In point of fact it appears that Shakspeare did owe debts in all directions, and was able to use whatever he found, and the amount of indebtedness may be inferred from Malone’s laborious computations in regard to the First, Second, and Third parts of Henry VI., in which, “out of 6,043 lines, 1,771 were written by some author preceding Shakspeare, 2,373 by him, on the foundations laid by his predecessors, and 1,899 were entirely his own.”  And the proceeding 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.

Shakespeare knew that tradition supplies a better fable than any invention can.  If he lost any credit of design, he augmented his resources; and, at that day, our petulant demand for originality was not so much pressed.  There was no literature for the million.  The universal reading, the cheap press, were unknown.  A great poet who appears in illiterate times, absorbs into his sphere all the light which is anywhere radiating.  Every intellectual jewel, every flower of sentiment it is his fine office to bring to his people; and he comes to value his memory equally with his invention.  He is therefore little solicitous whence his thoughts have been derived; whether through translation, whether through tradition, whether by travel in distant countries, whether by inspiration; from whatever source, they are equally welcome to his uncritical audience.  Nay, he borrows very near home.  Other men say wise things as well as he; only they say a good many foolish things, and do not know when they have spoken wisely.  He knows the sparkle of the true stone, and puts it in high place, wherever he finds it.  Such is the happy position of Homer perhaps; of Chaucer, of Saadi.  They felt that all wit was their wit.  And they are librarians and historiographers, as well as poets.  Each romancer was heir and dispenser of all the hundred tales of the world,—­

     “Presenting Thebes’ and Pelops’ line
      And the tale of Troy divine.”