to Marlowe, Greene, Peele or Lodge. If style cannot determine between them, what warrant is there for the conclusion that "Henry VI." is "certainly collaborative"?

The second and third parts of "Henry VI." are the final form of "The First Part of the Contention between the Houses of York and Lancaster," and "The True Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York." Greene, in his savage attack upon Shakspere, quotes a line which appears in the "Third Part" and also in "The True Tragedy." His attack proves the sole authorship of both by the man he maligns, to whom Chettle apologized within a year.

The argument of Knight has been before the critical world for many years, and its careful arrangement of facts and its logical conclusions from them, have well-nigh overcome the prejudices of English scholars who for many years after the appearance of Malone's "Dissertation" adopted his theory that the two parts of the "Contention" contained nothing from Shakspere's hand. But because American writers are constantly seeking reputation for learning by repeating Malone's argument, it will be useful, in the interest of truth, to state Knight's answer.

He first takes up Malone's assumption that the two parts of the "Contention" were not written by the author of the "First Part of Henry VI.," and proves the identity of authorship by the intimate connection and unity of action and characterization, and by the identity of manner, making the three plays one integral whole. In the "First Part of Henry VI." and in the "First Part of the Contention," Suffolk is the same man, Margaret the same woman. In both plays, Gloster and Beaufort speak the same scorn and defiance in the same tongue. The garden scene, with its red and white roses, is the prologue to the "Contention" and indissolubly links together the three parts of "Henry VI." as one drama by the same hand.

Malone's first assumption was therefore without foundation. Even Collier only claims that "it is plausibly conjectured" that Shakspere did not write the "First Part of Henry VI." but that it is an old play most likely written about 1589. Who did write it, was before Knight and Ulrici the theme of endless debate. Hallam was "sometimes inclined to assign it to Greene." Gervinus in his "Commentaries," took the same view, but subsequently changed it. Knight has shown that the three parts of "Henry VI." are "in the strictest sense" Shakspere's own, and Ulrici agrees with Knight.

It is worthy of note that the "First Part" was acted thirteen times in the spring of 1592 by Lord Strange's men, under the title "Henry VI." Greene lived until the 2d of September in that year, and yet in his "Groatsworth of Wit" he made no claim that the "First Part" was any portion of his "feathers."

The next point made is that the two parts of the "Contention" were written by the author of "Richard III." Malone studiously avoided any comparison between them, and yet it is entirely clear that with the "first Part of Henry VI." they form one drama. "'Richard III.' stands at the end of the series as the avowed completion of a long tragic history. The scenes of that drama are as intimately blended with the scenes of the other dramas as the scenes that belong to the separate dramas are blended among themselves. Its story not only naturally grows out of the previous story,—its characters are not only, wherever possible, the same characters as in the preceding dramas,—but it is even more palpably linked with them by constant retrospection to the events which they had exhibited."

In "Richard III." Margaret is still the same "she-wolf of France" as in the three previous plays. If Shakspere wrote those terrible lines in "Richard III.," as all scholars admit,—

if Shakspere wrote those lines, he wrote those like them from the same lips, in the second part of the "Contention"—

The two parts of the "Contention" are admitted to be by the same hand.

Margaret, Edward IV., Elizabeth his Queen, Clarence and Gloster appear in the "Second Part" and in "Richard III."

And here, the unity of action and of characterization conclusively shows the common authorship, precisely as the same resemblance unites the first part of "Henry VI." and the "Contention."

The "Second Part of the Contention" ends thus:—

"Richard III." begins with a continuation of the triumphant strain:—

In "Richard III." are repeated references to events in the "Second Part"; to the murder of Rutland by the "black-faced Clifford"; to the crowning of York with paper, and the mocking offer of a "clout steeped in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland." It must not be forgotten that these striking likenesses, references, unities, are not between "Richard III." and the portion of the "Contention" assigned to Shakspere, but between the unquestioned author of "Richard" and that part of the "Contention" assigned by Malone and his disciples to somebody else, named only by conjecture.

But the most striking identity of character in these three plays, showing conclusively the identity of authorship, appears in Richard himself: Knight justly and forcibly says: "It seems the most extraordinary marvel that the world, for more than half a century, should have consented to believe that the man who absolutely created that most wonderful character, in all its essential lineaments, in the 'Second Part of the Contention,' was not the man who continued it in 'Richard III.'"

To prove the point, it is only necessary to permit Richard to describe himself.

This picture is from the "Contention":—