Part II., Act iii. 2, which is new with the exception of the first

fourteen lines.

But there is another class of additions and alterations which surprises us by being unmistakably in Marlowe's style. If these additions are really by Shakespeare, he must have been under the influence of Marlowe to a quite extraordinary degree. Swinburne has pointed out how entirely the verses which open the fourth act of the Second Part are Marlowesque in rhythm, imagination, and choice of words; but characteristic as are these lines--

"And now loud howling wolves arouse the jades That drag the tragic melancholy night,"

they are by no means the only additions which seem to point to Marlowe. We feel his presence particularly in the additions to Iden's speeches at the end of the fourth act, in such lines as--

"Set limb to limb, and thou art far the lesser; Thy hand is but a finger to my fist; Thy leg a stick, compared with this truncheon;"

and especially in the concluding speech:--

"Die, damned wretch, the curse of her that bare thee! And as I thrust thy body in with my sword, So wish I, I might thrust thy soul to hell. Hence will I drag thee headlong by the heels Unto a dunghill, which shall be thy grave, And there cut off thy most ungracious head."

There is Marlowesque emphasis in this wildness and ferocity, which reappears, in conjunction with Marlowesque learning, in Young Clifford's lines in the last act:--

"Meet I an infant of the house of York,. Into as many gobbets will I cut it, As wild Medea young Absyrtus did: In cruelty will I seek out my fame"--

and in those which, in Part III., Act iv. 2, are placed in the mouth of Warwick:--

"Our scouts have found the adventure very easy: That as Ulysses, and stout Diomede, With sleight and manhood stole to Rhesus' tents, And brought from thence the Thracian fatal steeds; So we, well cover'd with the night's black mantle, At unawares may beat down Edward's guard, And seize himself."

And as in the additions there are passages the whole style of which belongs to Marlowe, or bears the strongest traces of his influence, so also there are passages in the earlier text which in every respect recall the manner of Shakespeare. For example, in Part II., Act iii. 2, Warwick's speech:--

"Who finds the heifer dead, and bleeding fresh, And sees fast by a butcher with an axe, But will suspect 'twas he that made the slaughter?"

or Suffolk's to Margaret:--

"If I depart from thee, I cannot live; And in thy sight to die, what were it else, But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap? Here could I breathe my soul into the air, As mild and gentle as the cradle-babe, Dying with mother's dug between its lips."

Most Shakespearian, too, is the manner in which, in Part III., Act ii. I, York's two sons are made to draw their characters, each in a single line, when they receive the tidings of their father's death:--

"_Edward_. O, speak no more! for I have heard too much. _Richard_. Say, how he died, for I will hear it all."

Again, we seem to hear the voice of Shakespeare when Margaret, after they have murdered her son before her eyes, bursts forth (Part III.,