“there is no virtue extant.”
John answers:
“The nobility think scorn to go in leather aprons,”
which is in the first sketch.
But George's reply—
“Nay, more; the King's Council are no good workmen”—
is only to be found in the revised version. The heightened humour of that “Oh, miserable age! virtue is not regarded in handicraftsmen,” assures us that the reviser was Shakespeare.
What is true of the “Second Part” is true in the main of the “Third Part of King Henry VI.” Shakespeare's revisions are chiefly the revisions of a lyric poet, and he scatters his emendations about without much regard for character. In the Third Part, as in the Second, however, he transposes scenes, gives deeper life to the marionettes, and in various ways quickens the dramatic interest. This Third Part resembles “King John” in some respects and a similar inference can be drawn from it. As in “King John” we have the sharply contrasted figures of the Bastard and Arthur, so in this “Third Part” there are two contrasted characters, Richard Duke of Gloster and King Henry VI., the one a wild beast whose life is action, and who knows neither fear, love, pity, nor touch of any scruple; the other, a saint-like King whose worst fault is gentle weakness. In “The True Tragedie of Richard,” the old play on which this “Third Part” was founded, the character of Richard is powerfully sketched, even though the human outlines are sometimes confused by his devilish malignity. Shakespeare takes this character from the old play, and alters it but very slightly. Indeed, the most splendid piece of character-revealing in his Richard is to be found in the old play:
“I had no father, I am like no father,
I have no brother, I am like no brother;
And this word Loveb, which greybeards call divine,
Be resident in men like one another,
And not in me:—I am myself alone.”
The Satanic energy of this outburst proclaims its author, Marlowe.