"But I, that am not shap'd for sporting tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty,
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;—
I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;—
Why I, in this weak, piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to see my shadow in the sun,
And descant on mine own deformity.
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair, well-spoken days,
I am determinèd to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasure of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the King
In deadly hate the one against the other;
And, if King Edward be as true and just
As I am subtle, false and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up."
The pictures that Hamlet showed his mother were not more unlike than these are like. But Malone's examination was microscopic, and he used so powerful an instrument that he could not distinguish resemblance or difference beyond its field of vision. The result is that he counts among the lines mended by Shakspere those that differ from those in the "Contention" only by a particle or a conjunction. By this "capricious arithmetic," only six lines in the scenes with Jack Cade in the "Second Part of Henry VI." are credited to Shakspere, and we are asked to believe that the man who was to fix the price of bread at "seven half-penny loaves for a penny," to give the "three-hooped pot ten hoops," to "make it felony to drink small beer," was portrayed by Marlowe, or Greene, or Peele, or Lilly, or Kyd, or Nash, or somebody else still more completely forgotten.
If, then, "Henry VI." is "certainly collaborative," a "chronicle history of the earlier kind," as Professor Wendell expressly asserts, it ought to be shown for our certain instruction who was Shakspere's collaborator in the three parts of that drama. This neither he nor any other critic has yet done. Malone says it was Greene or Peele, but, in spite of the established fact that we have abundant remains of both, he cannot determine between them from style, or rhythm, or other peculiarities; Collier "supposes" it was Greene; Dyce "conjectures" it was Marlowe.
On the contrary, it may be conclusively shown that Shakspere is constantly quoting from the "First Part of Henry VI." and the "Contention," as from himself,—adjectives, figures of speech, sentences, phrases. The cardinal in "Henry VI." is called a "scarlet hypocrite," in "Henry VIII." a "scarlet sin." In one play the sentence "I am but shadow of myself" becomes in the other "I am the shadow of poor Buckingham." "My book of memory" in "Henry" is changed to "the table of my memory" in "Hamlet." "Who now is girded with a waist of iron" is repeated in "King John"—"That as a waist do girdle you about." More striking still is the close resemblance between the line in the "First Part"—"['Tis] but the short'ning of my life one day" and the line in "Henry V."—"Heaven shorten Harry's happy life one day."
In the "First Part of the Contention" the character described "bears a duke's whole revenue on her back." In "Henry VIII." this is recalled by the line,—they "have broke their backs with laying manors on them"; and in "King John"—"bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs." In "Macbeth" the sentence "Infected minds to their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets" is but a repetition of the line from the "Contention" in which Duke Humphrey's assassin "whispers to his pillow as to him."
"You have no children, devils," is the language of the "Contention"; "he has no children" of "Macbeth."
"Bring forth that fatal screech owl to our house,
That nothing sung but blood and death"
are the words of the "Contention";
"Out on you, owls, nothing but songs of death,"
of "Richard III."