the Marquis of Montague, the Lord Cromwell, and the son and heir of Lord Say.

In a letter which was written at London four days after the battle of Barnet, the total number killed on both sides is said to have been "more than a thousand." Paston Letters, Vol. II, p. 65. Fabian, the nearest contemporary historian, says 1500.

The custom among our old writers of using Arabick numerals, has been the cause of innumerable errors, the carelessness of a transcriber or printer by the addition of a cipher converting hundreds into thousands. From the inaccuracy in the present instance we have ground to suspect that the numbers said to have fallen in the other battles between the houses of York and Lancaster, have been exaggerated. Sir John Paston who was himself at the battle of Barnet, was probably correct.

15. THE BATTLE OF TEWKSBURY, May 3, 1471, between King Edward and Queen Margaret, in which the Queen was defeated, and she and her son Prince Edward were taken prisoners.

On the next day the Prince was killed by King Edward and his brothers, and Edmond Duke of Somerset beheaded.

KILLED-3032. Shortly afterwards, in an action between the bastard son of Lord Falconbridge and some Londoners, 1092 persons were killed.

16. THE BATTLE OF BOSWORTH, in Leicestershire, August 22, 1485, between King Richard III, and Henry Earl of Richmond, afterwards King Henry VII, in which King Richard was defeated and slain.

KILLED, on the part of Richard, 4013, among whom were John Duke of Norfolk, and Walter Lord Ferrers; on the part of Richmond, 181.

THE TOTAL NUMBER of persons who fell in this contest, was NINETY-ONE THOUSAND AND TWENTY-SIX. Malone.

The three parts of King Henry VI are suspected, by Mr. Theobald, of being supposititious, and are declared, by Dr. Warburton, to be certainly not Shakspeare's. Mr. Theobald's suspicion arises from some obsolete words; but the phraseology is like the rest of our author's style, and single words, of which however I do not observe more than two, can conclude little.

Dr. Warburton gives no reason, but I suppose him to judge upon deeper principle and more comprehensive views, and to draw his opinion from the general effect and spirit of the composition, which he thinks inferior to the other historical plays.

From mere inferiority nothing can be inferred; in the productions of wit there will be inequality. Sometimes judgment will err, and sometimes the matter itself will defeat the artist. Of every author's works one will be the best, and one will be the worst. The colours are not equally pleasing, nor the attitudes equally graceful, in all the pictures of Titian or Reynolds.

Dissimilitude of style and heterogeneousness of sentiment, may sufficiently show that a work does not really belong to the reputed author. But in these plays no such marks of spuriousness are found. The diction, the versification, and the figures, are

Shakspeare's. These plays, considered without regard to characters and incidents, merely as narratives in verse, are more happily conceived, and more accurately finished than those of K. John, Richard II, or the tragick scenes of King Henry IV and V. If we take these plays from Shakspeare, to whom shall they be given? What author of that age had the same easiness of expression and fluency of numbers?

Having considered the evidence given by the plays themselves and found it in their favour, let us now enquire what corroboration can be gained from other testimony. They are ascribed to Shakspeare by the first editors, whose attestation may be received in questions of fact, however unskilfully they superintended their edition. They seem to be declared genuine by the voice of Shakspeare himself, who refers to the second play in his epilogue to King Henry V, and apparently connects the first Act of King Richard III with the last of The Third Part of King Henry VI. If it be objected that the plays were popular, and that therefore he alluded to them as well known; it may be answered, with equal probability, that the natural passions of a poet would have disposed him to separate his own works from those of an inferior hand. And, indeed, if an author's own testimony is to be overthrown by speculative criticism, no man can be any longer secure of literary reputation.

Of these three plays I think the second the best. The truth is, that they have not sufficient variety of action, for the incidents are too often of the same kind; yet many of the characters are well discriminated. King Henry, and his Queen, King Edward, the Duke of Gloucester, and the earl of Warwick, are very strongly and distinctly painted.

The old copies of the two latter parts of King Henry VI, and of King Henry V, are so apparently imperfect and mutilated, that there is no reason for supposing them the first draughts of Shakspeare. I am inclined to believe them copies taken by some auditor who wrote down, during the representation, what the time would permit, then perhaps filled up some of his omissions at a second or third hearing, and, when he had by this method formed something like a play, sent it to the printer Johnson.

So, Heywood, in the Preface to his Rape of Lucrece, (fourth impression) 1630:

:

for though some have used a double sale of their labours, first to the stage and after to the press, for my own part I here proclaim myself ever faithful to the first, and never guilty of the last yet since some of my plays have (unknown to me, and without any of my direction,) accidentally come into the printer's hands, and therefore so corrupt and mangled (copied only by the ear) that I have been as unable to know them as ashamed to challenge them, this therefore I was the willinger," &c. Collins. There is another circumstance which may serve to strengthen Dr. Johnson's supposition, viz. that most of the fragments of Latin verses, omitted in the quartos, are to be found in the folio; and when any of them are inserted in the former, they are shame

fully corrupted and misspelt. The auditor, who understood English, might be unskilled in any other language.

Steevens.

I formerly coincided with Dr. Johnson on this subject, at a time when I had examined the two old plays published in quarto under the title of The Whole Contention of the Two famous Houses of York and Lancaster, in two parts, with less attention than I have lately done. That dramas were sometimes imperfectly taken down in the theatre, and afterwards published in a mutilated state, is proved decisively by the prologue to a play entitled, If you know not Me you know Nobody, by Thomas Heywood, 1623:

66

'Twas ill nurst,

"And vet receiv'd as well perform'd at first;
"Grac'd and frequented; for the cradle age
"Did throng the seats, the boxes, and the stage,
"So much, that some by stenography drew
"The plot, put it in print, scarce one word true:
"And in that lameness it has limp'd so long,
"The author now, to vindicate that wrong,
"Hath took the pains upright upon its feet

"To teach it walk; so please you, sit and see it." But the old plays in quarto, which have been hitherto supposed to be imperfect representations of the second and third parts of King Henry VI, are by no means mutilated and imperfect. The scenes are as well connected, and the versification as correct, as that of most of the other dramas of that time. The fact therefore, which Heywood's Prologue ascertains, throws no light upon the present contested question. Such observations as I have made upon it, I shall subjoin in a distinct Essay on the subject.

Malone.

I have already given some reasons, why I cannot believe, that these plays were originally written by Shakspeare. The question, who did write them? is, at best, but an argument ad ignorantiam. We must remember, that very many old plays are anonymous; and that play-writing was scarcely yet thought reputable: nay, some authors express for it great horrors of repentance.-I will attempt, however, at some future time, to answer this question: the disquisition of it would be too long for this place.

One may at least argue, that the plays were not written by Shakspeare, from Shakspeare himself. The Chorus at the end of King Henry V addresses the audience

For their sake,

"In your fair minds let this acceptance take."

But it could be neither agreeable to the poet's judgment or his modesty, to recommend his new play from the merit and success of King Henry VI.- -His claim to indulgence is, that, though bending and unequal to the task, he has ventured to pursue the story : and this sufficiently accounts for the connection of the whole, and the allusions of particular passages. Farmer.

It is seldom that Dr. Farmer's arguments fail to enforce conviction; but here, perhaps, they may want somewhat of their usual weight. I think that Shakspeare's bare mention of these

pieces is a sufficient proof they were his. That they were so, could be his only motive for inferring benefit to himself from the spectators' recollection of their past success. For the sake of three historical dramas of mine which have already afforded you entertainment, let me (says he) intreat your indulgence to a fourth. Surely this was a stronger plea in his behalf, than any arising from the kind reception which another might have already met with in the same way of writing. Shakspeare's claim to favour is founded on his having previously given pleasure in the course of three of those histories; because he is a bending, supplicatory author, and not a literary bully, like Ben Jonson; and because he has ventured to exhibit a series of annals in a suite of plays, an attempt which till then had not received the sanction of the stage.

I hope Dr. Farmer did not wish to exclude the three dramas before us, together with The Taming of the Shrew, from the num. ber of those produced by our author, on account of the Latin quotations to be found in them. His proofs of Shakspeare's want of learning are too strong to stand in need of such a support.

Steevens.

Though the objections which have been raised to the genuineness of the three plays of Henry the Sixth have been fully considered and answered by Dr. Johnson, it may not be amiss to add here, from a contemporary writer, a passage, which not only points at Shakspeare as the author of them, but also shows, that, however meanly we may now think of them in comparison with his latter productions, they had, at the time of their appearance, a sufficient degree of excellence to alarm the jealousy of the older play-wrights. The passage, to which I refer, is in a pamphlet, entitled, Greene's Groatsworth of Witte, supposed to have been written by that voluminous author, Robert Greene, M. A. and said, in the title-page, to be published at his dying request; probably about 1592. The conclusion of this piece is an address to his brother poets, to dissuade them from writing any more for the stage, on account of the ill treatment which they were used to receive from the players. It begins thus: To those gentlemen, his quondam acquaintance, that spend their wits in making playes, R. G. wisheth a better exercise, &c. After having addressed himself particularly to Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Lodge, (as I guess from circumstances, for their names are not mentioned;) he goes on to a third, (perhaps George Peele;) and having warned him against depending on so mean a stay as the players, he adds: Yes, trust them not; for there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that with his tygres head wrapt in a players hyde, supposes hee is as well able to bombaste out a blanke verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes fac totum is, in his own conceit, the onely Shake-scene in a countrey. There can be no doubt, I think, that Shake-scene alludes to Shakspeare; or that his tygres head wrapt in a players hyde, is a parodie upon the following line of York's speech to Margaret, Third Part of King Henry VI, Act I, sc. iv: "Oh tygres heart, wrapt in a woman's hide."

Tyrwhitt.