Or this play there is no copy earlier than that of the folio in 1623, though the two succeeding parts are extant in two editions in quarto. That the second and third parts were published without the first, may be admitted as no weak proof that the copies were surreptitiously obtained, and that the printers of that time gave the publick those plays, not such as the author designed, but such as they could get them. That this play was written before the two others is indubitably collected from the series of events; that it was written and played before Henry the Fifth is apparent, because in the epilogue there is mention made of this play, and not of the other parts :

Henry the Sixth in swaddling bands crown'd king,
Whose state so many had the managing,

That they lost France, and made his England bleed :

Which oft our stage hath shown.'

FRANCE IS LOST in this play. The two following contain, as the old title imports, the contention of the houses of York and Lancaster.

The Second and Third Parts of Henry VI. were printed in 1600. When Henry V. was written, we know not, but it was printed likewise in 1600, and therefore before the publication of the first and second parts. The First Part of Henry VI. had been often shown on the stage, and would certainly have appeared in its place, had the author been the publisher. JOHNSON.

THAT the second and third parts, as they are now called, were printed without the first, is a proof, in my apprehension, that they were not written by the same author: and the title of The Contention of the Houses of York and Lancaster, being affixed to the two pieces which were printed in quarto, is a proof that they were a distinct work, commencing where the other ended, but not written at the same time; and that this play was never known by the title of The First Part of King Henry VI. till Heminge and Condell gave it that name in their volume, to distinguish it from the two subsequent plays; which being altered by Shakspeare, assumed the new titles of the Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI. that they might not be confounded with the original pieces on which they were formed. The first part was originally called The Historical Play of King Henry VI. MALONE.

Q. Margaret. O, could this kiss be printed in thy hand.

1826.

ACT iii. Sc. 2.

SECOND PART OF

King Henry the Sixth.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

THIS and the Third Part of King Henry VI. contain that troublesome period of this prince's reign which took in the whole contention between the houses of York and Lancaster: and under that title were these two plays first acted and published. The present play opens with King Henry's marriage, which was in the twenty-third year of his reign [A. D. 1545], and closes with the first battle fought at St. Albans, and won by the York faction, in the thirty-third year of his reign [A. D. 1455]: so that it comprises the history and transactions of ten years.

The Contention of the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster was published in quarto; the first part in 1594; the second, or True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, in 1595; and both were reprinted in 1600. In a dissertation annexed to these plays Mr. Malone has endeavoured to establish the fact that these two dramas were not originally written by Shakspeare, but by some preceding author or authors before the year 1590; and that upon them Shakspeare formed this and the following drama, altering, retrenching, or amplifying as he thought proper. I will endeavour to give a brief abstract of the principal arguments. 1. The entry on the Stationers' books, in 1594, does not mention the name of Shakspeare; nor are the plays printed with his name in the early editions; but, after the poet's death, an edition was printed by one Pavier without date, but really, in 1619, with the name of Shakspeare on the title

page. This he has shown to be a common fraudulent practice of the booksellers of that period. When Pavier republished The Contention of the Two Houses, &c. in 1619, he omitted the words as it was acted by the earl of Pembrooke his servantes,' which appeared on the original title-page,—just as on the republication of the old play of King John, in two parts, in 1611, the words as it was acted in the honourable city of London' ⚫ were omitted; because the omitted words in both cases marked the respective pieces not to be the production of Shakspeare. And, as in King John, the letters W. Sh. were added, in 1611, to deceive the purchaser; so in the republication of The whole Contention, &c. Pavier, having dismissed the words above-mentioned, inserted these:-'Newly corrected and enlarged by William Shakspere:' knowing that these pieces had been made the groundwork of two other plays; that they had in fact been corrected and enlarged (though not in his copy, which was a mere reprint from the edition of 1600), and exhibited under the titles of the Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI.; and hoping that this new edition of the original plays would pass for those altered and augmented by Shakspeare, which were then unpublished.

A passage from Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, adduced by Mr. Tyrwhitt, first suggested and strongly supports Malone's hypothesis. The writer, Robert Greene, is supposed to address himself to his poetical friend, George Peele, in these words :— "Yes, trust them not [alluding to the players], for there is an upstart crowe BEAUTIFIED WITH OUR FEATHERS that, with his tygres heart wrapt in a players hide, supposes hee is well able to bombaste out a blank verse as the best of you; and, being an absolute Joannes factotum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shakescene in a country.'-"O tyger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide!' is a line in the old quarto play entitled The First Part of the Contention, &c. There seems to be no doubt that the allusion is to Shakspeare, that the old plays may have been the production of Greene, Peele, and Marlowe, or some of them; and that Greene could not conceal his mortification, at the fame of him