assume, had the two pieces printed as they were given by Pembroke's company, probably after he, on his part, had obtained possession of a copy of the text in an illegal manner; perhaps, however, it was a copy of the version played by Pembroke's company, who may have let Millington have it, because the plays did not belong to the company and had not cost them anything.* No wonder, therefore, that they were published in a terribly mutilated form. The above supposition would also explain the curious title. The play being called 'The First Part of the Contention,' unmistakably points to the fact that The True Tragedie' was originally called The Second Part of the Contention,' and that it was intentionally renamed on its publication, or by Pembroke's company. It is probable, therefore, that Shakspeare originally presented the two plays to the stage under the following title: The first' and 'The second Part of the Contention, and that he did not change it into 'The first, second, and third parts of Henry VI.,' till he had written the first part of his 'Henry VI.' And if this first part was not written and added till a somewhat later day, then it is more than probable that he, at the same time, also revised or remodelled the second or third parts. At what period this was done, cannot, of course, be determined. As, however, in my opinion, the second and third parts may have appeared on the stage in their first form as 'The first and second Part of the Contention,' as early as about 1589-90, I am inclined to assume that the first part must have followed them as early as 1591.

If, in conclusion, we take in review the series of internal and external reasons which support the supposition of the genuineness of the three parts of 'Henry VI.,' and which, therefore, speak in favour of Shakspeare's being the author of The First Part of the Contention' and of The True Tragedie,' we shall not be surprised to find that even the

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The first quarto of Romeo and Juliet, also, which is likewise obviously a piratical edition of the year 1597, gives us the play, (according to the title-page) 'as it hath been often plaid publiquely, by the right honourable the Lord of Hunsdon his Seruants,' whereas the second quarto of 1599 was acted by the right Honourable the Chamberlaine his Seruants,' that is, by Shakspeare's company.

prejudice of English critics is gradually beginning to give way. It has been overcome by Charles Knight; the view taken by Halliwell, who agrees with the editors of the Cambridge edition, I can regard only as a covert retreat, a mere transition stage. For if they are of the opinion that The First Part of the Contention' and 'The True Tragedie,' were originally the work of some other poet, but that as described-they had to a great extent been remodelled, improved and augmented by Shakspeare, this very view refutes itself by its incompleteness. Halliwell, it is true, adduces some passages, of which he maintains that they are too bad and too childish to have been written by Shakspeare; in this I perfectly agree with him. But if these passages are supposed not to be corrupt, and if the first unknown author (whose property is supposed to have been taken possession of by Shakspeare) wrote them in the form in which they have come down to us, why has Shakspeare left them as they were? Why did he not correct them? The answer can only be, because he did not consider them bad or childish. And if they are so nevertheless, and he did not feel this to be the case, then he deserves the reproach of his work being considered bad and childish, just as much as if he had himself written the passages. In other words, it is a contradiction to declare some passages childish and wholly unworthy of Shakspeare, and yet to assume that Shakspeare remodelled the plays so entirely that they can be regarded as his own. The only possibility of escaping from this contradiction is to adopt the supposition of German criticism, and to assume that the two plays were originally written by Shakspeare, as first experiments in the domain of historical drama, but that the old (pirated) editions give us the plays in a very distorted and mutilated form.

CHAPTER III.

PERICLES.

FROM what has already been said, it is evident that the three parts of Henry VI.' as well as 'The First Part of the Contention' and 'The True Tragedie '—the latter conditionally, on account of the corrupt state of their text must be reckoned among the earliest of Shakspeare's works. Accordingly it is these that have to be taken into consideration in deciding the question as tc which of the other plays, published under Shakspeare's name, may be regarded as belonging to his youthful productions. Pericles,' in my opinion, is one of these.

This play, in spite of its obvious defects (especially in composition), is now admitted by many English critics * to have probably been a work of Shakspeare's. Even Malone was at first of the same view and had rather ably refuted the opinion of Steevens,† who held Pericles to be an older piece which Shakspeare had merely remodelled. It was only subsequently that Malone adopted the Steevens' view. This however is but an additional proof that Malone, in spite of, or perhaps in consequence of, his great learning, was incapable of giving an impartial and reliable judgment, and that he was also wanting in fine appreciation of the style and the significance of that side of Shakspeare's poetry which was turned towards the Middle Ages. Steevens' arguments are, in reality, more those of a learned philologist than of an æsthetic critic, and unreliable from the very circumstance of his comparing Pericles' only with Shakspeare's later masterpieces, entirely overlooking the fact that the play -whether the work of Shakspeare or not-must have

* Drake, Collier, Charles Knight, Richard Grant White, and others. † Reed's Shakspeare, xxi. 412 f.

Reed, l. c. 393 f.

been written at a time very far removed from the period of Shakspeare's full maturity. Thus he says: 'Be it first observed that most of the choruses in Pericles are written in a measure which Shakspeare has not employed on the same occasion either in The Winter's Tale, Romeo and Juliet, or in King Henry the Fifth.' But he does not consider that the chorus-which is represented by the old poet Gower -has a very different purpose to answer here from that in Romeo and Juliet,' and accordingly had to be differently treated, and that, if Shakspeare in his 'Henry V.' and The Winter's Tale' had employed it for purposes similar to those in 'Pericles,' these plays were probably separated from the first appearance of 'Pericles' by an interval of several decades; accordingly, the different treatment of the chorus proves nothing.

Steevens further observes: Very little that can tend with certainty to establish or oppose our author's exclusive right in this dramatic performance, is to be collected from the dumb-shows; for he has no such in his other plays, as will serve to direct our judgment. These in Pericles are not introduced (in compliance with two ancient customs) at stated periods, or for the sake of adventitious splendour. They do not appear before every act, like those in Ferrex and Porrex, they are not like those in Gascoigne's Jocaster, merely ostentatious.' These remarks are very true, but again a proof, and moreover a striking, almost irrefutable proof, that the drama was written at a time when dumb-shows were still in vogue, and that Shakspeare, in his finer, artistic tact, felt that pantomime, if it were to continue in use, must no longer be a mere spectacle, but in some way contribute to the development of the action, and be made an integral part of the whole. Steevens also argues that the resemblance, which Malone maintains to exist, between 'Pericles' and The Winter's Tale' is not at all striking, and, in fact, that no such parallel passages between it and others of Shakspeare's genuine plays could be adduced, as many such cases of resemblance might be found between Shakspeare and other poets (for instance, with Fletcher in his 'T'wo Noble Kinsmen'). Steevens thinks that it is only the diction as a whole that can be taken into account, and that it differs

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greatly from that of Shakspeare's authenticated works, inasmuch as, for instance, in no play of Shakspeare's do we find so many ellipses. This is again true, but also another proof that Malone was as wrong in appealing to The Winter's Tale' in order to defend Pericles,' as Steevens was in disputing it by bringing forward some of Shakspeare's later masterpieces. Further, he makes the perfectly correct proposition that inequalities and wildness cannot be received as criterions by which we are to distinguish the early pieces of Shakspeare from those which were written at a later period;' but he again forgets that this proposition tells against himself, inasmuch as even in regard to diction he ought not to have placed so much weight upon irregularities. Yet he is right in maintaining that the diction in 'Pericles' differs considerably from that of Shakspeare's earlier works. This is a point which has been specially emphasised by the more recent opponents of Pericles' (owing to their better appreciation of the object of criticism) and demands careful consideration, which it shall receive as soon as we have finished with Steevens' arguments. The next reason which he adduces in favour of his view, however, scarcely deserves refutation. The author of 'Pericles,' he thinks, has, in regard to his subject-matter, followed his authority (old Gower in his 'Prince Apolyn') much more carefully than was otherwise Shakspeare's custom, as for instance in his 'As You Like It,' 'Hamlet,' King Lear,' etc. This statement is incorrect and wholly devoid of proof, in so far as Shakspeare, in many other of his plays, both of an earlier and a later date, nay, in the majority of his dramas, in all of his historical plays, in Romeo and Juliet,' 'Othello,' 'Macbeth,' All's Well that Ends Well,' 'Much Ado About Nothing,' 'Measure for Measure,'' The Winter's Tale,' etc., has kept as closely to his authorities as in 'Pericles.'

Accordingly, there remain but two more of Steevens' arguments deserving consideration. In the first place, the circumstance that Pericles' is not admitted into the first folio edition of 1623 by Heminge and Condell. In regard to this point, however, Malone and Drake * justly * Life and Times of Shakspeare, ii. 265 f.