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All the unsigned footnotes in this volume are by the writer of the article to which they are appended. The interpretation of the initials signed to the others is: I. G. = Israel Gollancz, M.A.; H. N. H. Henry Norman Hudson, A.M.; C. H. H.= C. H. Herford, Litt.D.

INTRODUCTION

By HENRY NORMAN HUDSON, A.M.

The Second Part of Henry the Sixth was never issued, that we know of, with that title, or in its present state, till in the folio of 1623, where it is printed with great clearness and accuracy, but without any marking of the acts and scenes. The play, however, is but an enlargement of one that was entered at the Stationers', March 12, 1594, and published the same year with a title-page reading as follows: "The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of York and Lancaster; with the death of the good Duke Humphrey; and the banishment and death of the Duke of Suffolk; and the tragical end of the proud Cardinal of Winchester: With the notable rebellion of Jack Cade; and the Duke of York's first claim unto the crown. London: Printed by Thomas Creede for Thomas Millington; and are to be sold at his shop under St. Peter's Church in Cornwall. 1594."

In regard to The Third Part of Henry the Sixth, the circumstances were so nearly the same as to render it on many accounts advisable to speak of them both together. This, also, is but an enlargement of an older play, which was originally published by itself, the title-page reading thus: "The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, and the death of the good King Henry the Sixth; with the whole contention between the two Houses Lancaster and York: As it was sundry times acted by the Right Honourable the Earl of Pembroke his Servants. Printed at London by P. S. for Thomas Millington, and are to be sold at his shop under St. Peter's Church in Cornwall. 1595." In 1600 both plays were reissued, the text, the titles, and the publisher, being all the same as in the former. It is to be observed that in these two editions no author's name was given. A third issue of both plays was put forth by Thomas Pavier in 1619, on the title-page of which we have the words, - "Newly corrected and enlarged: By William Shakespeare, Gent." As Pavier's text was merely a reprint of Millington's, the words, "newly corrected and enlarged," would seem to infer that the plays were generally known or supposed to have been revised by the author, and that the publisher committed this piece of fraud, in order that his edition might be thought to have the advantage of such revisal. It is not to be supposed that either the withholding of the name in the first two editions, or the giving of it in the third, proves any thing as to the real authorship one way or the other; for we have seen that the earlier editions of the Poet's plays were often anonymous, and that his name was not seldom pretended in case of plays that he had no hand in writing. The First Part of the Contention, and The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, as they were called in the old quartos, have been lately set forth with great care and accuracy by Mr. Knight, in the form of supplements, respectively, to the same plays in their revised and finished state. As we believe Shakespeare to have been the author of the plays in their original form, we shall, for convenience, speak of them henceforth as the quarto-editions of what appeared in the folio of 1623 as the Second and Third Parts of Henry the Sixth.

In the plays, then, thus entitled in the folio, with a few trifling exceptions the entire plan, arrangement, conception, character, and more than half the language word for word, are all the same as in the corresponding quartos. Malone figured out that the two plays, in their present state, contain 6,043 lines; and that of these 1,899, or nearly one-third, were original in the folio, 2,373, something more than a third, were altered from the quarto, and 1,771, which is somewhat less than a third, were the same in both. And he took the pains to mark the lines peculiar to the folio with asterisks, and those altered from the quarto, with inverted commas; leaving those common to both unmarked. In several editions, the Chiswick being one, his marking, though not always correct, has been repeated. In the altered lines, however, a large part, certainly not less than half, of the alterations are very slight, often involving nothing more than the change of an epithet, or the transposition of a word, and nowise affecting the sense. In many cases, moreover, the folio presents a judicious elaboration and expansion of old thoughts, with little or no addition of new ones; so that the difference properly regards but the execution, and scarce touches the conception of the work. In the Second Part, again, the alterations and additions are in the main diffused pretty equally through the whole play; while in the Third Part the additions come much more in large masses, some entire scenes being mostly new in the folio, and others nearly the same as in the quarto. For example, in Act i. of the Third Part, out of 581 lines in all, there are but 141 altered from the quarto, and 104 original in the folio, thus leaving 336 the same in both. And in the fourth scene of that Act the proportion of altered and added lines is considerably less, being just one-fourth of the whole. On the other hand, in the sixth scene of Act iv. the proportion is still more the other way, there being of 102 lines only 14 either taken or altered from the quarto. It will hardly be questioned that the best scenes, the most characteristic, the most Shakespearian,-in the play, are the fourth in Act i., and the sixth in Act v.; and these, as may be seen by our notes, are the very scenes that were least improved or changed in the folio. Perhaps it should be remarked, further, that nearly all the matter of the quartos is retained in the folio, the rejections being very few and small, so that the plays are lengthened just about the amount of the additions made. All together, therefore, we may safely affirm that of the two plays the whole conception and more than half the execution are precisely the same in the quarto and folio editions. Finally, be it observed, that in case of these two plays we have not nearly so great a difference, either of quantity or of quality, between the quartos and the folio, as in case of The Merry Wives of Windsor and King Henry V.

Thus far we have gone upon the supposition, which, to say the least, is not improbable, that the plays in hand were originally written as they stand in the quartos, and were afterwards rewritten by the same hand, which accounts naturally enough for all the differences of the quarto and folio editions; and that the first publication was probably surreptitious, and perhaps made from the original draughts or sketches, after these were superseded on the stage by the revised and finished copies. At all events, that the quartos were in this case unauthorized may be reasonably presumed, from the fact that the only other publishing of Shakespeare's work by Millington was unquestionably fraudulent. Dr. Johnson, however, thinks there is no reason for supposing them to have been printed from the first draughts of Shakespeare; but that they were "copies taken by some auditor, who wrote down during the representation what the time would permit; then, perhaps, filled up some of his omissions at a second or third hearing, and, when he had by this method formed something like a play, sent it to the printer." Perhaps it will be deemed a sufficient answer to this, that there are some passages in the quartos, which are entirely wanting in the folio; and that there are many passages of blankverse, and some of them quite lengthy, standing exactly the same in both: for it is clear that a reporter, as in the case supposed, however much he might omit, would not be very likely to add; and that so correct an arrangement of blank-verse could not well be attained by the ear alone.

Which brings us to the question, whether these plays in their original form were written by Shakespeare. Malone, as was seen in our preceding Introduction, maintains, at great expense of labor and learning, that neither the First Part, nor the quartos of the Second and Third Parts were by Shakespeare; and, moreover, that the originals of the

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