class="i2">Oh monstrous man, to harbour such a thought!
Why, love did scorn me in my mother's womb;
And, for I should not deal in her affairs,
She did corrupt frail nature in the flesh,
And plac'd an envious mountain on my back,
Where sits deformity to mock my body;
To dry mine arm up like a wither'd shrimp;
To make my legs of an unequal size.
And am I then a man to be beloved?
Easier for me to compass twenty crowns.
Tut, I can smile, and murder when I smile;
I cry content to that which grieves me most;
I can add colours to the chameleon;
And for a need change shapes with Proteus,
And set the aspiring Cataline to school.
Can I do this, and cannot get the crown?
Tush, were it ten times higher, I'll pull it down."

And here is the companion portrait from "Richard III.":—

The pictures that Hamlet showed his mother were not more unlike than these are like. But Malone's examination was microscopic, and he used so powerful an instrument that he could not distinguish resemblance or difference beyond its field of vision. The result is that he counts among the lines mended by Shakspere those that differ from those in the "Contention" only by a particle or a conjunction. By this "capricious arithmetic," only six lines in the scenes with Jack Cade in the "Second Part of Henry VI." are credited to Shakspere, and we are asked to believe that the man who was to fix the price of bread at "seven half-penny loaves for a penny," to give the "three-hooped pot ten hoops," to "make it felony to drink small beer," was portrayed by Marlowe, or Greene, or Peele, or Lilly, or Kyd, or Nash, or somebody else still more completely forgotten.

If, then, "Henry VI." is "certainly collaborative," a "chronicle history of the earlier kind," as Professor Wendell expressly asserts, it ought to be shown for our certain instruction who was Shakspere's collaborator in the three parts of that drama. This neither he nor any other critic has yet done. Malone says it was Greene or Peele, but, in spite of the established fact that we have abundant remains of both, he cannot determine between them from style, or rhythm, or other peculiarities; Collier "supposes" it was Greene; Dyce "conjectures" it was Marlowe.

On the contrary, it may be conclusively shown that Shakspere is constantly quoting from the "First Part of Henry VI." and the "Contention," as from himself,—adjectives, figures of speech, sentences, phrases. The cardinal in "Henry VI." is called a "scarlet hypocrite," in "Henry VIII." a "scarlet sin." In one play the sentence "I am but shadow of myself" becomes in the other "I am the shadow of poor Buckingham." "My book of memory" in "Henry" is changed to "the table of my memory" in "Hamlet." "Who now is girded with a waist of iron" is repeated in "King John"—"That as a waist do girdle you about." More striking still is the close resemblance between the line in the "First Part"—"'Tis but the short'ning of my life one day" and the line in "Henry V."—"Heaven shorten Harry's happy life one day."

In the "First Part of the Contention" the character described "bears a duke's whole revenue on her back." In "Henry VIII." this is recalled by the line,—they "have broke their backs with laying manors on them"; and in "King John"—"bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs." In "Macbeth" the sentence "Infected minds to their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets" is but a repetition of the line from the "Contention" in which Duke Humphrey's assassin "whispers to his pillow as to him."

"You have no children, devils," is the language of the "Contention"; "he has no children" of "Macbeth."

are the words of the "Contention";

of "Richard III."

Malone suppresses the obvious resemblance between these passages and others like them, and is guilty of the same uncritical conduct in disregarding the classical allusions in the "Second and Third Parts of Henry VI." which he admits were added by Shakspere,—allusions as numerous and striking as those in the "First Part."

Mr. Richard Grant White, after reviewing the argument of Knight, reaches the conclusion that he "demolished Malone's theory," and this conclusion is a sufficient answer to Professor Wendell's unsupported assertion that "Henry VI." is "certainly collaborative."

But Professor Wendell further says that "Greene and Peele were the chief makers of such plays until Marlowe developed the type into his almost masterly 'Edward II.'" We are therefore asked to believe that Shakspere, in the historical plays bearing his name, imitated them or one of them. Examination of the record will best show whether this latest critic has discovered any evidence to support his new charge, that Shakspere "was the most obviously imitative dramatist of all, following rather than leading superficial fashion."

Malone, in his "Chronological Order," says: "'The First Part of King Henry VI.,' which I imagine was formerly known by the name of the