osom of thy boy."

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:--

"And now what rests but that we spend the time
With stately triumphs and mirthful comic shows,
Such as befit the pleasures of the court?"

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

"Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures."

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":--

"I will go clad my body in gay garments,
And lull myself within a lady's lap,
And witch sweet ladies with my words and looks.
Oh monstrous man, to harbour such a thought!
Why, love did scorn me in my mother's womb;
And, for I should not deal in her affairs,
She did corrupt frail nature in the flesh,
And plac'd an envious mo