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vertible proof that thefe pieces were originally and entirely written by Shakspeare. "Who" (fays Mr. Capell,) "fees not the future monfter, and acknowledges at the fame time the pen that drew it, in these two lines only, fpoken over a king who lies ftabb'd before him, [i. e. before Richard duke of Glofter,]— "What, will the afpiring blood of Lancaster

"Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted.” let him never pretend to difcernment hereafter, in any case of this nature.'

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The two lines above quoted are found in The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, &c. on which, according to my hypothefis, Shakspeare's Third Part of K. Henry VI. was formed. If therefore thefe lines decifively mark the hand of Shakspeare, the old as well as the new play must have been written by him, and the fabrick which I have built with some labour, falls at once to the ground. But let not the reader be alarmed; for if it fuffers from no other battery but this, it may laft till the crack of doom." Marlowe, as Dr. Farmer obferves to me, has the very fame phraseology in King Edward II:

66

66

fcorning that the lowly earth

Should drink his blood, mounts up to the air."

and in the fame play I have lately noticed another line in which we find the very epithet here applied to the pious Lancastrian king:

"Frown'ft thou thereat, afpiring Lancaster ?"

So much for Mr. Capell's irrefragable proof. It is not the proper business of the prefent effay to enter further into this fubject. I merely feize this opportunity of faying, that the preceding paffages

now incline me to think Marlowe the author of The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and perhaps of the other old drama alfo, entitled The First Part of the Contention of the two famous Houfes of Yorke and Lancaster.

The latter drama was entered on the Stationers' books by T. Millington, March 12, 1593-4. This play, however, (on which The Second Part of King Henry VI. is formed,) was not then printed; nor was The true Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, &c. on which Shakspeare's Third Part of King Henry VI. is founded,' entered at Stationers' Hall at the fame time: but they were both printed anonymously by Thomas Millington, in quarto, in the year 1600.

A very ingenious friend has fuggefted to me, that it is not probable that Shakspeare would have ventured to use the ground-work of another dramatist, and form a new play upon it, in the lifetime of the author or authors. I know not how

much weight this argument is entitled to. We are certain that Shakspeare did tranfcribe a whole fcene almost verbatim from The old Taming of a Shrew, and incorporate it into his own play on the fame fubject; and we do not know that the author of the original play was then dead. Suppofing however this argument to have fome weight, it does not tend in the flighteft degree to overturn my hypothefis that The Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI. were formed on the two preceding dramas, of which I have already given the titles; but merely to fhew, that I am either mistaken in fuppofing that they were new-modelled and rewritten in 1591, or in my conjecture concerning the authors of the elder pieces on which those of VOL. II.

G

Greene died in Septem

Shakspeare were formed. ber 1592, and Marlowe about May 1593. By affigning our poet's part in these performances to the end of the year 1593 or the beginning of 1594, this objection is done away, whether we fuppofe Greene to have been the author of one of the elder plays, and Marlowe of the other, or that celebrated writer the author of them both.

Dr. Farmer is of opinion, that Ben Jonfon particularly alludes in the following verfes to our poet's having followed the fteps of Marlowe in the plays now under our confideration, and greatly furpaffed his original:

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years,
"For, if I thought my judgment were of
"I fhould commit thee furely with thy peers;
"And tell how much thou did'ft our Lily out-shine,
"Or fporting Kyd, or Marlow's mighty line."

From the epithet Sporting, which is applied to Kyd, and which is certainly in fome measure a quibble on his name, it is manifest that he must have produced fome comick piece upon the fcene, as well as the two tragedies of his compofition, which are now extant, Cornelia, and The Spanish Tragedy. This latter is printed, like many plays of that time, anonymously.

Dr. Farmer with

great probability fuggefts to me, that Kyd might have been the author of The old Taming of a Shrew printed in 1594, on which Shakspeare formed a play with nearly the fame title. The praife which Ben Jonfon gives to Shakspeare, that he "outfhines Marlowe and Kyd," on this hypothefis, will

8

Kyd was alfo, I fufpect, the author of the old plays of Hamlet, and of King Leir. See p. 111.

appear to ftand on one and the fame foundation; namely on his eclipfing thofe ancient dramatists by new-modelling their plays, and producing pieces much fuperior to theirs, on ftories which they had 'already formed into dramas, that, till Shakspeare appeared, fatisfied the publick, and were claffed among the happieft efforts of dramatick art.

4. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, 1592.

The poetry of this piece, glowing with all the warmth of a youthful and lively imagination, the many fcenes which it contains of almoft continual rhyme, the poverty of the fable, and want of difcrimination among the higher perfonages, difpofe me to believe that it was one of our author's earliest attempts in comedy."

9 See p. 97, n. 3.

2

Dryden was of opinion that Pericles, Prince of Tyre, was our author's firft dramatick compofition:

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Shakspeare's own mufe his Pericles firft bore,
"The Prince of Tyre was elder than The Moor."

Prologue to the tragedy of Circe, by Charles
D'Avenant, 1677.

Mr. Rowe in his Life of Shakspeare (firft edition) fays, "There is good reafon to believe that the greatest part of Pericles was not written by him, though it is owned fome part of it certainly was, particularly the last act.” I have not been able to learn on what authority the latter affertion was grounded. Rowe in his fecond edition omitted the paffage.

Pericles was not entered in the Stationers' books till May 2, 1608, nor printed till 160g; but the following lines in a metrical pamphlet, entitled Pimlyco, or Runne

It seems to have been written, while the ridicu lous compofitions, prevalent among the hiftrionick ́tribe, were ftrongly impreffed by novelty on his mind. He would naturally copy thofe manners firft, with which he was firft acquainted. The ambition of a theatrical candidate for applause he has happily ridiculed in Bottom the weaver. But among the more dignified perfons of the drama we

Red-cap, 1595, afcertain it to have been written and exhibited on the flage, prior to that year:

"Amazde I ftood to fee a crowd

"Of civil throats ftretch'd out fo lowd:
66 (As at a new play,) all the roomes
"Did fwarme with gentiles mix'd with groomes;
"So that I truly thought all these

66 Came to fee Shore or Pericles."

66

The play of Jane Shore is mentioned (together with another very ancient piece not now extant) in The Knight of the Burning Pefile, 1613: "I was ne'er at one of these plays before; but I fhould have feen Jane Shore, and my husband hath promifed me any time this twelvemonth to carry me to The Bold Beauchamps." The date of The Bold Beauchamps is in fome meafure afcertained by a paffage in D'Avenant's Playhoufe to be let:

———————There is an old tradition,

"That in the times of mighty Tamburlaine,

"Of conjuring Fouftus, and The Beauchamps Bold, "You poets used to have the fecond day." Tamburlain and Fauftus were exhibited in 1590.

or before

The lamentable end of Shore's wife alfo made a part of the old anonymous play of King Richard III. which was entered in the Stationers' books, June 19, 1594. Both the dramas in which Jane Shore was introduced were probably on the stage foon after 1590; and from the manner in which Pericles is mentioned in the vcrfes above quoted, we may` prefume, that drama was equally ancient and equally well known.

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