The Authorship of " King Henry VI." 181 



a notion. It seems quite clear, however, that the normal tendencies 

 of the two writers were distinctly opposed as regards the use of 

 these two metrical forms. The hst which I have just given of ten- 

 syllable lines in Contention and True Tragedy expanded into eleven- 

 syllable lines in the revised plays might be greatly increased ; but 

 I have been unable to find even a single instance of the converse, 

 where an eleven-syllable line in the original version has been recast 

 as ten syllables. 



There follows a list of the percentages of pyrrhic fifth feet, eleven- 

 syllable lines, and run-on lines in three of Marlowe's later plays — 

 Edward II, The Massacre at Paris, and The Jew of Malta ; in the 

 Contention and the True Tragedy ; in those parts of 2 and J Henry VI 

 not found in the earlier plays or found there in essentially different 

 form ; and in Shakespeare's most closely connected play, Richard III. 



Percent Percent Percent Total number 



The evidence of this table is, on the whole, quite definite. In the 

 small percentage of eleven-syllable lines (less than four percent and 

 seven percent respectively) the Contention and True Tragedy, even 

 in their corrupted texts, agree closely with the undisputed plays 

 of Marlowe, and are strikingly at variance with the additional 

 matter of the 1623 edition (14 percent) and with Richard III (19 

 percent). In the work which I would attribute to Marlowe — to 

 put the converse of what has just been said — the percentage of 

 ten-syllable lines out of the total number scannable as pentameters, 

 ranges from 98 percent in The Massacre at Paris to 93 percent in 

 The True Tragedy. The average is w^ell above 95 percent. In the 

 additional matter of the Henry VI plays, however, the percentage 

 of ten-syllable lines is only 86 and in Richard III only 81. So 

 too, the percentage of pyrrhic fifth feet is in all the work ascribed 



