indeed be ascribed to him without difficulty. (Also it is a curious coincidence that 2 Hen. VI, in which Drayton’s hand has been identified in my opinion by Else von Schaubcrt beyond a doubt, contains the Jack Cade scenes which are so very similar to the insurrection-scenes in our play.) Still one hesitates to consider Drayton as the author of our scene. A. W. Pollard’s opinion, that “if these pages were not Shakespeare’s work, the dramatist to whom on the ground of style and temper I would most readily assign them would be Thomas Heywood” seems to be nearer the mark. Heywood, as everybody who has read his plays knows, reminds one again and again of Shakespeare.[1] At the same time he has that sentimental vein, so unmistakable in the Moore speech. An admonition, e.g., to a multitude to shed tears (cf. above, p. 48) would come natural from a man who, in The Four Prentices of London (Works, ii, 230), wrote about the Holy Land:
I wish that I could march upon my knees
In true submission, and right holy zeale.
Oh, since our warres are God’s, abandon feares,
But in contrition weepe repentant teares.
This passage, besides slightly reminding of the More lines, “your unreverent knees—Make them your feet to kneele to be forgiven!” has something of the sermon-like tone too, which pervades large parts of More’s speech. Also the unfortunate “babyes at their backes and their poor lugage” would be quite in Heywood’s somewhat lachrymose style. Nor is that all. There are quite a number of curious parallels to the diction of the More scene in Heywood’s works. Chambers finds (p. 177) the remark of Doll particularly Shakespearian: “Let’s hear him: a keeps a plentiful shrevaltry, and a made my brother Arthur Watchins Sergeant Safe’s yeoman: let’s hear Shrieve More.” Perhaps he is right, but it deserves mention that some passages in Heywood contain similar ideas. Says Reignald, the parasitical serving-man in The English Traveller,
- ↑ To quote one example for many, how similar is a passage like the following to Percy Hotspur’s famous lines on “Honour”!—
So little do I reckon of the name
Of ugly Death, as, were he visible
I’de wrestle with him for the victory,
And tug the slave and teare him with my teeth
But I would make him stoope to Falconbridge
And for this life, this paltry brittle life,
This blast of winde…(1 Edw. IV, Works i, p. 54.)
