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Harry (aside). I, for the field is honourable; for he was borne under the hedge; for his father had no house but the Cage.

Cade. I am able to endure much.

George (aside). That's true, I know he can endure anything. For I have seen him whipt two market days together.

Cade. I feare neither sword nor fire.

Will (aside). He need not feare the sword, for his coate is of proofe. Dicke. But methinks he should feare the fire being so often burut in the hand for stealing of sheepe.

Cade. Therefore be brave, for your Captain is brave, and vowes reformation: you shall have seven half-penny loaves for a penny, and the three hoopt pot shall have ten hoopes, and it shall be felony to drink small beere, and if I be king, as king I will be—

All. God save your maiestie.

Cude. I thanke you, good people, you shall all eate and drinke of my score, and go all in my liverie, and weele have no writing but the score and the tally, and there shall be no lawes but such as come from my mouth.

Dicke (aside). We shall have sore laws then, for he was thrust into the mouth the other day.

George. I, and stinking law too, for his breath stinks so, that one cannot abide it.

Enter WILL with the Clarke of Chattam.

Will. Oh Captaine, a pryze.

Cade. Who'se that, Will?

Will. The Clarke of Chattam, he can write and reade and caste account, I took him setting a boyes coppies, and he has a booke in his pocket with red letters.

Cade. Sonnes, hees a conjurer, bring him hither. your name?

Clarke. Emanuell, sir, and it shall please you.

Now sir, what's

Dicke. It will go hard with you, I can tell you, for they use to write that oth top of letters.

Cade. And what do you use to write your name? Or do you as auncient forefathers have done, use the score and the Tally?

Clarke. Nay, true sir, I praise God I have been so well brought up, that I can write mine owne name.

Cade. Oh he's confest, go hang him with his penny inkhorne about his necke.

Exit one with the Clarke. Enter Toм.

Tome. Captaine, Newes, newes, Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother are comming with the kings power, and mean to kill us all. Cade. Let them come, hees but a knight is he?

Tom. No, no, hees but a knight.

Cade. Why then to equall him, ile make myselfe knight. Kneele down John Mortemer, Rise up Sir John Mortemer. Is there any more of them that be kniglits?

Tom. I, 1.is brother.

Cade. (He knights DICKE BUTCHER). Then kneele down Dicke Butcher, Rise up Sir Dicke Butcher. Now sound up the drumme, etc.

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This and the other scenes where Cade and his companions appear, show such marked affinity with the sarcastic and humorous tone in which Shakspeare describes the people and allows them to express themselves (for instance, in 'Julius Cæsar,' 'Coriolanus,' 'Henry IV.,' and Henry V.'), and are so entirely different from anything in Marlowe's pieces, that if not written by Shakspeare, still less can they have come from Marlowe's pen. Just as much in the style of Shakspeare, and therefore as little in that of Marlowe, is the parting-scene between the Queen and Suffolk, the account of the death of Cardinal Winchester, the soliloquies of Henry VI., and more particularly the murder of Henry, and the famous monologue (I am myself alone) of Richanl, afterwards the Third.

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CHAPTER II.

THE FIRST PART OF THE CONTENTION

TRAGEDIE'-continued.

·

AND THE TRUE

IF, after what has been said in our last chapter, impartial criticism cannot possibly consider the above two plays as belonging to Marlowe, and still less as the works of Greene, Peele, or Lodge, why may they not have been written by Shakspeare?

Malone was only consistent with his own views when, after having unhesitatingly denied that Shakspeare had any share in The First Part of the Contention' and in The True Tragedie,' he also refused to acknowledge him as the author of the three parts of Henry VI.' The following are Malone's reasons for his view which, in all essential points, is still adhered to by English critics, who accordingly agree with him in rejecting the plays. In the first place they are said to be in every respect too bad and unworthy of Shakspeare. I, on my part, deny this with the fullest conviction, and await the proof which has not yet been adduced, either by Malone or any other critic. It is true, that compared with Shakspeare's later masterpieces, with 'Richard II.,' with 'Henry IV.,' etc.but only with these--the two plays do seem imperfect, and to present such great defects as to fall far into the shade. The more important of these defects have already been pointed out on p. 264. The characters are drawn in too sketchy a manner, the figures do not stand out with sufficient fulness and roundness, the meaning and significance of the historical facts have not been clearly enough grasped and explained; the poet was not yet capable of throwing life into the historical subject; the composition, therefore, was hard and stiff, mechanically put together rather than organically arranged, and the action not clearly and thoroughly motived; the dialogue runs too frequently

into that play upon antitheses and points (in imitation of Italian writers) where verse corresponds to verse, and line to line, and is occasionally spun out to excess (for instance in the scene between King Edward and Lady Grey, part iii., act iii. 2). Still, all these defects do not prove what has been inferred from them; and, in the first place, it is wrong to compare these plays with Shakspeare's later masterpieces. As the first experiment of a young poet in the difficult domain of historical drama, they show such eminent talent, and so far surpass all dramas on historical subjects previously written, that no work of the same date can in any way equal them, at all events none have hitherto been pointed out.

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Malone further misses what he calls Shakspearian passages,' that is, those brilliant passages where the fulness of Shakspeare's genius relieves itself in sudden flashes. I have already pointed out some passages of this kind, for instance, Richard's well-known and deeply significant words: I am myself alone; but, upon the whole, they certainly do occur less frequently than in Shakspeare's later works. However, to some extent, this can be accounted for by the fact that the plays describe a portion of history which, being wholly wanting in great and eminent characters, as well as in ethical motives and important aims, offered but little opportunity for higher flights of thought. But Malone's objection again more particularly overlooks the fact that the plays are the first attempts of a young poet, and that even genius does not sparkle and shine purely from within itself, but that— like the poorest of minds-it requires development, both schooling and training. Shakspeare did not receive this training till he came to London, and moreover had, at the same time, to endeavour to make all possible good use of his talent in order to obtain the necessaries of life. It was not Shakspeare's good fortune, like Goethe, to enter upon his artistic career with a well-prepared mind and ample means, and yet even in Goethe's Mitschuldigen and in his Laune des Verliebten, there is as little trace of those flashes of genius of which we have such an abundance in his later works.

The smaller the number of the 'Shakspearian passages,'

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the more numerous, in Malone's opinion, are the deviations from historical truth, and these are said to be more numerous, and more important than Shakspeare has elsewhere ventured to make. But Malone urges more especially those contradictions (already cursorily mentioned) between the first part of Henry VI.' and the two following parts, and between the last part and 'Richard III.' However, apart from the fact that, as Malone himself elsewhere * points out, similar differences and deviations occur in all of Shakspeare's other dramas, the censured contradictions, as already said, refer to such unimportant. secondary circumstances, that the poet-who wrote for a sympathetic audience and not for critical readersdid not require to pay any regard to them. They can moreover, in some degree, be explained by the fact that the first part of 'Henry VI.' was probably a subsequent addition to the other two parts, and that all three parts are, as regards date, separated from Richard III' by a longer space of time than is generally assumed. Nevertheless, it is again true that in 'Henry VI.' we find more numerous deviations from the historical authorities which Shakspeare made use of than in his later historical plays. But apart from the fact that, as already observed,† Malone and his successors, down to Courtenay and Gervinus, have accused Shakspeare of inaccuracies and deviations of which he was not guilty, the historical subject in the present cases absolutely demanded a freer treatment, if it was to be brought successfully into a dramatic form. And if Shakspeare, in making use of this licence, has occasionally exceeded the demand required and allowed by the law of the historical drama-which, however, has not been proved-this again was owing to a want of experience, a want of mental and artistic culture; in short, it was his youthful immaturity that prevented him from penetrating into, and artistically mastering the traditional subject in such a manner as to conform to the laws of dramatic form without making considerable alterations.

* Reed's Shakspeare, t. xiv. p. 224 f. 236 f.
† See vol. ii. p. 287 f.

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