The Authorship of " King Henry VI." 199 



Shakespeare and Marlowe at any time ; and the great difference both 

 between the careers of the two authors and between the circles in 

 which they moved would make very definite evidence necessar\' to 

 the proof of so unlikely a connexion. As regards the present 

 question, it would seem particularly improbable that Marlowe, 

 at the height of his fame, should have condescended to rewTite two of 

 his plays under the direction of a young player belonging to a compan}- 

 with which ]\Iarlowe can hardly be shown ever to have had business 

 relations. ^ And, on the other hand, there appears no shadow of 

 reason why Shakespeare's company, having one of their own number 

 able to make all the changes required, should have gone to the 

 trouble and expense of hiring a great unattached poet to add what 

 admittedly can have been only a small proportion of the new passages. 

 Collaboration, of course, did exist in Shakespeare's time among the 

 numerous hacks in the regular employ of Henslowe, where it was 

 natural and easily arranged ; but Marlowe never belonged to that 

 band of hacks, and there is good reason against believing that Shake- 

 speare or Shakespeare's company ever approved the practice. 



It has been indicated, however, that Marlowe's complete work 

 cannot safely be assumed to exist in the Contention and True Tragedy 

 texts. The latter plays appear rather to be bad copies of acting 

 versions, themselves perhaps abbreviated. Shakespeare's revision 

 was made two or three years before the publication of the 

 Contention and Ture Tragedy, and it was certainly based upon a 

 purer text than that given in ]\Iil]ington's quartos — -not improb- 

 ably upon the very manuscript originally sold by INIarlowe to 

 Lord Pembroke's Company. In considering the additional passages 

 found in the 1623 Folio, it is a somewhat dehcate matter to dis- 

 criminate between passages belonging to the original Marlovian 

 plays, but misrepresented or omitted by Millington, and newer 

 passages which embody the revision of Shakespeare. 



In a few instances it is clear that the 1623 edition is merely giving 

 the accurate text of Marlowe, where the earlier version prints a 

 corrupt reading. Thus, in 3 Henry VI, III. iii, 97, the line, " And 

 not bewray thy treason with a blush," is obviously what Marlowe 

 wrote, though the True Tragedy text, by omitting the necessary 

 " not ", destroys the sense. In IV, iii, 31 f. of the same plaj^ 



^ Henslowe's Diary, indeed, shows that The Jew of Malta and The Massacre 

 at Paris were acted by Lord Strange's Men in 1592/93. Both plays, however, 

 were also acted by other companies with which Henslowe happened to be 

 connected, and it seems doubtful whether either belonged in the first in- 

 stance to the Strange Company. 



