And what does this calculation, and what do these internal proofs that Shakspere did not write the original Hamlet,' omit? They entirely neglect to show that the first, informing, poetical idea was in the original; that entire scenes are the same in the original and the amended play, with very slight verbal alterations; that the whole of the action is in the original; that the characterization generally, and especially the character of Hamlet,' has undergone no change; that the alterations, all of them, exhibit a wonderful advance in technical skill; and that all the differences in versification and diction, as compared with Shakspere's maturer works, only show that the Hamlet' was a very early play,* possessing the peculiarities of the transition state of the drama, but distinguished by more characteristic peculiarities of individual genius, such as belonged to no other writer of that period. This is the theory which we maintain with regard to the two Parts of the Contention.' These dramas, and the previous drama of the series, are not to be judged of, any more than the old 'Hamlet,' by a comparison of their diction and versification, in the parts which exhibit least skill, with the finished parts of Shakspere's later works. They belong to a period which more or less impressed its own character upon them, as upon every contemporary dramatic production.

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S V.

Ar the period when, as we learn from Nashe's pamphlet, published in 1592, The First Part of Henry VI.' was amongst the most popular of theatrical exhibitions, the public stages derived their chief attraction from that class of plays which we call Histories. In the same pamphlet Nashe describes the plays to the performance of which" in the afternoon" resorted "men that are their own masters, as gentlemen of the court, the inns of court, and the number of captains and soldiers about London." To this audience, then,— not the rudest or least refined, however idle and dissipated,-the representation of some series of events connected with the history of their country had a charm which, according to Nashe, was to divert them from grosser excitements. He says, "Nay, what if I prove plays to be no extreme, but a rare exercise of virtue! First, for the subject of them; for the most part it is bor

* See the Introductory Notice to 'Hamlet,' and especially the quotations from Lodge and Nashe, in reference to an old Hamlet.'

......

rowed out of our English Chronicles, wherein our forefathers' valiant acts, that have been long buried in rusty brass and wormeaten books, are revived, and they themselves raised from the grave of oblivion, and brought to plead their aged honours in open presence; than which, what can be a sharper reproof to these degenerate days of ours? In plays all cosenages, all cunning drifts, over-gilded with outward holiness, all stratagems of war, all the canker-worms that breed in the rust of peace, are most lively anatomised. They show the ill success of treason, the fall of hasty climbers, the wretched end of usurpers, the misery of civil dissention, and how just God is evermore in punishing murder. And to prove every one of these allegations could I propound the circumstances of this play and that, if I meant to handle this theme otherwise than obiter." Nashe, as we have seen, has referred to two plays as examples of this attractive class of composition. If The First Part of Henry VI.' and 'The Famous Victories' be the plays to which he refers, we have sufficient evidence that the poetical treatment of an historical subject was not absolutely necessary to its success. Nothing can be ruder or more inartificial than the dramatic conduct of The Famous Victories;' nothing grosser than the taste of many of its dialogues. The old Coventry play of Hock Tuesday,' exhibited before Queen Elizabeth in Kenilworth Castle in 1575, did not more essentially differ in the conduct of its action from the structure of a regular historical drama, than such a play as • The Famous Victories' differed, in all that constitutes dramatic beauty and propriety, from the almost contemporary histories of Shakspere and Marlowe. Of the plays which had been acted previous to 1592, whose subject was "for the most part borrowed out of our English Chronicles," there are two specimens of the earlier and ruder sort preserved to us—The Famous Victories,' and 'The True Tragedy of Richard III.' The Famous Victories' was certainly acted previous to 1588; for Tarleton, who played the clown in it, died in that year. Mr. Collier thinks it was written in 1580. It continued to hold possession of the stage as late as 1595. We have already noticed that play in our account of the sources of The History of Henry IV.;' but it may be desirable, in reference to our present purpose, to furnish a specimen of this extraordinary composition. We select the parallel scene to the well-known passage of Shakspere's Henry IV., Part II.,' Act IV., Scene 4, beginning

"I never thought to hear you speak again."

Mr. Collier has observed that in the printed copy of this play

(which was entered at Stationers' Hall in 1594) much of the original prose has been chopped up into lines of various lengths, in order to look like some kind of measure :

"Hen. IV. Why, how now, my son?

I had thought the last time I had you in schooling

I had given you a lesson for all,

And do you now begin again?

Why, tell me, my son,

Dost thou think the time so long,

That thou wouldst have it before the

Breath be out of my mouth?

Hen. V. Most sovereign lord, and well-beloved father,
I came into your chamber to comfort the melancholy

Soul of your body, and, finding you at that time
Past all recovery, and dead to my thinking,

God is my witness, and what should I do,

But with weeping tears lament the death of you my father;

And after that, seeing the crown, I took it.

And tell me, my father, who might better take it than I,
After your death? but, seeing you live,

I most humbly render it into your majesty's hands,

And the happiest man alive that my father lives;
And live my lord and father for ever!

Hen. IV. Stand up, my son;

Thine answer hath sounded well in mine ears,

For I must needs confess that I was in a very sound sleep,

And altogether unmindful of thy coming:

But come near, my son,

And let me put thee in possession whilst I live,

That none deprive thee of it after my death.

Hen. V. Well may I take it at your majesty's hands,

But it shall never touch my head so long as my father lives.

Hen. IV. God give thee joy, my son;

God bless thee and make thee his servant,

And send thee a prosperous reign ;

For God knows, my son, how hardly I came by it,

And how hardly I have maintained it.

[He taketh the crown.

Hen. V. Howsoever you came by it I know not;
And now I have it from you, and from you I will keep it :
And he that seeks to take the crown from my head,

Let him look that his armour be thicker than mine,
Or I will pierce him to the heart,

Were it harder than brass or bullion.

Hen. IV. Nobly spoken, and like a king.

Now trust me, my lords, I fear not but my son

Will be as warlike and victorious a prince

As ever reigned in England."

'The True Tragedy of Richard III.' was republished by Boswell

in 1821, from a copy which had been previously undiscovered.* On the 19th of June, 1594, we find the following entry on the Stationers' registers :-" Tho. Creede. An Enterlude intitled the Tragedie of Richard the Third, wherein is showen the Death of Edward the Fourthe, with the Smotheringe of the Twoo Princes in the Tower, with the lamentable End of Shore's Wife, and the Conjunction of the Twoo Houses of Lancaster and York." It is evident that this entry could not relate to Shakspere's Richard III.,' for in that we have no display of the "lamentable end of Shore's wife;" whereas in 'The True Tragedy' there are several scenes in which she appears. This old play is a performance of higher pretension than The Famous Victories.' Like that play, it contains many prose speeches which are printed to have some resemblance to measured lines; but, on the other hand, there are many passages of legitimate verse which are run together as prose. The most ambitious part of the whole performance is a speech of Richard before the battle; and this we transcribe :

"King. The hell of life that hangs upon the crown,

The daily cares, the nightly dreams,

The wretched crews, the treason of the foe,
And horror of my bloody practice past,

Strikes such a terror to my wounded conscience,
That, sleep I, wake I, or whatsoever I do,
Methinks their ghosts come gaping for revenge,
Whom I have slain in reaching for a crown.
Clarence complains and crieth for revenge;
My nephews' bloods, Revenge! revenge! doth cry;
The headless peers come pressing for revenge;
And every one cries, Let the tyrant die.
The sun by day shines hotly for revenge;
The moon by night eclipseth for revenge;
The stars are turn'd to comets for revenge;
The planets change their courses for revenge;
The birds sing not, but sorrow for revenge;
The silly lambs sit bleating for revenge;
The screeching raven sits croaking for revenge ;
Whole herds of beasts come bellowing for revenge;

And all, yea, all the world, I think,

Cries for revenge, and nothing but revenge:

But to conclude, I have deserv'd revenge.

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* Another copy exists-a perfect one; and it has been kindly pointed out to us that it would be desirable to reprint this. We cannot venture, however, so to Occupy our space. We reprinted the Contention to render this Dissertation complete: The True Tragedy of Richard III.' has little bearing upon our general argument.

In company I dare not trust my friend;
Being alone, I dread the secret foe;

I doubt my food, lest poison lurk therein;
My bed is uncoth, rest refrains my head.
Then such a life I count far worse to be

Than thousand deaths unto a damned death!

How! was 't death, I said? who dare attempt my death?

Nay, who dare so much as once to think my death?
Though enemies there be that would my body kill,
Yet shall they leave a never-dying mind.

But you, villains, rebels, traitors as you are,

How came the foe in, pressing so near?

Where, where slept the garrison that should a beat them back?
Where was our friends to intercept the foe?

All gone, quite fled, his loyalty quite laid a-bed.
Then vengeance, mischief, horror with mischance,
Wild-fire, with whirlwinds, light upon your heads,
That thus betray'd your prince by your untruth!"

There is not a trace in the elder play of the character of Shakspere's Richard:-in that play he is a coarse ruffian only-an unintellectual villain. The author has not even had the skill to copy the dramatic narrative of Sir Thomas More in the scene of the arrest of Hastings. It is sufficient for him to make Richard display the brute force of the tyrant. The affected complacency, the mock passion, the bitter sarcasm of the Richard of the historian, were left for Shakspere to imitate and improve. Rude as is the dramatic construction, and coarse the execution, of these two relics of the period which preceded the transition state of the stage, there can be no doubt that these had their ruder predecessors,-dumb-shows, with here and there explanatory rhymes adapted to the same gross popular taste that had so long delighted in the Mysteries and Moralities which even still held a divided empire. The growing love of the people for "the storial shows," as Laneham calls the Coventry play of Hock Tuesday,' was the natural result of the active and inquiring spirit of the age. There were many who went to the theatre to be instructed. In the prologue to Henry VIII.' we find that this great source of the popularity of the early Histories was still active :

--

"Such as give

Their money out of hope they may believe,

May here find truth too."

Heywood, in his Apology for Actors,' thus writes in 1612"Plays have made the ignorant more apprehensive, taught the unlearned the knowledge of many famous histories, instructed such