student of this subject that the former are merely an imperfect and garbled presentation of the latter. The first compared with the second seems as fair water might seem after it had passed through some medium which absorbed part of it and fouled the rest. The other passage, and the last that I shall notice, is the following, from the Friar's confession in the last Scene of the tragedy.

"But he that had my Letters (Frier John)
Seeking a Brother to associate him,
Whereas the sicke infection remaind
Was stayed by the Searchers of the Towne,
But Romeo vnderstanding by his man
That Iuliet was deceasde, returnde in post
Unto Verona for to see his love.

What after happened touching Paris death,
Or Romeos is to me vnknowne at all.
But, when I came to take the Lady hence,

I found them dead, and she awakt from sleep:
Whom faine I would have taken from the tombe,

Which she refused seeing Romeo dead."

It is quite possible that these lines were a part of the Friar's speech as it was first written; for the speech was plainly enough rewritten for the revised version of the play.* But, if they were a part of the original speech, that speech was very surely not written by Shakespeare; as every reader who sympathizes with my appreciation of Shakespeare's flow of thought and verse will at once decide. They seem to me, however, to be different in. kind from the rest of the speech in the quarto of 1597, as well as inferior to it; while that speech, as a whole, is decidedly inferior to its counterpart in the corrected and augmented quarto of 1599. These two passages last cited appear to be the production of some verse-monger who attempted to supply deficiencies in the copy surreptitiously procured for the publisher of the first quarto. In the attempt to decide questions of this kind, opinion must, of necessity, seem arbitrary, perhaps be so. A signature is pronounced to be a forgery because, in the opinion of an

And steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour
Is guilty of this lamentable chance!

The lady stirs.

[Juliet wakes and stirs.”

* The entire speech as it appears in the quarto of 1597 will be found in the Notes to this edition.

expert, or of a person familiar with the genuine writing, it is spurious. I point out one particular line among those last quoted which it is quite impossible to accept as Shakespeare's

"Whereas the sick infection remain'd;"

and I direct the reader's attention to the phrase 'for to' in both these passages, which I have in vain sought for in the authentic text of any of Shakespeare works.*

Assuming that the positions above taken have been maintained, we find some noteworthy correspondences between Romeo and Juliet and King Henry the Sixth in the condition of their text and the internal evidence as to the manner in which they were produced. That is, we find in the case of the tragedy, as in that of the history, two editions differing very greatly, and with evident purpose, in the language of certain passages, while in the language of other passages, as well as in characters, plot, and succession of scenes, they correspond exactly; and we find that the passages of the earlier edition which were rewritten for the second have not the traits of Shakespeare's style, but those of the inferior or the elder writers among his contemporaries. We notice, too, the occurrence of a phrase in the rejected passages which was used in Shakespeare's day, although it was then beginning to fall out of vogue, but which he, according to the evidence of the authentic editions of his works, seems to have sedulously avoided; and we find, also, in the case of the tragedy, as in that of the history, that not only was the first edition published without his name as the author, though at a time when he was in high repute as a dramatist and a poet, but that in none of the three subsequent editions published during his life was it at

* See the Essay on the Authorship of King Henry the Sixth, p. 431. — I here remark that Boswell cited Benvolio's account of the fatal encounter between Romeo and Tybalt in the quarto of 1597 (See the Notes to Act III. Sc. 1) in support of opinion that the story of Romeo and Juliet had been put into dramatic form in England before Shakespeare wrote his tragedy, and that some remains of the work of Shakespeare's predecessor are still to be traced in the earliest quarto. But, if the reader will compare this speech (See the Notes to this edition) with that in the revised and augmented version, I think that he will agree with me that it is but another of those passages already alluded to in which an inferior writer attempted to supply deficiencies in the report of the genuine speech. At least, it is not the work of any "predecessor" of Shakespeare.

tributed to him. But by the side of these points of resemblance we have to place these two of important difference: the direct testimony of Francis Meres, in his Palladis Tamia, that in 1598 Shakespeare was known to him as the author of Romeo and Juliet, and the fact that no unimportant part of the variation of the two versions of the tragedy from each other is manifestly due to an imperfect representation of the later by the earlier caused in some passages by the unmitigated failure in the memory, or defect in the notes, of the person who undertook to provide the manuscript copy for the printer of that version, in others by the attempt by an inferior writer to remedy such deficiencies.

From these circumstances I draw the following conclusion, or, rather, opinion, for which I cannot ask the consideration due to logical proof from well-established premises, but which amounts in my own mind to absolute conviction: That the Romeo and Juliet which has come down to us (for there may have been an antecedent play upon the same story) was first written by two or more play-wrights, of whom Shakespeare was one; that subsequently Shakespeare rewrote this old play, of which he was part author, making his principal changes in the passages that were contributed by his co-laborers, irrespective of the merit of what he rejected, (See the remarks above upon Sc. 6 of Act II.); that the play was so successful in this form as to create at once an urgent demand for an edition of it, which John Danter undertook to supply; and that, as the players were of course unwilling that the public should be enabled to enjoy their new play without going to the theatre, Danter obtained, by the aid of a reporter, who perhaps had some connection with the play in its previous form, a very imperfect and garbled copy of Shakespeare's new work, the defects in which were supplied partly by some of the many verse-mongers ever ready in those days to do such jobs, and partly from the old play, in the composition of which Shakespeare was but one of two or more colaborers. This play may itself have been intended to supply the place in the popular regard of the one to which Arthur Brooke refers in the Address preceding his poem, although its authors went not to that play, but to the poem, (full of detail as they found it,) for the incidents, and even for hints for some of the dialogue and the soliloquies, of their work. And so, when Shakespeare's tragedy brought the story of Romeo and Juliet into new and greater favor, made a sensation, as the managers and publishers say now-a-days, — it was not printed

as his, because a play of Romeo and Juliet identical with it in plot and incident was already well known to the public. The new play was merely what the title page announced it (not with strict truth) to be Romeo and Juliet as it was played by the Lord of Hunsdon's Servants. If the name of any author was connected with the old Romeo and Juliet, which is by no means certain, it is not improbable that there were two or three persons known to the public as having claims upon its authorship; and, according to the estimate of dramatic labor at the end of the sixteenth century, a rewriting like that in question would hardly have been regarded as giving Shakespeare so absolute a claim upon the play in its new form as to make it necessary, or, perhaps, even prudent, for the printer to attribute this muchapplauded performance exclusively to him. All the more would he probably have refrained from using Shakespeare's name, because of the very much garbled and interpolated condition of the text which, in his piratical haste, he was obliged to publish.*

* Those who have read much upon the subject of our old dramatic literature will not have a moment's doubt as to the feasibility of the mode in which it is supposed that the copy for the mutilated editions of Shakespeare's plays was obtained and made up, or as to the probability that it was adopted. But as by far the greater number of my readers are persons whose hours of literary leisure have been passed in more pleasant and profitable departments of letters, I think that they will be interested, and perhaps convinced, by an instance which shows that at this very day popular plays are surreptitiously obtained, and garbled and interpolated by inferior hands, just as I have endeavored to prove was the case with The Merry Wives of Windsor, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet. The circumstances attracted my attention only while the proofs of this Introduction were passing through my hands; and they cannot be set forth for our purposes more effectively than they are in the following extracts from a letter addressed by Mr. Dion Bourcicault to the New York Tribune, and published in that journal for April 25, 1860. I have emphasized the most apposite passages, and cancelled the lady's name. Mr. Bourcicault says,

"In February last Miss came to Laura Keene's Theatre, and witnessed my drama, Jeanie Deans.' The following night she came accompanied by a secretary, provided with writing materials. They sat side by side in the orchestra stalls, and, under Miss — -'s dictation and direction, certain writings were done. The performers upon the stage drew my attention to the fact I omit their comments upon it.

A few weeks afterwards Miss announced at the Walnut Street Theatre, in Philadelphia, a new play, called 'The Heart of Midlothian, or Jeanie Deans,' written by herself. I had already engaged to play my drama at the Arch Street Theatre, in that city. . . I received the following letter from Mr. Wheatley.

"My dear Sir: Last Friday night I visited the Walnut Street Theatre, and witnessed the performance of "The Heart of Midlothian, or Jeanie Deans.” This piece is, with the exception of the opening scenes, your drama, Jeanie

But what was to the general public of that day only Romeo and Juliet (the old common property of the stage) in the form in which it was acted by the Lord of Hunsdon's Servants, was to a man of culture and discrimination like Francis Meres an original work which gave Shakespeare the rank among English dramatists that Plautus and Seneca took among the Latins. And so he, writing doubtless in 1597, or at least about what he had learned in that year, although his Palladis Tamia was not published till 1598, attributes this play directly to Shakespeare.

Deans," which I saw at Laura Keene's Theatre, in New York, last January. The language has been slightly altered here and there, but the work is the same. "Under these circumstances 1 must withdraw the offer I made you to guarantee you two thousand dollars for the performances of "Jeanie Deans" at the Arch. I do not desire to produce any but new works, and the best. The attraction of your play has been destroyed for me.

"I regret being thus drawn into an opinion on this matter; first, because there is a lady in the case; and, secondly, because it affects another establishment in this city. But your demand is so urgent that it leaves me no alternative. Yours very truly, W. WHEATLEY.' "On receipt of this letter I took the prompt-manuscript of my drama from Laura Keene's Theatre, and sent it to Philadelphia, that it might be compared with Miss 's piece. I confided this duty to Mr. Blackburne, a gentleman of experience in theatrical affair, who had been a manager and actor. I append his reply.

“To D. Bourcicault, Esq. — My dear Sir: I received from you the prompter's copy of your play of "Jeanie Deans;" and, according to your instructions, I visited the Walnut Street Theatre on Monday, March 19, and witnessed the performance of a piece called "The Heart of Midlothian, or Jeanie Deans." As the play proceeded I compared it with your manuscript; and, except in the early scenes of the first Act, I found the two dramas to be the same the same sequence of scenes, the same plot and characters; the language occasionally disguised, but in many cases followed verbatim.

Yours truly,

THOMAS BLACKBURNE.'

"I must here be allowed to state that my work is not a simple dramatization of Sir Walter Scott's novel, but an alteration of it. I have altered the story, altered the characters, invented scenes not to be found in Scott's novel or in any dramatic version of it; and these scenes, incidents, dialogues, and characters Miss has taken, and, I regret to add, has attributed their invention to herself.

"As some time must elapse before this question is passed upon by a legal tribunal, and as it will be a matter of public discussion, I desire to meet the evasion resorted to of saying that my work was only taken from Scott's novel, and the lady had a right to use the same source. I now offer a reward of five thousand dollars to any person who can find in Scott's novel, or in any dramatic version of it, (except mine,) the following scenes: —

"1. The arrest of Effie Deans at her father's supper table. and the whole of the last Scene of the first Act. 2. The examination of Madge Wildfire as a witness on Effie Deans' trial. 3. The bickering of the counsel at this trial, and the scenes between them. 4. The murder of Madge Wildfire by her mother Meg. 5. The character of Archibald. the Duke's footman, with his repetitions of phrases. 6. The whole of the Scene where Geordie Robertson rouses the mob, and the soldiery are fired upon. 7. The whole of the Scene in the prison where Effie Deans is led to execution. 8. The whole of the last Scene of the attack on the Tolbooth, used as a climax of the work.

"These scenes all appear in Miss's play, seriatim et verbatim. I select them as being some of the prominent features.