Comfort thyself, as I do, gentle queen, With hope of sharp, unheard-of, dire revenge. - And so I will: but all the peers in France An hundred fifty towers shall burning blaze, But grief is soon turned to joy. Although so outnumbered by his foes, the valiant Prince is victorious, and the play thus ends: Her. Flourish of trumpets within. Enter a Herald. In captive bonds; whose diadem he brings, To crown thee with, and to proclaim thee king. Edw. Away with mourning, Philippa, wipe thine eyes; Sound, trumpets, welcome in Plantagenet! A loud flourish. Enter Prince, Audley, Artois, with King John, and Philip. As things, long lost, when they are found again, So doth my son rejoice his father's heart, For whom, even now, my soul was much perplex'd! Queen. Be this a token to express my joy. Prince. (Presenting him with King John's crown. Edw. John. Edw. John. Prince. Edw. So, John of France, I see, you keep your word, Than we did think for, and 't is so indeed: Edward, recount not things irrevocable; As ours hath been since we arriv'd in France. But did misconster what the prophet told. Now, father, this petition Edward makes, The heat, and cold, and what else might displease I wish were now redoubled twenty-fold; So that hereafter ages, when they read The painful traffic of my tender youth, Might thereby be inflamed with such resolve, But likewise Spain, Turkey, and what countries else Here, English lords, we do proclaim a rest, Sheathe up your swords, refresh your weary limbs, God willing, then for England, we'll be shipped; (Flourish. Exeunt omnes. To get an adequate conception of the greatness of this drama, one should read it uninfluenced by those critics who realize, as Phillipps did, how fatal to their cause it is to cut loose from the so-called Canon of Heminge and Condell. Had it been included in that collection, we should have had another volume or more added to Furness's "Monument of Scholarship," and Phillipps would have been far less chary in praising it. As it was, he was obliged to treat it indifferently in order to sustain the futile theory which his predecessors had imposed upon him. To question the infallibility of Heminge and Condell, he believed that we "should be launched on a sea with a chart in which are unmarked perilous quicksands of intuitive opinions. Especially is the vessel itself in danger if it touches the insidious bank raised up from doubts.' As in the case of "Edward II," so with that of "Edward III." Parallels of thought and expression with the "Shakespeare" Works and those of Francis Bacon are numerous, which link it with them in a manner which to an unbiased mind is convincing of a common authorship. Both "Edward II" and "Edward III" exhibit defects similar to those in the plays comprised in the Canon; defects for which the playwrights who had a hand in adapting them to the stage, and the actors who altered words and lines, or omitted them in acting, were responsible. It was this that justified the nominal but wellinformed editors of the First Folio in their use of the words "mutilated" and "deformed" when speaking of "surreptitious copies," which they professed were not made use of in the work, but which, in a number of instances at least, certainly were, owing most likely to haste and oversight while it was going through the press. We would examine several other dramas once known as "Shakespeare" plays, but have thought it better to confine ourselves to the seven included in the Third Folio, the two in the Leopold Shakespeare, and "Edward II" and "Edward III," which reveal the hand of the master. In treating this branch of our subject we have had in mind the single object of presenting to the reader an accurate view of the condition to-day of Shaksperian criticism. To do this we have felt it necessary to place the critics on the witness stand, that the reader might understand the conflicting and unreliable character of their testimony, and to devote more time than we wished to the "doubtful" plays, that they might better understand the scope of this greatest of literary problems. VI MYTHICAL RELICS THE PORTRAITS LET us devote ourselves to a critical study of the portraits of the Stratford actor, that the reader may be able to form an independent judgment respecting them. THE DROESHOUT PORTRAIT The first is the most important, as it is the earliest, being found in the Folio of 1623, seven years after the death of the actor. It is known as the Droeshout portrait, and has been considered by his biographers as authentic. Portraits, however, of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were as unreliable as royal favors. When the bewigged and bespectacled publisher wanted a portrait to embellish a book to make it more salable, he applied to the poor engraver who was usually plying his trade in an attic, and procured one. If a portrait of the subject had been painted, and a copy of it was obtainable, well and good; but painted portraits were comparatively few, even of the great, so the engraver improvised one as well as circumstances permitted. The writer, while spending a year in the British Archives collecting historical material, spent some of his spare moments gathering portraits of prominent men of the Tudor and Stuart reigns, and, on one occasion, was referred by a Museum official to an expert on the portraiture of these reigns. He was an aged man, and had a large collection of rare portraits. In discussing portraits difficult of acquisition he proved interesting. A portrait of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the father of American colonization, was particularly wanted. All his ancient haunts had been visited, correspondence opened with |