pieces, which were of Shakspeare's writing, and not in the originals by another hand, on which he worked. This, I believe, will be found invariably the cafe, except in three inftances.

The firft is, "You have no children, butchers;" which is, it must be acknowledged, in The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke, &c. 1600; (as well as in The Third Part of King Henry VI.) and is alfo introduced with a flight variation in Macbeth.*

Another inftance is found in King John. That king, when charged with the death of his nephew, afks

"Think you, I bear the fhears of destiny?

"Have I commandment on the pulfe of life?"

which bears a ftriking resemblance to the words of Cardinal Beaufort in The First Part of the Contention of the Two Houses, &c. which Shakspeare has introduced in his Second Part of King Henry VI:

- Died he not in his bed?

"Can I make men live whe'r they will or no?"

The third inftance is found in The true Tragedy of Richarde Duke of Yorke, &c., In that piece are the following lines, which Shakspeare adopted with a very flight variation, and inferted in his Third Part of King Henry VI:

doves will peck in rescue of their brood.—
"Unreasonable creatures feed their young;
"And though man's face be fearful to their eyes,
"Yet, in protection of their tender ones,

"Who hath not feen them even with those fame wings
"Which they have fometimes ufed in fearful flight,
"Make war with him that climb'd unto their neft,
Offering their own lives in their young's defence?"

So, in our author's Macbeth:

the poor wren—

"The moft diminutive of birds, will fight,

"Her young ones in the neft, against the owl."

But whoever recollects the various thoughts that Shakspeare has borrowed from preceding writers, will not be furprized that in a fimilar fituation, in Macbeth, and King John, he should have used the expreflions of an old dramatist, with whose writings he had been particularly converfant; expreflions too, which he had before embodied in former plays: nor can, I think, thefe three inftances much diminish the force of the foregoing obfervation. That it may have its full weight, I have in the prefent edition distinguished by afterifks all the lines in The Second and Third Part of King Henry VI. of which there is no trace in the

See p. 197 of this volume, and Vol. X. 249, n. 7.

the old quarto plays, and which therefore I fuppofe to have been written by Shakspeare. Though this has not been effected without much trouble, yet, if it fhall tend to fettle this long- agitated queftion, I fhall not confider my labour as wholly thrown away.

Perhaps a fimilar coincidency in The First Part of King Henry VI. may be urged in oppofition to my hypothefis relative to that play." Lean famine, quartering fteel, and climbing fire," are in that piece called the attendants on the brave Lord Talbot; as, in Shakspeare's King Henry V. "famine, fword, and fire, are leafh'd in like hounds, crouching under the martial Henry for employment." If this image had proceeded from our author's imagination, this coincidency might perhaps countenance the fuppofition that he had fome hand at least in that fcene of The First Part of King Henry VI. where these attendants on war are perfonified. But that is not the case; for the fact is, that Shakfeare was furnished with this imagery by a paffage in Holinfhed, as the author of the old play of King Henry VI. was by Hall's Chronicle: "The Goddeffe of warre,

called Bellonas-hath these three hand-maides ever of neceflitie attendyng on her, bloud, fyre, and famine.*"

In our prefent inquiry, it is undoubtedly a very ftriking circumftance that almost all the paffages in The Second and Third Part of King Henry VI. which refemble others in Shakspeare's undifputed plays, are not found in the original pieces in quarto, but in his Rifacimento published in folio. As thefe Refemblances to his other plays, and a peculiar Shakfpearian phrafeology, afcertain a confiderable portion of thefe difputed dramas to be the production of Shakspeare, fo on the other hand certain paffages which are difcordant (in matters of fact) from his other plays, are proved by this difcordancy, not to have been compofed by him; and thefe difcordant paffages, being found in the original quarto plays, prove that those pieces were compofed by another writer.

Thus, in The Third Part of King Henry VI. (p. 105,) Sir John Grey is faid to have loft "his life in quarrel of the houfe of York;" and King Edward ftating the claim of his widow, whom he afterwards married, mentions, that his lands after the battle of Saint Albans, (February 17, 1460-1,) were seized on by the conqueror. Whereas, in fact, they were feized on by Edward himself after the battle of Towton, (in which he was conqueror,) March 29, 1461. The conqueror at the fecond battle of Saint Albans, the battle here meant, was Queen Margaret. This ftatement was taken from the old quarto play; and, from carelessnefs was adopted by Shakspeare without any material alteration. But at a fubfequent period when he wrote his

Hall's Chron. Henry VI. fol. xxix.

King Richard III. he was under a neceffity of carefully examining the English chronicles; and in that play, Act I. fc. iii. he has reprefented this matter truly as it was:

"In all which time, you, and your husband Grey,
"Were factious for the houfe of Lancaster ;-

"(And, Rivers, fo were you ;)—Was not your husband
"In Margaret's battle at Saint Albans flain?"

It is called "Margaret's battle," becaufe fhe was there victorious.

An equally decifive circumftance is furnished by the fame play. In The Third Part of King Henry VI. (p. 131,) Warwick propofes to marry his eldefi daughter (fabella) to Edward Prince of Wales, and the propofal is accepted by Edward; and in a fubfequent scene Clarence fays, he will marry the younger daughter (Anne). In theie particulars Shakspeare has implicitly followed the elder drama. But the fact is, that the Prince of Wales married Anne the younger daughter of the Earl of Warwick, and the Duke of Clarence married the elder, Isabella. Though the author of The true Tragedie of the Duke of Yorke, &c. was here inaccurate, and though Shakspeare too negligently followed his steps,-when he wrote his King Richard III. he had gained better information; for there Lady ANNE is rightly reprefented as the widow of the Prince of Wales, and the youngest daughter of the Earl of Warwick:

"Which done, God take king Edward to his mercy,
"And leave the world to me to bustle in.

"For then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter;
"What though I kill'd her husband, and her father," &c.

i. e. Edward Prince of Wales, and King Henry VI.

King Richard III. A&t I. fc. i.

I have faid that certain paffages in The Second and Third Part of King Henry VI. are afcertained to be Shakspeare's by a peculiar phrafeology. This peculiar phrafeology, without a fingle exception, diftinguishes fuch parts of these plays as are found in the folio, and not in the elder quarto dramas, of which the phrafeology, as well as the verfification, is of a different colour. This obfervation applies not only to the new original matter produced by Shakspeare, but to his alteration of the old. Our author in his undoubted compofitions has fallen into an inaccuracy, of which I do not recollect a fimilar instance in the works of any other dramatist. When he has occafion to quote the fame paper twice, (not from memory, but verbatim,) from negligence he does not always attend to the words of the paper which he has occafion to quote, but makes one of the perfons of the drama recite them with variations, though he holds the very paper

quoted before his eyes. Thus, in All's well that ends well, A& V. fc. iii. Helena fays:

here's your letter; This it fays:

"When from my finger you can get this ring,
"And are by me with child,"-

Yet, as I have obferved in Vol. V. p. 327, n. 6. Helena in A& III. fc. ii. reads this very letter aloud, and there the words are different, and in plain profe: "When thou canft get the ring from my finger, which never fhall come off, and fhow me a child begotten of thy body," &c. In like manner, in the first scene of The Second Part of King Henry VI. Suffolk prefents to the Duke of Glofter, protector of the realm, the articles of peace concluded between France and England. The protector begins to read the articles, but when he has proceeded no further than these words," Item, that the dutchy of Anjou and the county of Maine fhall be released and delivered to the king her father," he is fuddenly taken ill, and rendered incapable of proceeding on which the Bishop of Winchester is called upon to read the remainder of the paper. He accordingly reads the whole of the article, of which the Duke of Glofter had only read a part: "Item, It is further agreed between them, that the dutchies of Anjou and Maine fhall be released and delivered over to the king her father, and the fent," &c. Now though Maine in our old chronicles is fometimes called a county, and fometimes a dutchy, yet words cannot thus change their form under the eyes of two readers: nor do they in the original play, entitled, The First Part of the Contention of the Two Houfes, &c. for there the article as recited by the protector corresponds with that recited by the Bishop, without the most minute variation. "Item, It is further agreed between them, that the dutchies of Anjou and of Maine fhall be released and delivered over to the king her father, and the fent," &c. Thus in the old play fays the Duke, and fo fays the Cardinal after him. This one circumstance, in my apprehenfion, is of fuch weight, that though it stood alone, it might decide the prefent queftion. Our author has fallen into a fimilar inaccuracy in the fourth fcene of the fame Act, where the Duke of York recites from a paper the questions that had been put to the Spirit, relative to the Duke of Suffolk, Somerfet, &c.*

Many minute marks of Shakspeare's hands may be traced in fuch parts of the old plays as he has new-modelled. I at prefent recollect one that muft ftrike every reader who is converfant with his writings. He very frequently ufes adjectives adverbially; and this kind of phrafeology, if not peculiar to him, is found more frequently in his writings than thofe of any of his contem

* See Vol. XIII. p. 222, n. 8.

poraries. Thus I am myself indifferent honeft;"-" as difhonourable ragged as an old faced ancient ;"- “equal ravenous;"" leaves them invifible;" &c.* In The true Tragedie of the Duke of Yorke, &c. the King, having determined to marry Lady Grey, injoins his brothers to use her honourably. But in Shakspeare's play the words are,-" ufe her honourable." So, in Julius Cæfar:

Young man, thou could'ft not die more honourable." In like manner, in The Third Part of King Henry VI. we find this line:

"Is either flain, or wounded dangerous."

but in the old play the words are-" wounded dangerously." In the fame play the word handkerchief is ufed; but in the correfponding fcene in The Third Part of King Henry VI. (p. 51,) Shakspeare has fubftituted the northern term napkin, which occurs fo often in his works, in its room.t

The next circumstance to which I wish to call the attention of those who do not think the prefent investigation wholly incurious, is, the Tranfpofitions that are found in these plays. In the preceding notes I have frequently observed that not only feveral lines, but fometimes whole fcenes, were tranfpofed by Shakspeare. In p. 50, 51, a Meffenger, giving an account of the death of the Duke of York, fays:

"Environed he was with many foes;

"And ftood against them, as the hope of Troy

Against the Greeks, that would have enter'd Troy. "But Hercules himself muft yield to odds ;"—

When this paffage was printed, not finding any trace of the last three lines in the correfponding part of the old play, I marked them inadvertently as Shakspeare's original compofition; but I afterwards found that he had borrowed them from a subsequent fcene on a quite different subject, in which Henry, taking leave of Warwick, fays to him—

"Farewell my Hector, and my Troy's true hope!" and the last line, "But Hercules," &c. is fpoken by Warwick near the conclufion of the piece, after he is mortally wounded in the battle of Barnet.

So, in The true Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, &c. after the Duke has flain Clifford, he fays

Now, Lancafier, fit fure:-thy finews fhrink." Shakspeare has not made use of that line in that place, but

* See Vol. VIII. p. 551, n. 5; and p. 176, n. 6; Vol. VI. p. 318, n. 9. + In Othello both the words---napkin, and handkerchief, may be found. STEEVENS. See p. 152, n. 5; p. 160, n. 5; p. 166, n. 4.