What interests us most, perhaps, is the relation between Shakespeare and his predecessor with respect to the character of Gloucester. It cannot be denied or doubted that this character, the Richard III. of after-days, is completely outlined in the earlier text; so that in reality Shakespeare's own tragedy of _Richard III.,_ written so much later, is still quite Marlowesque in the fundamental conception of its protagonist. Gloucester's two great soliloquies in the third part of _Henry VI_. are especially instructive to study. In the first (iii. 2) the keynote of the passion is indeed struck by Marlowe, but all the finest passages are Shakespeare's. Take, for example, the following:-- "Why then, I do but dream on sovereignty; Like one that stands upon a promontory, And spies a far-off shore where he would tread, Wishing his foot were equal with his eye; And chides the sea that sunders him from thence, Saying--he'll lade it dry to have his way: So do I wish the crown, being so far off, And so I chide the means that keep me from it; And so I say--I'll cut the causes off, Flattering me with impossibilities." The last soliloquy (v. 6), on the other hand, belongs entirely to the old play. A thoroughly Marlowesque turn of phrase meets us at the very beginning:-- "See, how my sword weeps for the poor king's death." Shakespeare has here left the powerful and admirable text untouched, except for the deletion of a single superfluous and weakening verse, "I had no father, I am like no father," which is followed by the profoundest and most remarkable lines in the play:-- "I have no brother, I am like no brother; And this word love, which greybeards call divine, Be resident in men like one another, And not in me: I am myself alone." [1] _New Shakspere Society's Transactions_, 1875-76, pp. 219-303. [2] "Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ!--Medice, te ipsum!--Gelidus timor occupat artus--La fin couronne les œuvres--Di faciant! laudis summa sit ista tuæ." VIII _CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE AND HIS LIFE-WORK--TITUS ANDRONICUS_