Of all the works attributed to Shakespeare, this is certainly the one whose origin affords most food for speculation. The inclusion of the three plays in the First Folio shows clearly that his comrades, who had full knowledge of the facts, regarded them as his literary property. That the two earlier plays which are preserved, the _First Part of the Contention_ and the _True Tragedie_ (answering to the second and third parts of _Henry VI_.), cannot be entirely Shakespeare's work is evidenced both by the imprint of the anonymous quartos and by the company which is stated to have produced them; for none of Shakespeare's genuine plays was published by this publisher or played by this company. It is proved quite clearly, too, by internal evidence, by the free and unrhymed versification of these plays. At the period from which they date, Shakespeare was still extremely addicted to the use of rhyme in his dramatic writing. Nevertheless, the great majority of German Shakespeare students, and some English as well, are of opinion that the older plays are entirely Shakespeare's, either his first drafts or, as is more commonly maintained, stolen texts carelessly noted down. Some English scholars, such as Malone and Dyce, go to the opposite extreme, and regard the second and third parts of _Henry VI_. as the work of another poet. The majority of English students look upon these plays as the result of Shakespeare's retouching of another man's, or rather other men's, work. The affair is so complicated that none of these hypotheses is quite satisfactory. Though there are doubtless in the older plays portions unworthy of Shakespeare, and more like the handiwork of Greene, while others strongly suggest Marlowe, both in matter, style, and versification, there are also passages in them which cannot be by any one else than Shakespeare. And while most of the alterations and additions which are found in the second and third parts of _Henry VI_. bear the mark of unmistakable superiority, and are Shakespearian in spirit no less than in style and versification, there are at the same time others which are decidedly un-Shakespearian and can almost certainly be attributed to Marlowe. He must, then, have collaborated with Shakespeare in the adaptation, unless we suppose that his original text was carelessly printed in the earlier quartos, and that it here reappears, in the Shakespearian _Henry VI_, corrected and completed in accordance with his manuscript. I agree with Miss Lee, the writer of the leading treatise[1] on these plays, and with the commentator in the Irving Edition, in holding that Shakespeare was not responsible for all the alterations in the definitive text. There are several which I cannot possibly believe to be his.