, in which,
"out of 6043 lines, 1771 were written by some author preceding
Shakspeare; 2373 by him, on the foundation laid by his predecessors;
and 1899 were entirely his own." And the preceding investigation hardly
leaves a single drama of his absolute invention. Malone's sentence is
an important piece of external history. In Henry VIII., I think I see
plainly the cropping out of the original rock on which his own finer
stratum was laid. The first play was written by a superior, thoughtful
man, with a vicious ear. I can mark his lines, and know well their
cadence. See Wolsey's soliloquy, and the following scene with Cromwell,
where,--instead of the metre of Shakspeare, whose secret is, that the
thought constructs the tune, so that reading for the sense will best
bring out the rhythm,--here the lines are constructed on a given tune,
and the verse has even a trace of pulpit eloquence. But the play
contains, through all its length, unmistakable traits of Shakspeare's
hand, and some passages, as the account of the coronation, are like
autographs. What is odd, the compliment to Queen Elizabeth is in the
bad rhythm.
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