e 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."