele's printed pieces, The Arraignment of Paris, appeared in 1584; and one of Greene's pamphlets was printed in 1583. Between that year and 1591 it is highly probable that the two plays in question were written. I suspect they were produced in 1588 or 1589. We have undoubted proofs that Shakspeare was not above working on the materials of other

His Taming of the Shrew, his King John, and other plays, render any arguments on that point unnecessary. Having therefore, probably not long before the year 1592, when Greene wrote his Dying Exhortation to a Friend, new-modelied and amplified these two pieces, and produced on the stage what, in the folio edition of his works, are called The Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI. and having acquired considerable reputation by them, Greene could not conceal the mortification that he felt at his own fame and that of his associate, both of them old and admired play-wrights, being eclipsed by a new upfiart writer, (for fo he calls our great poet,) who had then first, perhaps, attracted the notice of the publick by exhibiting two plays, formed upon old dramas written by them, confiderably enlarged and improved. He therefore, in direct terms, charges him with having acted like the crow in the fable, beautified himself with their feathers; in other words, with having acquired fame furtivis coloribus, by new-modelling a work originally produced by them and wishing to depreciate our author, he very naturally quotes a line from one of the pieces which Shakspeare had thus re-written; a proceeding which the authors of the original plays considered as an invafion both of their literary property and character. This line, with many others, Shakspeare adopted without any alteration. The very term that Greene uses" to bombast out a blank verse," exactly corresponds with what has been now suggested. This new poet, says he, knows as well as any man how to amplify and swell out a blank verse. Bumbast was a foft stuff of a loofe texture, by which garments were rendered more swelling and protuberant.

men.

* The first edition of Romeo and Juliet, 1597, is faid in its title-page to have been acted "By the right' honourable the L. of Hunidon his fervants." STEEVENS.

Several years after the death of Boiardo, Francesco Berni undertook to new-verfify Boiardo's poem, entitled ORLANDO INNAMORATO. "Berni (as Baretti observes) was not fatisfied with merely making the verfification of that poem better; he interspersed it with many stanzas of his own, and changed almost all the beginnings of the cantos, introducing each of them with some moral reflection arifing from the canto foregoing." What Berni did to Boiardo's poem after the death of its author, and more, I suppose Shakspeare to have done to The First Part of the Contention of the Two Houses of Yorke and Lancafier, &c. and The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke, &c. in the life time of Greene and Peele, their literary parents; and this Rifacimento (as the Italians call it) of these two plays I suppose to have been executed by Shakspeare, and exhibited at the Globe or Blackfriars theatre, in the year 1591.

I have said Shakspeare did what Berni did, and more. He did not content himself with writing new beginnings to the acts;

he new-verfified, he new-modelled, he transposed many of the parts, and greatly amplified and improved the whole. Several lines, however, and even whole speeches which he thought fufficiently polished, he accepted, and introduced into his own work, without any, or with very flight, alterations.

In the present edition, all those lines which he adopted without any alteration, are printed in the usual manner; those speeches which he altered or expanded, are diftinguished by inverted commas; and to all the lines entirely composed by himself, asterisks are prefixed. The total number of lines in our author's Second and Third Part of King Henry VI. is SIX THOUSAND AND FORTY-THREE: of these, as I conceive, 1771 lines were written by fome author who preceded Shakspeare; 2373 were formed by him on the foundation laid by his predeceffors; and 1899 lines were entirely his own compofition.

That the reader may have the whole of the subject before him, I shall here transcribe the fourth scene of the fourth Act of The Third Part of King Henry VI. (which happens to be a short one,) together with the corresponding scene in the original play; and also a speech of Queen Margaret, in the fifth Act, with the original speech on which it is formed. The first specimen will ferve to show the method taken by Shakspeare, where he only new-polished the language of the old play, rejecting fome part of the dialogue, and making fome flight additions to the part which he retained; the second is a striking proof of his facility and vigour of composition, which has happily expanded a thought comprized originally in a very short speech, into thirtyseven lines, none of which appear feeble or fuperfluous.

THE TRUE TRAGEDIE OF RICHARDE DUKE OF YORKE, c. Sign. F. 4. edit. 1600.

Enter the Queene, and the Lord Rivers.

Riv. Tell me, good madam,

Why is your grace so paffionate of late.

Queene. Why, brother Rivers, heare you not the news Of that fuccess king Edward had of late?

Riv. What? lofle of fome pitcht battaile againft Warwick! Tush; fear not, fair queen, but caft these cares afide. King Edwards noble minde his honours doth display; And Warwicke may lose, though then he got the day. Queene. If that were all, my griefes were at an end; But greater troubles will, I feare, befall.

Riv. What? is he taken prifoner by the foe,

To the danger of his royal person then?

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