That the editor of F I found the more metrical reading in the MS. which he used is highly probable. But Qq already had altered it, at the expense of regular metre, it is true, but with advantage to the truth of drama. The variation in Qq was probably used on the stage; and, whether it was made by Shakespeare himself or by the actors, it is the only reading which has any consistency with the facts of the scene.

My conclusion, then, is that, while Ff have a metrical advantage over Qq, and their reading may have been originally written by Shakespeare, it does not represent a reading to which Shakespeare could or would have adhered consistently. And this because it is at variance with the probabilities of the drama, and is not quite free in itself from historical error.

I may add a summary of previous editors' conclusions. Malone very justly says, "By neither reading can the truth of history be preserved, and therefore we may be sure that Shakespeare did not mean in this instance to adhere to it." At the opposite pole is Grant White's unqualified praise of Ff reading : it has, he says, "on its side authority, rhythm, and according to the chronicles which Shakespeare followed-historical truth. Equally short-sighted is Delius' defence of Ff as the result of Shakespeare's work with "the authorities open before him": on his theory, Qq would introduce a piratical emendation. The Cambridge editors adopt Qq reading, assuming the supposed coincidence between Ff and history to be accidental, but discovering an inconsistency between lines 1, 2 and line 3. Spedding refuted the latter notion; but upheld Ff on the usual historical assumption, estimating Qq reading as a correction "by some one whose topographical knowledge was superior to his historical." Pickersgill's view is closely allied, though with a slight difference in detail, to the view which I have taken.

APPENDIX IV

ON THE READINGS AT III. IV. 80 AND III. V. 12-21

(1) AT III. iv. 80 Qq read "some see it done" at the end of a line. Ff introduce a new line: "Louell and Ratcliffe, looke that it be done."

(2) In III. v. 12-21 I have adopted Ff reading substantially. For the variations in Qq, see collation ad loc. The difficulty which Qq introduce is in their stage-directions, corresponding to that after line 21, "Enter Catesby with Hastings' head." The conspirators, according to Theobald, are standing on the walls of the Tower; and Catesby is told to "overlook" the walls, ie. to look down and see whether any one is coming. Only four lines later, Gloucester calms Buckingham's pretended agitation at the sound of a drum, with the words “O, O, be quiet, it is Catesby"; and Catesby thereupon enters with Hastings' head. The supposition on which this entry of Catesby, inconsistent even with dramatic probability, can be defended, is that Catesby, overlooking the walls and seeing Hastings' executioners approaching, hastens from the scene, receives the head from them, and reappears bearing it. Even so, the interval is very short indeed between his disappearance and return.

Ff make Catesby introduce the mayor, and remain on the scene. Buckingham hears the drum; Gloucester tells Catesby to overlook the walls, and Ratcliff and Lovel, the executioners deputed in III. iv. 80, enter with the head of Hastings.

The probable explanation of the difference lies in the circumstance that Qq require only one actor on the stage to fill the parts which Ff allot to three. A scarcity of actors very conceivably may have led to a grouping of the parts in the stage version. And here is one of many signs that the original of the Qq text of the play is to be found in such a version and re-arrangement for stage purposes of Shakespeare's text.

However, by the introduction of Ratcliff, Ff reading involves a fresh difficulty. Following the chroniclers, it puts Ratcliff (III. iii.) in charge of the execution of the lords at

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Pontefract, on the same day that Hastings suffers in London (III. iv. 49, 50, etc.) Ratcliff is thus in two widely distant places at once, Pontefract being 179 miles by road from London. The discrepancy would not be noticed by a casual spectator of the play, who would see each scene complete in itself, and would not remember details of place and time. But we cannot imagine Shakespeare making the mistake wilfully. If he did it involuntarily, he would have found it out on revising the play.

Theobald retained Catesby, as Qq had laid down the part, in III. v. In III. iv. he read "Lovel and Catesby, look that it be done." This is in accordance with the stage-directions of Qq, which assign III. iv. 96, 97 to Catesby and III. iv. 104 to Lovel. But in Ff, III. iv. 96, 97 are given to Ratcliff.

To alter Ff reading substantially would be, as the Cambridge editors point out, to take liberties with the text. It is a great improvement on Qq in the point of metre and rhythm. Thus, in the absence of any indication of a satisfactory alternative, Ratcliff must be kept in both passages. It is noticeable that, in III. iv., he speaks only two lines, which might well be given to Lovel; while, in III. v., he says nothing, and is not included in Gloucester's instructions at the end of the scene. Both in Qq and Ff, Lovel alone is necessary to Hastings' execution. The chroniclers make no specific mention of the ministers employed to carry out this sentence. It is not likely that Catesby would have taken an active part in it. He had been Hastings' trusted servant; and, in a play so rhetorical as this, he hardly would have been allowed to die without some word of reproach to the traitor who bids him make haste that the duke may have his dinner.

The only possible conclusion seems to be that, at III. iv. 80, Shakespeare wrote "Ratcliffe" in a moment of forgetfulness, and continued the error in III. v.; that, on the stage, the mistake in III. iv. was recognised, and, in III. v., the parts were cut down from motives of economy; that Qq reproduced his alteration; and that Ff, correcting the misplacement of the lines and the rough prose of Qq, returned, in this case also, to the earlier reading, in spite of its drawbacks.