It is undoubtedly true that many passages in The Contention and The True Tragedie are reminiscent of Marlowe and Greene, and that such a passage as 2 Henry VI. (IV. i. 1-11), which occurs for the first time in the Folio, is also strongly Marlowan in character, but this and similar rhetorical sketches may very well have been in existence before 1594, being omitted from the acting version of the play, and hence not found in The Contention. Again, the famous Jack Cade scene (Act IV. ii.) is common to the Quarto and Folio; according to this fourth view it must be attributed to Greene, but there is nothing in the whole of his extant plays to justify the ascription. The most striking speech in the whole of 2, and 3, Henry VI.-viz., York's "She-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of France," is to be found verbatim in the older Quartos. That Marlowe was capable of this and of higher efforts none will deny, but there is in the speech, high-sounding as it is, a certain restraint and sanity, an absence of lyrical effect, which would make one hesitate before assigning it to Marlowe, even if external evidence told in favour of, and not against, his authorship. Weighing carefully all the evidence, one is inclined to see in the Quartos of 1594-5, a garbled shorthand edition of an acting version, popular at the time, perhaps chiefly by reason of Shakespeare's 'additions' to earlier plays, previously unsuccessful, possibly Henry VI. Part III.-Act I. Sc. i. S., M.; Sc. ii. M., M.; Sc. iii. unrevised, M.; Sc. iv. S., M. and (?) G. Act II. Sc. i. M. and (?) S., M. and (?) G.; Sc. ii. (?) M., M., G., and (?) P.; Sc. iii. S. and M., M.; Sc. iv. M., G.; Sc. v. S. and (?) M., G.; Sc. vi. M., M. and G. Act III. Sc. i. S., G.; Sc. ii. S., G. and (?) M.; Sc. iii. (?) M., G. and (?) P. Act IV. Sc. i. S., G.; Sc. ii. M., M.; Sc. iii. S., M.; Sc. iv. S., G.; Sc. v. S., (?) G.; Sc. vi., vii. S., G.; Sc. viii. S., (?) Act V. Sc. i. M., G. and (?) P.; Sc. ii. S., M. and G.; Sc. iii. M., G.; Sc. iv. S., G. and (?) P.; Sc. v vi S., M.; Sc. vii. unrevised, G." the work of Marlowe and Greene, or of some clever disciple; the correct copy of this pirated edition may have served as basis for the revised version which Shakespeare subsequently prepared, though he did not in this instance attempt a thorough recast of his materials: the comparatively few important 'additions' which appear in the Folio version, and only there, may be (i.) Shakespeare's contributions to the older plays before 1594; or (11.) the work of the original author or authors, omitted from the acting version; or (iii.) new matter added by Shakespeare any time between 1594 and 1600 (e.g., 3 Henry VI., v., 11. 1-50).* Date of Composition. (I.) There is no mention of Henry VI. in Mere's famous list in Palladis Tamia (1598), although reference is there made to so doubtful a production as Titus Andronicus; the omission must have been due to the vexed question of authorship, and not to any want of popularity on the part of the plays: as early as 1592 Nash in his "Pierce Penniless" referred to the enthusiasm of Elizabethan playgoers for the Talbot scenes:-" How would it have joyed brave Talbot, the terror of the French, to think that after he had been two hundred years in his tomb he should triumph again on the stage, and have his bones embalmea with the tears of ten thousand spectators (at least at several times) who, in the tragedian that represents his person, behold him fresh bleeding," There can be little doubt that 1 Henry VI. is here referred to, and especially the Shakespearian con *The Cambridge editors put the matter cautiously:-"We cannot agree with Malone on the one hand, that they (the old plays) contain nothing of Shakespeare's, nor with Mr Knight on the other, that they are entirely his work; there are so many internal proofs of his having had considerable share in their composition." tributions to the play. According to Henslowe's Diary • Henry (or Hary, Harey, &c.) the Sixth' was performed as a new play in March 1591; the repeated entries in 1592 fully bear out Nash's eulogy. If, as seems very probable, Henslowe's "Henry VI." is identical with 1 Henry VI., we have the actual date of Shakespeare's additions to an old and crude chronicle drama,' the property of Lord Strange's Company.* (II.) To the same year as Nash's 'Pierce Penniless' belongs Greene's posthumous tract The Groatsworth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance. At the end of the pamphlet, published by Chettle before Dec. 1592, occurs the famous address 'To those gentlemen his quondam acquaintance,' &c. The three playmakers to whom his remarks are directed have been identified as (1) Christopher Marlowe, (2) Thomas Nash (or possibly Lodge), and (3) George Peele. The point of the whole passage is its attack on players in general, and on one player in particular, who was usurping the playwright's province.§ The words 'tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide' parody the line ' O tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide,' which is to be found in both The True Tragedy and 3 Henry VI. (I. iv. 137). Some critics are of opinion that Greene's allusion does not * Shakespeare in all probability belonged to this Company; in 1594 it was merged into the Lord Chamberlain's (vide Halliwell's Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare). † Cp. Shakspere Allusion-Books, Part I. Edited by C. M. Ingleby for The New Shakespeare Society (1874). Vide quotation on the reverse of title-page. Nash, in his "Apologie for Pierce Penniless," tells us that Greene was "chief agent" of Lord Pembroke's Company, "for he wrote more than four other." It is significant that the title-page of Quarto 1 of 'The True Tragedie' expressly states that the play had been acted by this Com pany necessarily imply Shakespeare's authorship of the passage in which the line occurs; this view, however, seems untenable, judging by the manner in which the quotation is introduced. Nevertheless the passage may perhaps show (i.) that Greene himself had some share in The Contention; (ii.) that Marlowe had likewise a share in it; (iii.) that Greene and Shakespeare could not have worked together; and (iv.) that Marlowe and Shakespeare may have worked together. One thing, however, it conclusively provesviz., Shakespeare's connexion with these plays before 1592 Furthermore, in December of the same year, Chettle apologised for the publication of Greene's attack on Shakespeare:-" Myselfe have seene his demeanour no lesse civill, than he exelent in the qualitie he professes; besides, divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing," &c.* It is not likely that the subject of this eulogy could have been a notorious plagiarist; † if, as some maintain, no line in the Quartos can justly be attributed to Shakespeare, he would perhaps have merited Greene's rancour. But it is not so, and it was not so, and God forbid that it should be so !" * Chettle's 'Kind-Heart's Dream? † One does not deny that Greene may possibly have given Shakespeare 'the ground' of these plays, as later on he gave him the stuff for his Winter's Tale. "R. B. Gent." has the following significant verse in a volume entitled Greene's Funeralls (preserved in the Bodleian Library) :— "Greene is the pleasing object of an eye; Greene pleased the eyes of all that looked upon him ; Greene gave the ground to all that wrote upon him ; Nay more, the men that so eclipst his fame, Purloined his plumes; can they deny the same?" (III.) In 1599 Shakespeare concluded his Epilogue to Henry V. with the following lines: 66 Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crowned King Of France and England, did this King succeed; Whose state so many had the managing, That they lost France and made his England bleed : Which oft our stage hath shown: and, for their sake, your fair minds let this acceptance take." In From these words we may infer (i.) that 1 Henry VI. preceded Henry V.; (ii.) that probably the Second and Third Parts of Henry VI. are also referred to; (iii.) that Shakespeare claimed in some degree these plays as his own. (IV.) Finally, the intimate connexion of 2, 3 Henry VI. (and The Contention and The True Tragedie) with the play of Richard III., throws valuable light on the date of composition, and confirms the external and internal evidence for assigning Shakespeare's main contributions to these plays to the year 1591-2, or thereabouts (Cp. Preface to Richard the Third'). Sources of the Plot. The materials for 1, 2, 3 Henry VI. were mainly derived from (i.) Holinshed's Chronicles, and (ii.) Hall's Chronicle; the account of the civil wars in the former work is merely an abridgment of the latter; the author's attention would therefore, naturally, be directed to the chief history of the period covered by the plays [cp. title-page of the first edition, 1548:-"The Union of the two noble and illustre Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke, being long in continual discension for the croune of this noble realme, with all the actes done in bothe the tymes of the princes, bothe of the one linage and of the other, beginnyng at the tyme of Kyng Henry the fowerth, the first Author of this division, and so successively |