In the second historic play which can be wholly ascribed to Shakespeare
we still find the poetic or rhetorical duality for the most part in
excess of the dramatic; but in _King Richard III_. the bonds of rhyme at
least are fairly broken. This only of all Shakespeare's plays belongs
absolutely to the school of Marlowe. The influence of the elder master,
and that influence alone, is perceptible from end to end. Here at last
we can see that Shakespeare has decidedly chosen his side. It is as
fiery in passion, as single in purpose, as rhetorical often though never
so inflated in expression, as _Tamburlaine_ itself. It is doubtless a
better piece of work than Marlowe ever did; I dare not say, than Marlowe
ever could have done. It is not for any man to measure, above all is it
not for any workman in the field of tragic poetry lightly to take on
himself the responsibility or the authority to pronounce, what it is that
Christopher Marlowe could not have done; but, dying as he did and when he
did, it is certain that he has not left us a work so generally and so
variously admirable as _King Richard III_.
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