Modi la guide to worst bus sivo ouer te m.ir.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

HIS and the This prince's reign which took in the whole

Part of King Henry VI. contain that trou

blesome period of contention between the houses of York and Lancaster: and under that title were these two plays first acted and published. The present play opens with King Henry's marriage, which was in the twenty-third year of his reign [A. D. 1545], and closes with the first battle fought at St. Albans, and won by the York faction, in the thirty-third year of his reign [A. D. 1455]: so that it comprises the

The Conte history and tramos of ten years.

Houses of York and Lancaster was published in qu quarto; the first part in 1591; the cond, or True Tragedy of Richard Duke of Yurk, in 1595; and both were reprinted in 1600. In a plays Mr. Malone has endeavoured to ssertation annexed to these the fact that these two dramas were not originally written by Shakspeare, but by some preceding author or authors before the year 1590; and that apon them Shakspeare formed this and the following drama, altering, retrenching, or amplifying as he thought proper. I will endeavour to in the Statione a brief abstract of the principal arguments. ying as be 1. The entry on the Stationers' books, in 1594, does not mention the name of Shakspeare; nor are the printed with his name in the early editions; but, after the poet's death, an edition was printed by one Pavier without date, but really, in 1619, with the name of Shakspeare on the titlepage. This he has shown to be When Pavier republished The Contention o acted by the earl of common fraudulent practice of the booksellers of that period. the Two Houses, &c. in 1619, he omitted the words as it was Pembrooke his servantes, which appeared o on the original titlepage,-just as on the republication of the old play of King John, in two parts, in 1611, the words as it was acted in the honourable city of London' were omitted; because the omitted words in both cases marked the respective pieces not to be the production of Shakspeare. And, as in King John, the letters W. Sh. were added, in 1611, to deceive the purchaser; so in the republication of The whole Contention, &c. Pavier, having dismissed the words above-mentioned, inserted these-Newly corrected and larged by William Shakspere: knowing that these pieces had been made the groundwork of two other plays; that they had in fact been corrected and enlarged (though not in his copy, which was a mere reprint from the edition of 1600), and exhibited under the titles of the Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI.; and

hoping that this new edition of the original plays would pass for those altered and augmented by Shakspeare, which were then unpublished.

A passage from Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, adduced by Mr. Tyrwhitt, first suggested and strongly supports Malone's hypothesis. The writer, Robert Greene, is supposed to address himself to his poetical friend, George Peele, in these words :Yes, trust them not [alluding to the players], for there is an

upstart crowe BEAUTHI MATEATHERS that, with his

tygres heart wrapt hee is well able to bombaste out a blank verse as the best of you; and, being an absolute Joannes factotum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shakescene in a country. O tyfer's heart wrapt in a woman's hide! is a line in the old quarto play entitled The First Part of the Contention, &c. There seems to be no doubt that the allusion is to Shakspeare, that the old plays may have been the production of Grecue, Peele, and Marlowe, or some of them; and that Greene could not conceal his mortification, at the fame of himself and his associates, al and established playwrights, being eclipsed by a new upstart writer (for so he calls the poet), who perhaps first attracted the notice of the public by exhibiting two plays formed upon old dramas written by them, cons siderably enlarged and improved. 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.

Shakspeare did for the old plays what Berni had before done to the Orlando Innamorato of Boiardo. He wrote new beginnings to the Acts; he new versified, he new modelled, he transposed many of the parts; and greatly amplified and improved the whole. Several lines, however, and whole speeches, which he thought sufficiently pollshed, he accepted, and introduced, without any, or very slight, alterations.

Malone adopted the following expedient to mark these altcratious and adoptions, which has been followed in the present edi. tion:- All those lines which the poet adopted without any alteration are printed in the usual manner; those speeches which he altered or expanded are distinguished by inverted commas; and to all lines entirely composed by himself asterisks are prefixed.

The internal evidences upon which Malone, relies to establish his position are, 1. The variations between the two old plays in quarto, and the corresponding pieces in, the folio eaition of Shak speare's dramatic works, which are of so peculiar a nature as to mark two distinct hands. Some circumstances are mentioned in the old quarte plays, of which there is not the least trace in the folio; and many minute variations occur that prove the pieces in the quarto to have been original and distinct compositions. No copyist or shorthand, writer would invent circumstances totally different from those which appear in Shakspeare's new modelled draughts, as exhibited in the first folia; or insert whole speeches, of which scarcely a trace is found in that edition. In some pla ces a speech in one of these quartos consists of ten or twelve Lines: in Shakspeare's folio the same speech consists perhaps of only half the number. A copyist by car, or an upskilful shorthand writer, might mutilate and exhibit a poet's thoughts or ex pressions imperfectly; but he would not dilate and amplify them, or introduce totally new matter. of instances to prove,

Malone then exhibits a sufficient number of beyond the possibility of doubt, his position so that (as he ob serves) we are compelled to admit either that Shakspeare wrote two sets of plays on the story which forms his Second and Third

Parts of King Henry VI. hasty sketches, and entire

entirely distinct and more finished performances; or else we must acknowledge that he formed his pieces on a foundation laid by another writer or writers; that is upon the two parts of The Contention of the Two Houses of York, &c. It is a striking circumstance that at most all the passages in Second and Third Parts of King mentry which fesemble others in) Shakspearea undisputed Faccimentolin found in the original pieces these resemblances quarto, but in his to his other plays, and a peculiar Shakspearian phraseology, ascertain a considerable portion of these disputed production of that to he poet; 80, on the other hand, discordant (in mat ters of fact) from his other plays, are proved by this discordancy not to have been composed by him and these discordant passages being found in the original quario plays, prove that those pieces were composed by another writer.

It is observable that several portions of been draniatized Vefore the time of Shakspearelish history had

we have

King John, in two parts, by an anonymous writene Edward I. by George Peele; Edward II. by Christopher Marlowe Edward 11). anonymous; Henry IV. containing the deposition of Richard II. and the accession of Henry to the crown, anonymons; Henry V and Richard II. both by anonymous authors. It is therefore highly probable that the whole of the story of Henry VI. had been brought on the scene, and that the first of the plays here printed (formerly called The Historical Play of King Henry VI and now named The First Part of King Henry VI. as well as the Two Parts of the Contention of the Houses of York and Lon caster) were the compositiomas above enumerated. of some of the authors who had produced the historical

Mr. Boswell, speaking of the originals of the second and third of these plays, these compositions, that Marlowe may have had some share in disposed to deny, but I cannot per suade myself that they entirely proceeded from his pen. Some passages are possessed of so much merit, that they can scarcely be ascribed to any one except the most distinguished of Shak speare's predecessors; the tameness of the general style is very different from theculiar characteristics of that poet's mighty line, which are great energy both of thought and language, degenerating too frequently into t The versification appears to me to be amour and extravagance Marlowe, Peele, and Greene, may all of them have had a share in these dramas, is consonant to the frequent practice of the ages of which ample proofs may be found in the extracts from Hens lowe's MS. printed by Mr. Malone,

colour. That

From the passage alluding to these plays in Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, it seems probable that they were produced previous to 1592, but were not printed until they appeared in the folio of

1623.

To Johnson's high panegyric of that impressive scene in this

Schlegel

play, the death of Cardinal Beaufort, we moet be

says It is sublime beyond all praise. Can

named who has drawn aside the curtain of eternity at the close of this life in such an overpowering and awful manner? And yet tion, we have an exemplification of a blessing and a curse in horror with which we are filled, but solemn emo close proximity; the pious king is an image of the heavenly mercy, which even in his last moments labours to enter into the soul of the sinner."

tion;

HUMPHREY, Duke of Gloster, his Unele. no 17 paul CARDINAL BEAUFORT, Bishop of Winchester, great Uncle ot to the King. cons

RICHARD I Plantagenet, Duke of Y

f York:"

EDWARD and RICHARD, his Sons, 19to ad unit (tus) leave

d

Young CLIFFORD, his Son, Vi voll gonna gran

FARL of SALISBURY,

EARL

of WARWICK,

LORD SCALES, Governor of the Tower. LORD SAY.
SIR HUMPHREY STAFFORD, and his Brother

SIR JOHN STANLEY.Had to

A Sea Captain, Master, and Master's Mate, and Wat

TER WHITMORE.

Two Gentlemen, Prisoners with Suffolk.

BOLINGBROKE, a Conjuror. A Spirit raised by him........... THOMAS HORNER, an Armourer. PETER, his Man. Clerk of Chatham. Mayor of St. Albans,

SIMPCOX, an Impostor. Two Murderers.sqlwindeniveta ano de frutash gebiltari

JACK CADE, a Rebel

GEORGE, JOHN, DICK, SMITH the Weaver, MICHAEL, &C

MARGARET, Queen to King Henry,og feld einander u
ELEANOR, Duchess of Gloster.

MARGERY JOURDAIN, a Witch. Wife to Simpcox.

Lords, Ladies, and Attendants; Petitioners, Aldermen, a Beadle, Sheriff, and Officers; Citizens, Prentices, Falconers, Guards, Soldiers, Messengers, &c.

SCENE, dispersedly in various parts of England.