194 C. F. Tucker Brooke, 



men Poets made two madmen of Rome beate it out of their paper 

 bucklers, & had it in derision, for that I could not make my verses 

 iet upon the stage in tragicall buskins, euerie worde filhng the mouth 

 like the fa burden of Bo-Bell, daring God out of heaven with that 

 Atheist Tamhurlan, or blaspheming with the mad preest of the 

 Sonne." ^ 



On Marlowe's side we have no open expression of such early hostil- 

 ity to Greene, but it is easy to guess that he cannot have rehshed 

 Greene's plagiarism of Tamhurlaine in Alphonsvs of Arragon and 

 Orlando Furioso or his clear attempt to cap the success of Doctor 

 Faustus in Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. Everything indicates 

 that the unfriendhness between Greene and Marlowe was permanent 

 through the entire period, 1588—1592, and it seems out of the 

 question that the Contention and True Tragedy, both certainly com- 

 posed within this period, can have been the result of a friendly 

 alliance between the two poets. 



Apart from the state of Marlowe's personal relations with Greene, 

 it seems quite unlikely that the former poet can have collaborated 

 in the Contention and True Tragedy with any writer of his day. 

 Marlowe appears to have worked alone. His genius was not of the 

 character which seeks the assistance and companionship of other 

 men. Except in the case of Dido, ascribed on the title-page to 

 Marlowe and Nash, there is no reason to suppose that any other 

 poet was concerned in the original draft of any of Marlowe's works. 

 And even Dido bears the stamp of Marlowe's hand so wholly, that 

 editors both of Nash and of Marlowe find difficulty in imagining 

 it the result of a real partnership, preferring on the whole to conclude 

 that Nash had merely a subsequent interest in the play as reviser 

 after Marlowe's death. 



It may very safely be said, therefore, I think, that all the 

 evidence at present accessible strongly supports the inference that 

 the original version of 2 and 3 Henry VI, somewhat imperfectly 

 represented in the Contention and the True Tragedy, was written 

 by Marlowe alone. 



III. Shakespeare's Revision of Marlowe's Work. 



The student who compares the Contention and True Tragedy with 

 the Folio text of 2 and J Henry VI will perceive one of the most 

 conspicuous indications of diverse authorship in the character of 

 King Henry as it appears in the two versions. In the earlier plays 



Greeners Works, ed. Grosart, vol. vii, p. 7, 8. 



