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With Compliments of FRANCIS A. SMITH, 
 
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 PR2969.S6T"""""'''"""-"'"^ 
 ''''!?, "ijjjs versus Shakspere; a brief for 
 
 3 1924 013 155 746 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tinis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013155746 
 
THE CRITICS 
 
 Versus 
 
 SHAKSPERE 
 
 A BRIEF FOR THE DEFENDANT 
 
 By 
 FRANCIS A. SMITH 
 
 XLbe fcnickerbocftec iptese 
 
 flew 13orh 
 
 1907 
 
Copyright, 1907 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCIS A. SMITH 
 
I'^rrata : 
 
 On pp. 86-87, referring to "The Two Noble Kins- 
 men," as published with six other doubtful plays in the 
 editions of 1664 and 1685, the statement was taken from 
 Ulrici without proper examination. "Pericles" was so 
 published. 
 
 On p. 116, for Posthumous" read "Posthumus." 
 
THE CRITICS 
 
 versus 
 SHAKSPERE 
 
 A BRIEF FOR DE- 
 FENDANT. 
 
 By Francis A. Smith, 
 of Counsel. 
 
 Many years ago, I was retained in the great 
 case of The Critics against Shakspere, 
 the most celebrated on the calendar of 
 history during three centuries. Unlike other 
 cases, it has been repeatedly decided, and as 
 often reopened and reheard before the most 
 eminent judges, who have again and again 
 non-suited the plaintiffs. Appeals have 
 availed nothing to reverse those decisions. 
 New actions have been brought on the 
 grottnd of newly discovered evidence; coun- 
 sel have summed up the testimony from all 
 lands, from whole libraries and literatures, 
 and the great jury of mankind have uni- 
 formly rendered a verdict oijno cause of 
 action. 
 
2 Critics 
 
 Ben Jonson said that Shakspere "wanted 
 art"; the highest appellate court decided 
 that "Lear" was a greater work than 
 Etiripides or Sophocles ever produced. Vol- 
 taire, the presiding Justice in the court of 
 French criticism, decided that Shakspere 
 was "votre bizarre sauvage;" the world 
 has reversed his decision, and everjrwhere, 
 except perhaps in France, the "Henriade" is 
 neglected for "Hamlet." 
 
 During the seventeenth century, English 
 criticism sought to put Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, Massinger, Otway, Wycherly, Con- 
 greve, Cowley, Dryden, and even the mad- 
 man Lee, above Shakspere. Denham in 
 1667 sings an obituary to the memory of the 
 ' ' immortal ' ' Cowley, — 
 
 "By Shakspere's, Jonson's, Fletcher's lines, 
 Our stage's lustre Rome's outshines. 
 
 ****** 
 Old Mother Wit and Nature gave 
 Shakspere and Fletcher all they have ; 
 In Spencer and in Jonson, art 
 Of slower Nature got the start. 
 
vs. Shakspere 3 
 
 But both in him so equal are, 
 
 None knows which bears the happiest share." 
 
 One knows not which to admire most, the 
 beauty of the poetry or the justice of the 
 encomium. 
 
 James Shirly, whom Shakspere has not yet 
 been accused of imitating, said in 1640 that 
 he had few friends, and Tateham, an obscure 
 versifier, in 1652, that he was the "plebeian 
 driller." 
 
 Philipps, the pupil of Milton, refers to 
 Shakspere's "unfiled expressions, his ram- 
 bling and undigested fancies, the laughter 
 of the critical." Dryden "regretted that 
 Shakspere did not know or rarely observed 
 the AristoteUan laws of the three unities," 
 but was good enough to express his surprise 
 at the powerful effect of his plays. "He is 
 many times flat, insipid, his comic wit 
 degenerating into clenches, his serious swell- 
 ing, into bombast. " 
 
 Thomas Rymer, another disciple of the 
 unities, in 1693, declared " OtheUo " to be a 
 
4 Critics 
 
 "bloody farce without salt or savor," and 
 says that " in the neighing of a horse or the 
 growling of a mastiff there is a meaning, 
 there is a lively expression, and . . . more 
 humanity, than many times in the tragical 
 flights of Shakspere. " How much humanity 
 may be shown in the neighing of a horse or 
 the growling of a mastiff may be left to the 
 impartial judgment of the jockey or the 
 dog fancier, but the world has got beyond 
 the criticism of Rymer. In his view, " al- 
 most everything in Shakspere's plays is so 
 wretched that he is surprised how critics 
 could condescend to honor so wretched a 
 poet with critical discussions. " 
 
 John Dennis and Charles Gildon, whose 
 books are forgotten xander the dust of more 
 than two centuries, in 1693 and 1694 denied 
 that Shakspere's plays had any excellence, 
 any wealth in profound sentences or 
 truth to nature, any originality, force or 
 beauty of diction; and placed him far 
 below the ancients in all essential points, — 
 in composition, invention, characterization. 
 
vs. Shakspere 5 
 
 Dennis says Shakspere paid no heed to 
 poetic justice. . . "the good and bad per- 
 ishing promiscuously in the best of his 
 tragedies, so that there can be either none 
 or very weak instruction in them." Gildon 
 sums up his opinion by the sententious 
 remark that "his beauties are buried be- 
 neath a heap of ashes, isolated and frag- 
 mentary like the ruins of a temple, so that 
 there is no harmony in them. " 
 
 Against all this arraignment by the imi- 
 tators of the French drama, we have that 
 loving tribute of the great Milton : — 
 
 " Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, 
 What need'st thou such weak witness of thy 
 
 Name. 
 Thou, in our wonder and astonishment, 
 Hast built thyself a live-long monument." 
 
 Pope could not resist the charm of his 
 unacknowledged master. But Pope praises 
 Dryden, Denham, and Waller, — ^never a 
 word of commendation for Shakspere: "he 
 is not correct, not classic; he has almost as 
 many defects as beauties; his dramas want 
 
6 Critics 
 
 plan, are defective and irregtilar in con- 
 struction; he keeps the tragic and comic as 
 Uttle apart as he does the different epochs 
 and nations in which the scenes of his plays 
 are laid; the tinity of action, of place, and of 
 time is violated in every scene. " 
 
 The eighteenth century was notable for 
 its corrections and remodeUings, reducing 
 the grandeur of the originals to the levels of 
 the critics. Lord Lansdowne degraded Shy- 
 lock into the clown of the play ; it was " fur- 
 nished with music and other ornamentation, 
 enriched with a musical masque, 'Peleus and 
 Thetis,' and with a banqueting scene in 
 which the Jew, " dining apart from the rest, 
 drinks to his God, Money. Gildon mangled 
 "Measure for Measure" and provided it 
 with " musical entertainments. " The Dtike 
 of Buckingham divided " Jtilius Caesar" into 
 two tragedies with choruses. Worsdale re- 
 duced " The Taming of the Shrew" to a 
 vaudeville, and Lampe "trimmed 'A Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream' into an opera." 
 Garrick adapted "Romeo and Juliet" to the 
 
vs. Shakspere 7 
 
 stage of his time, by allowing Jtiliet to awake 
 before Romeo had died of the poison, "The 
 Tempest" by furnishing it with songs, "The 
 Taming of the Shrew" by cutting it down 
 to a farce in three acts. 
 
 Even the great Samuel Johnson said that 
 Shakspere "sacrifices virtue to convenience, 
 and is so much more careful to please than 
 to instruct that he seems to write without 
 any moral purpose. " . . . "His plots are 
 often so loosely formed that a very slight 
 consideration may improve them, and so 
 carelessly pursued that he seems not always 
 fully to comprehend his own design. " 
 
 " It may be observed that in many of his 
 plays the latter part is evidently neglected. 
 When he found himself near the end of his 
 work, and in view of his reward, he short- 
 ened the labor to snatch the profit. He 
 therefore remits his efforts where he should 
 most vigorously exert them, and his catas- 
 trophe is improbably produced and im- 
 perfectly represented." 
 
 And so it may be said that in England, 
 
8 Critics 
 
 after Shakspere's death, the Drama was 
 devoted to the imitators of ancient models, 
 under the leadership of Ben Jonson, and 
 later, beyond the middle of the seventeenth 
 century, to the imitators of French taste, for 
 the amusement of Charles the Second, 
 "Defender of the Faith," and the correct 
 Nell Gwynn. Under the guidance of such 
 imitators, from Davenant to Gibber, many 
 of Shakspere's plays were reconstructed for 
 the stage, until The Tatler quotes lines from 
 Davenant's mangled version of " Macbeth," 
 and N. Tate, in his edition of " Lear" "re- 
 vived with alterations, as acted at the 
 Duke's Theatre," refers to the original 
 play as "an old piece with which he had 
 become acquainted through a friend. ' ' 
 Davenant and Dryden in 1670 improved 
 "The Tempest"; Davenant corrected the 
 errors of "Measure for Measure" and "Much 
 Ado " in 1673; Sedley cut out the immor- 
 ality from " Antony " in 1677 ; Shadwell, in 
 the following year, reformed the character 
 of "Timon"; Tate restored "Lear" to his 
 
vs. Shakspere 9 
 
 kingdom axid Cordelia to life, and even 
 made "Henry VI.," "Richard II., and "Corio- 
 lanus" conform to the rules of dramatic art 
 which Shakspere had so defiantly violated. 
 Durfey corrected the imperfect plot, char- 
 acterization, and diction of "Cymbeline,"and 
 administered just punishment to lachimo; 
 and finally, Betterton and Gibber, in 1710, 
 added elegance to the wit of Falstaff and 
 refinement to the bloody cunning of Richard. 
 "All these versions," as Ulrici says, 
 "were essentially the same in character; 
 as a rule, only such passages as were most 
 effective on the stage were left unaltered, 
 but in all cases the editors endeavored to 
 expunge the supposed harshnesses of lan- 
 guage and versification; powerful passages 
 were tamed down and diluted, elegant 
 passages embellished, tender passages made 
 more tender; the comic scenes were pro- 
 vided with additional indelicacies, and it 
 was further endeavored to make the aim of 
 the action more correct by the removal of 
 some supposed excrescences, or by the 
 
lo Critics 
 
 alteration of the scenic arrangement and 
 the course of the action. " 
 
 Yet, in spite of all these distortions of 
 the great originals, in conformity with the 
 taste of corrupt courts, the love and ad- 
 miration of the English people for the 
 dramas as Shakspere wrote them was 
 attested by more than twenty complete 
 and critical editions of his works before 
 the end of the eighteenth century ; and the 
 high estimate of his genius during the 
 eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was 
 never questioned until 1904, when Professor 
 Barrett Wendell, in his "Temper of the 
 Seventeenth Century in English Literature, ' ' 
 discovered and revealed to the world that 
 Shakspere, except as a "phrase-maker" and 
 except as the inventor of " historical fiction " 
 in " Henry IV." and " Henry V.," was "the 
 most skilful and instinctive imitator among 
 the early Elizabethan dramatists," and "re- 
 mained till the end an instinctively imitative 
 follower of fashions set by others. " 
 
 It had taken nearly three centuries of 
 
vs. Shakspere n 
 
 time and the researches of coxtntless scholars 
 to make the discovery, and they had all 
 failed except Professor Wendell. During 
 Shakspere's life and after his death, none of 
 his contemporaries ever accused him of 
 imitating "fashions set by others"; none 
 of them, except the profligate Greene, of 
 "beautifying himself with others' feathers." 
 
 Edmund Malone, by what may be called 
 digital criticism, itndertook to prove that 
 Shakspere, in the second and third parts of 
 " Henry VI.," stole 1771 lines from the " Con- 
 tention, " originally written by another hand, 
 remodelled 2373 lines, and added 1899 of his 
 own; but even Malone did not charge that 
 Shakspere imitated the author of the "Con- 
 tention"; his argument, if it had not been 
 conclusively answered again and again, would 
 prove that Shakspere was "the most un- 
 blushing plagiarist that ever put pen to 
 paper." 
 
 But long before Malone came Lessing, who 
 in 1759 led the successful attack upon the 
 pseudo-classicism of the French dramatists, 
 
1 2 Critics 
 
 proved that the three unities were but the 
 articles of an outworn creed, and in 1758, 
 that Shakspere was something more than 
 a successful playright, more than the suc- 
 cessful rival of Marlowe and Kyd and Dekker 
 and Beaumont and Fletcher, more than 
 "the master of the revels to mankind," and 
 led critical opinion to the conclusion that he 
 was the foremost man of his time and of all 
 time, with power to search the secrets of 
 all hearts, to measure the abysses of all 
 passion, to portray the weakness of all 
 htiman foibles, to create characters who act 
 and speak and are as much alive to us as 
 the men and women we daily meet, to teach 
 mankind the profoundest philosophy, the 
 littleness of the great, the greatness of 
 humility and truth, and to inculcate by 
 immortal examples the highest and purest 
 morality. 
 
 And so England found at last the great- 
 ness of her greatest son in the "father of 
 German literature," and the nineteenth 
 century affirmed the judgment of Lessing. 
 
vs. Shakspere 13 
 
 Among Germans, it needs only to name 
 Wieland, Herder, Goethe, Schiller, Ulrici, and 
 Gervinus; among Englishmen, Coleridge, 
 who said, "No one has ever yet produced 
 one scene conceived and expressed in the 
 Shaksperean idiom"; and Charles Knight, 
 who has exploded the traditions of Rowe 
 and Stevens about the deer stealing, the wife 
 desertion and the testamentary insult, and 
 conclusively shown that "the theory of 
 Shakspere's first employment in repairing 
 the plays of others is altogether untenable, 
 supported only by a very narrow view of 
 the great essentials of a dramatic work, 
 and by verbal criticism which, when care- 
 fully examined, fails even in its own petty 
 assumptions. " 
 
 But English criticism is not conclusive 
 for us without the indorsement of American 
 scholars. Let me quote what Emerson 
 says: — "He is the father of German liter- 
 ature. Now, literature, philosophy, and 
 thought are Shakspereaii. His mind is the 
 horizon beyond which we at present do not 
 
14 Critics 
 
 see. Our ears are educated to music by his 
 rhythm. He cannot step from his tripod, 
 and give us anecdotes of his inspiration. 
 He is inconceivably wise; the others con- 
 ceivably. A good reader can, in a sort, 
 nestle into Plato's brain and think from 
 thence, but not into Shakspere's. " 
 
 And Lowell has uttered what seemed the 
 final estimate: — "Those magnificent crystal- 
 lizations of feeling and phrase, basaltic 
 masses, molten and interfused by the primal 
 fires of passion, are not to be reproduced by 
 the slow experiments of the laboratory 
 striving to parody creation with artifice. 
 . . . Among the most alien races he is as 
 solidly at home as a mountain seen from 
 many sides by many lands, itself superbly 
 solitary, yet the companion of all thoughts 
 and domesticated in all imaginations." 
 
 All this weight of opinion has not served 
 to settle the question of the sovereignty of 
 Shakspere. It is hardly needful to mention 
 the action brought by Ignatius Donnelly 
 to prove that Francis Bacon was the author 
 
vs. Shakspere 15 
 
 of work which excels the " Novum Organum , ' ' 
 for that action was laughed out of court by 
 judge, jury, and audience. It might as well 
 be claimed that Job wrote "Hamlet"; for, 
 whatever doubt may be raised as to his 
 personal history, the folio of 1623 ^.nd the 
 testimony of his contemporaries have shown 
 as clearly that Shakspere wrote the dramas 
 bearing his name as that Macaulay wrote a 
 history of the Revolution of 1688. 
 
 But here come Barrett Wendell, Professor 
 of English Literature at Harvard, and his 
 pupil and disciple, Ashley H. Thomdike, 
 Assistant Professor of English at the Western 
 Reserve University, with a new case, or a 
 new brief on the old one, maintaining, with 
 laborious industry and mutual sympathy, 
 that Shakspere was only an Elizabethan 
 playwright, who found the London stage in 
 possession of chronicle plays, and at once 
 seized the opportunity of using and adapting 
 their material in the histories of King John 
 and the rest ; that he learned the organ music 
 of his blank verse from Kit Marlowe; that 
 
1 6 Critics 
 
 his tragedies are in the manner of Kyd or 
 some other forgotten failure; that his com- 
 edies are but adaptations from Greene or 
 Boccaccio; that " Cymbeline " is but an imi- 
 tation of "Philaster"; in short that, finding 
 some style of drama made popular by some 
 contemporary of more original power, he 
 immediately imitated his style and plot, sur- 
 passed him in phrase-making, and so coined 
 sterling money to build and decorate his 
 house at Stratford. 
 
 If not the most formidable, this is the 
 latest attack of the critics. It should seem 
 from our brief review of former efforts, that 
 this has been fully answered. But if apology 
 is needful for further defence, let it be found 
 in this, that when men of eminent position 
 as the instructors of youth, whose word 
 in these days of careless and superficial 
 reading is likely to be taken as final, imder- 
 take to change the opinion of the civilized 
 world as to the genius and character of its 
 supreme mind, their assertions should be 
 supported by something more substantial 
 
vs. Shakspere 17 
 
 than references to each other as authority, 
 more reliable than dramatic chronology, 
 which they themselves admit to be uncertain, 
 more tangible than the efEort to count the 
 lines of " Henry VIII." written by Fletcher. 
 
 The position of Professor Wendell can be 
 most fairly stated in his own words. After 
 a hasty review of the early drama, he says 
 of Shakspere : — 
 
 " The better one knows his stirroundings, 
 the more clearly one begins to perceive that 
 his chief peculiarity, when compared with 
 his contemporaries, was a somewhat sluggish 
 avoidance of needless invention. When any- 
 one else had done a popular thing, Shakspere 
 was pretty sure to imitate him and do it 
 better. But he hardly ever did anything 
 first. To his contemporaries he must have 
 seemed deficient in originality, at least as 
 compared with Lilly, or Marlowe, or Ben 
 Jonson, or Beaumont and Fletcher. He 
 was the most obviously imitative dramatist 
 of all, following rather than leading superficial 
 fashion. " 
 
1 8 Critics 
 
 Professor Wendell proceeds to give what 
 he is pleased to call examples of Shakspere's 
 "lack of superficial originality," whatever 
 that may mean, and assumes that he "had 
 certainly done years of work as a dramatic 
 hack-writer" before the appearance of 
 "Venus and Adonis." There is no proof, 
 not even the doubtfxil authority of tra- 
 dition, that he was ever a hack-writer, or 
 ever revised or revamped the dramatic 
 work of another. 
 
 Professor Wendell asserts, upon the author- 
 ity of Mr. Sidney Lee, that Shakspere came 
 to London in 1586, — ^that is, when he was 
 twenty-two. Aubry, his oldest biographer, 
 says in 1680 that "this William, being 
 naturally inclined to poetry and acting, 
 came to London, I guess about eighteen 
 (i.e., in 1582), and was an actor at one of the 
 playhouses, and did act exceeding well. " 
 " He began early to make essays at dramatic 
 poetry, and his plays took well. " The date 
 is important, as will soon be seen. 
 
 Professor Wendell proceeds : — " ' Love's La- 
 
vs. Shakspere 19 
 
 bour 's Lost ' is obviously in the manner 
 of Lilly. ' Henry VI . , ' certainly collaborative, 
 is a chronicle history of the earlier kind. 
 Greene and Peele were the chief makers of 
 such plays imtil Marlowe developed the type 
 into his almost masterly ' Edward I L ' ' Titus 
 Andronicus ' . . . is a tragedy of blood much 
 in the manner of Kyd. 'The Comedy of 
 Errors' adapts for popular presentation a 
 familiar kind of Latin comedy. " 
 
 We may differ with some of these assertions 
 because dissent is supported by the highest 
 authority, both German and English. Ulrici 
 says that "Lilly's works in fact contain 
 nothing but witty words; the actual wit of 
 comic characters, situations, actions, and 
 incidents is almost entirely wanting. Ac- 
 cordingly, his wit is devoid of dramatic 
 power, his conception of comedy still not 
 distinct from the ludicrous, which is always 
 attached to one object; he has no idea of a 
 comic whole." " Love's Labour 's Lost" is 
 assigned by the best authority to 1591-92, 
 after the appearance of "Pericles," "Titus 
 
20 Critics 
 
 Andronicus, " the two parts of the "Con- 
 tention," "The Comedy of Errors," and 
 "The Two Gentlemen of Verona." Pro- 
 fessor Wendell admits that in "The Two 
 Gentlemen of Verona" Shakspere did work 
 of his own. After that, it is not quite 
 "obvious" that " Love's Labour 's Lost" is 
 in the style of Lilly, however clear to the 
 critic may be its "tedious length. " 
 
 Lilly wrote " Endymion, or The Man in the 
 Moon," first published in 1591; it is "one 
 great and elaborate piece of flattery ad- 
 dressed to " Elizabeth Cynthia, " that is, the 
 Queen; she instructs her ladies in Morals 
 and Pjrthagoras in Philosophy. "Her kiss 
 breaks the spell" which put Endymion into 
 his forty-years sleep, upon which, and upon 
 his deliverance from which, "the action 
 principally turns within the space of forty 
 years. " Can any impartial reader trace this 
 "manner of Lilly" in "Love's Labour's 
 Lost"? 
 
 Lilly's "Pleasant conceited Comedy," 
 called "Mother Bombie, " appeared in 1594, 
 
vs. Shakspere 21 
 
 his " Midas " in 1592, and his " Most Excellent 
 Comedie of Alexander, Campaspe, and Dio- 
 genes" in 1584. "Mother Bombie" repre- 
 sents four servants, treated partly as English, 
 partly as Roman slaves, who deceive their 
 respective masters in an "equally clumsy, 
 unlikely, and tin-motived manner." It is 
 difficult to see how " Love's Labour 's Lost, " 
 produced in 1592, could have imitated 
 ' ' Mother Bombie, ' ' produced in 1 5 94. " Alex- 
 ander and Campaspe" is "taken from the 
 well known story of the magnanimity and 
 self-command with which Alexander curbs 
 his passionate love for his beautiful Theban 
 captive, and withdraws in favor of her lover 
 Apelles. " The most important comic scenes 
 afford Diogenes the opportunity of emerging 
 from his tub and silencing all comers by his 
 cynical speeches. 
 
 Lilly's most ambitious work was his 
 "Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit, very 
 pleasant for all Gentlemen to read, " "proba- 
 bly printed as early as 1579." Long before 
 Shakspere's time, all "Gentlemen" had 
 
2 2 Critics 
 
 read it, and it had introduced to the fashion- 
 able world a new language which nobody 
 but the high-bom could tinderstand. 
 
 If "Love's Labour's Lost" is "in the 
 manner of Lilly," it is not so in Professor 
 Wendell's sense, but only as it ridicules with 
 unsparing satire Lilly's conceits and puns. 
 
 The statement that "Henry VL " is " cer- 
 tainly collaborative ' ' is unwarranted, because 
 it has been successfully challenged and 
 disproved by the eminent critics Hermann 
 Ulrici and Charles Knight; it is supported 
 only by the guesswork of Clark, Wright, 
 Halliwell and others who asstime to find a 
 divided authorship from assumed diver- 
 gencies of style. The result shows the 
 futility of the method. What Shakspere 
 is assumed not to have written is assigned 
 to Marlowe, Greene, Peele or Lodge. If 
 style cannot determine between them, what 
 warrant is there for the conclusion that 
 "Henry Vi. " is "certainly collaborative"? 
 
 The second and third parts of "Henry 
 VI. " are the final form of "The First Part of 
 
vs. Shakspere 23 
 
 the Contention between the Houses of York 
 and Lancaster," and. "The True Tragedy 
 of Richard, Dtike of York." Greene, in his 
 savage attack upon Shakspere, quotes a 
 line which appears in the " Third Part " and 
 also in "The True Tragedy." His attack 
 proves the sole authorship of both by the 
 man he maligns, to whom Chettle apologized 
 within a year. 
 
 The argument of Knight has been before 
 the critical world for many years, and its 
 careful arrangement of facts and its logical 
 conclusions from them, have well-nigh over- 
 come the prejudices of English scholars who 
 for many years after the appearance of 
 Malone's "Dissertation" adopted his theory 
 that the two parts of the "Contention" con- 
 tained nothing from Shakspere's hand. But 
 because American writers are constantly 
 seeking reputation for learning by repeating 
 Malone's argument, it will be useful, in the 
 interest of truth, to state Knight's answer. 
 
 He first takes up Malone's assumption that 
 the two parts of the "Contention" were not 
 
24 Critics 
 
 written by the author of the " First Part of 
 Henry VI.," and proves the identity of 
 authorship by the intimate connection and 
 unity of action and characterization, and by 
 the identity of manner, making the three 
 plays one integral whole. In the "First 
 Part of Henry VI." and in the "First Part 
 of the Contention, " Suffolk is the same man, 
 Margaret the same woman. In both plays, 
 Gloster and Beaufort speak the same scorn 
 and defiance in the same tongue. The garden 
 scene, with its red and white roses, is the 
 prologue to the "Contention" and indis- 
 solubly links together the three parts of 
 " Henry VI. " as one drama by the same hand. 
 Malone's first assumption was therefore 
 without foundation. Even Collier only 
 claims that "it is plausibly conjectured" that 
 Shakspere did not write the "First Part of 
 Henry VI." but that it is an old play most 
 likely written about 1589. Who did write 
 it, was before Knight and Uhici the theme 
 of endless debate. Hallam was "sometimes 
 inclined to assign it to Greene." Gervinus 
 
vs. Shakspere 25 
 
 in his " Commentaries, " took the same view, 
 but subsequently changed it. Knight has 
 shown that the three parts of " Henry VI. " 
 are "in the strictest sense" Shakspere's own, 
 and Uhici agrees with Knight. 
 
 It is worthy of note that the " First Part " 
 was acted thirteen times in the spring of 
 1592 by Lord Strange 's men, under the title 
 "Henry VI." Greene lived until the 2d of 
 September in that year, and yet in his 
 "Groatsworth of Wit" he made no claim 
 that the " First Part " was any portion of 
 his "feathers." 
 
 The next point made is that the two parts 
 of the "Contention" were written by the 
 author of " Richard III. " Malone studiously 
 avoided any comparison between them, and 
 yet it is entirely clear that with the " First 
 Part of Henry VI." they form one drama. 
 " ' Richard III. ' stands at the end of the 
 series as the avowed completion of a long 
 tragic history. The scenes of that drama 
 are as intimately blended with the scenes of 
 the other dramas as the scenes that belong 
 
26 Critics 
 
 to the separate dramas are blended among 
 themselves. Its story not only naturally 
 grows out of the previous story, — ^its char- 
 acters are not only, wherever possible, the 
 same characters as in the preceding dramas, 
 — but it is even more palpably linked with 
 them by constant retrospection to the events 
 which they had exhibited." 
 
 In "Richard III." Margaret is still the 
 same "she-woH of France" as in the three 
 previous plays. If Shakspere wrote those 
 terrible lines in "Richard III.," as all 
 scholars admit, — 
 
 ' ' From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept 
 A hell-hound, that doth hunt us all to death ; 
 That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes, 
 To worry lambs, and lap their gentle blood; 
 
 O upright, just and true disposing God, 
 How do I thank thee, that this carnal cur 
 Preys on the issue of his mother 's body. 
 
 Bear with me, I am hungry for revenge" — 
 if Shakspere wrote those lines, he wrote 
 those like them from the same lips, in the 
 second part of the "Contention " — 
 
vs. Shakspere 27 
 
 "Or, where 's that valiant crook-backed prodigy, 
 Dicky, your boy, that with his grumbUng voice 
 Was wont to cheer his dad in mutinies ? 
 Or, 'mongst the rest, where is your darling 
 
 Rutland? 
 Look, York, I dipped this napkin in the blood 
 That valiant Clifford, with his rapier's point. 
 Made issue from the bosom of thy boy." 
 
 The two parts of the "Contention" are 
 admitted to be by the same hand. 
 
 Margaret, Edward IV.,EHzabeth his Queen, 
 Clarence and Gloster appear in the "Second 
 Part" and in " Richard III. " 
 
 And here, the xmity of action and of char- 
 acterization conclusively shows the com- 
 mon authorship, precisely as the same 
 resemblance unites the first part of "Henry 
 VI. " and the " Contention. " 
 
 The " Second Part of the Contention " ends 
 thus : — 
 
 "And now what rests but that we spend the 
 time 
 With stately triumphs and mirthful comic 
 
 shows, 
 Such as befit the pleasures of the court ? " 
 
28 Critics 
 
 "Richard III. " begins with a continuation 
 of the triumphant strain : — 
 
 "Now are our brows bound with victorious 
 wreaths ; 
 Our bruised arms hung up for monuments; 
 Our stem alarums changed to merry meet- 
 ings, 
 Our dreadful marches to delightful measures." 
 
 In "Richard III. " are repeated references 
 to events in the " Second Part " ; to the mur- 
 der of Rutland by the " black-faced Clifford " ; 
 to the crowning of York with paper, and the 
 mocking offer of a "clout steeped in the 
 faultless blood of pretty Rutland. " It must 
 not be forgotten that these striking likenesses, 
 references, unities, are not between "Rich- 
 ard III. " and the portion of the " Contention " 
 assigned to Shakspere, but between the 
 unquestioned author of "Richard" and that 
 part of the "Contention" assigned by Ma- 
 lone and his disciples to somebody else, 
 named only by conjectvire. 
 
 But the most striking identity of char- 
 acter in these three plays, showing con- 
 
vs. Shakspere 29 
 
 clusively the identity of authorship, appears 
 in Richard himself : Knight justly and forci- 
 bly says : " It seems the most extraordinary 
 marvel that the world, for more than half 
 a century, should have consented to believe 
 that the man who absolutely created that 
 most wonderful character, in all its essential 
 lineaments, in the 'Second Part of the 
 Contention,' was not the man who con- 
 tinued it in ' Richard III.' " 
 
 To prove the point, it is only necessary to 
 permit Richard to describe himself. 
 
 This picture is from the "Contention": — 
 
 "I will go clad my body in gay garments, 
 And lull myself within a lady 's lap, 
 And witch sweet ladies with my words and 
 
 looks. 
 Oh monstrous man, to harbour such a thought ! 
 Why, love did scorn me in my mother 's womb ; 
 And, for I should not deal in her affairs. 
 She did corrupt frail nature in the flesh. 
 And plac'd an envious mountain on my back, 
 Where sits deformity to mock my body ; 
 To dry mine arm up like a wither' d shrimp; 
 To make my legs of an unequal size. 
 And am I then a man to be beloved.' 
 
3° Critics 
 
 Easier for me to compass twenty crowns. 
 Tut, I can smile, and murder when I smile* 
 I cry content to that which grieves me most • 
 I can add colours to the chameleon ; 
 And for a need change shapes with Proteus, 
 And set the aspiring Cataline to school. 
 Can I do this, and cannot get the crown? 
 Tush, were it ten times higher, I'll pull it 
 down." 
 
 And here is the companion portrait from 
 " Richard III. " :— 
 
 " But I, that am not shap'd for sporting tricks. 
 Nor made to court an amorous looking- 
 glass ; 
 I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's 
 
 majesty. 
 To strut before a wanton ambling nymph ; — 
 I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion. 
 Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, 
 Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time 
 Into this breathing world, scarce half made up 
 And that so lamely and unfashionable 
 That dogs bark at me as I halt by them; — 
 Why I, in this weak, piping time of peace, 
 Have no delight to pass away the time, 
 Unless to see my shadow in the sun. 
 And descant on mine own deformity. 
 And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover, 
 
vs. Shakspere 31 
 
 To entertain these fair, well-spoken days, 
 I am determined to prove a villain. 
 And hate the idle pleasure of these days. 
 Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous. 
 By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams. 
 To set my brother Clarence and the King 
 In deadly hate the one against the other ; 
 And, if King Edward be as true and just 
 As I am subtle, false and treacherous, 
 This day should Clarence closely be mew'd 
 up." 
 
 The pictures that Hamlet showed his 
 mother were not more unlike than these are 
 like. But Malone's examination was micro- 
 scopic, and he used so powerful an instrument 
 that he could not distinguish resemblance 
 or difference beyond its field of vision. The 
 result is that he counts among the lines 
 mended by Shakspere those that dififer from 
 those in the "Contention " only by a particle 
 or a conjunction. By this " capricious arith- 
 metic, " only six lines in the scenes with 
 Jack Cade in the " Second Part of Henry VI." 
 are credited to Shakspere, and we are asked to 
 believe that the man who was to fix the 
 
32 Critics 
 
 price of bread at "seven half -penny loaves 
 for a penny, " to give the "three-hooped pot 
 ten hoops," to "make it felony to drink 
 small beer," was portrayed by Marlowe, 
 or Greene, or Peele, or Lilly, or Kyd, or 
 Nash, or somebody else still more com- 
 pletely forgotten. 
 
 If, then, "Henry VI." is "certainly col- 
 laborative," a "chronicle history of the 
 earUer kind," as Professor Wendell ex- 
 pressly asserts, it ought to be shown for our 
 certain instruction who was Shakspere's 
 collaborator in the three parts of that drama. 
 This neither he nor any other critic has yet 
 done. Malone says it was Greene or Peele, 
 but, in spite of the established fact that we 
 have abundant remains of both, he cannot 
 determine between them from style, or 
 rhythm, or other peculiarities; Collier "sup- 
 poses" it was Greene; Dyce "conjectures" 
 it was Marlowe. 
 
 On the contrary, it may be conclusively 
 shown that Shakspere is constantly quoting 
 from the " First Part of Henry VI. " and the 
 
vs. Shakspere 33 
 
 "Contention," as from himself, — adjectives, 
 figures of speech, sentences, phrases. The 
 cardinal in "Henry VI." is called a "scarlet 
 hypocrite," in "Henry VIH." a "scarlet 
 sin." In one play the sentence "I am but 
 shadow of myself" becomes in the other "I 
 am the shadow of poor Buckingham. " " My 
 book of memory" in " Henry" is changed 
 to "the table of my memory" in "Hamlet. " 
 "Who now is girded with a waist of iron " is 
 repeated in "King John"— "That as a 
 waist do girdle you about." More striking 
 still is the close resemblance between the 
 line in the "First Part"—" 'T is but the 
 short 'ning of my life one day" and the line 
 in "Henry V. " — "Heaven shorten Harry's 
 happy life one day. " 
 
 In the "First Part of the Contention" 
 the character described "bears a duke's 
 whole revenue on her back." In "Henry 
 VIII. " this is recalled by the line, — ^they 
 " have broke their backs with laying manors 
 on them"; and in "King John" — "bearing 
 their birthrights proudly on their backs. " 
 3 
 
34 Critics 
 
 In "Macbeth" the sentence "Infected minds 
 to their deaf pillows will discharge their 
 secrets" is but a repetition of the line from 
 the "Contention" in which Diike Htim- 
 phrey's assassin "whispers to his pillow as 
 to him." 
 
 "You have no children, devils," is the 
 language of the "Contention"; "he has no 
 children " of " Macbeth. " 
 
 "Bring forth that fatal screech owl to our house, 
 That nothing sung but blood and death" 
 
 are the words of the " Contention " ; 
 
 "Out on you, owls, nothing but songs of death, " 
 
 of "Richard III." 
 
 Malone suppresses the obvious resemblance 
 between these passages and others like them, 
 and is guilty of the same uncritical conduct 
 in disregarding the classical allusions in the 
 "Second and Third Parts of Henry VI." 
 which he admits were added by Shakspere, — 
 allusions as numerous and striking as those 
 in the "First Part." 
 
vs. Shakspere 35 
 
 Mr. Richard Grant White, after reviewing 
 the argument of Knight, reaches the 
 conclusion that he "demolished Malone's 
 theory," and this conclusion is a suflficient 
 answer to Professor Wendell's unsupported 
 assertion that "Henry VI." is "certainly 
 collaborative." 
 
 But Professor Wendell further says that 
 "Greene and Peele were the chief makers 
 of such plays until Marlowe developed the 
 type into his almost masterly 'Edward II.' " 
 We are therefore asked to believe that 
 Shakspere, in the historical plays bearing 
 his name, imitated them or one of them. 
 Examination of the record will best show 
 whether this latest critic has discovered any 
 evidence to support his new charge, that 
 Shakspere "was the most obviously imi- 
 tative dramatist of all, following rather than 
 leading superficial fashion. " 
 
 Malone, in his "Chronological Order," 
 says: '"The First Part of King Henry VI.,' 
 which I imagine was formerly known by 
 the name of the ' Historical Play of King 
 
36 Critics 
 
 Henry VI.,' had, I suspect, been a very 
 popular piece for some years, before 1592, 
 and perhaps was first exhibited in 1588 or 
 1589. " Collier states "that it is merely the 
 old play on the early events of that reign, 
 which was most likely written in 1589." 
 Knight concludes that "there can be no 
 doubt that the composition of this play 
 preceded that of the two parts of the ' Con- 
 tention.' " That these had been upon the 
 stage before Greene died in 1592 is proven 
 beyond dispute by Greene's savage attack, 
 at that time Shakspere was twenty-eight 
 years old and for at least three years had 
 been a shareholder in the Blackfriars 
 Theatre, and, if Mr. Sidney Lee is right, 
 had been in London six years; if old Aubry 
 was better informed, he had been "acting 
 exceeding well" and making "essays at 
 dramatic poetry which took well" for ten 
 years. 
 
 The theory of "imitation" rests upon the 
 assumption that Shakspere did not begin 
 to write for the stage before 1592; Collier 
 
vs. Shakspere 37 
 
 asserts, without the slightest support from 
 known facts, and against the hostile testi- 
 mony of Greene, that he wrote the "tiger's 
 heart lines" before September, 1592, that 
 "the 'History of Henry VI.,' the 'First Part 
 of the Whole Contention,' and the 'True 
 Tragedy of Richard, Dtake of York,' were all 
 three in being before Shakspere began to 
 write for the stage"; and Mr. Hallam says, 
 more cautiously, that "it seems probable 
 that the old plays of the ' Contention ' . . . 
 were in great part by Marlowe. " 
 
 And so, we find Shakspere in London, 
 from six to ten years connected with its 
 principal theatre, but writing nothing for 
 its stage, not even as a "hack-writer." We 
 respectfully dissent from this conclusion 
 because it lacks support either in fact or 
 probability. The man who, from utter 
 penury, had in 1589 won his way to a lu- 
 crative share in the theatre he made illus- 
 trious, and who wrote "Romeo and Juliet," 
 which first appeared, according to Ulrici's 
 investigation, in 1592, was more capable of 
 
38 Critics 
 
 writing, and more likely to have written, the 
 three original pieces than Greene or Mar- 
 lowe, to one of whom, or to some other 
 writer, the authorship is assigned by mere 
 conjecture, from a fancied but confused and 
 indeterminate likeness of style or metre or 
 classical quotation. 
 
 Marlowe was killed in a brawl with one 
 Francis Archer, at Deptford, on the first day 
 of June, 1593. The only dramas that can 
 be certainly called his are the "Two Parts of 
 Tamburlaine," "The Massacre of Paris," 
 "Faustus," the "Jew of Malta" and "Ed- 
 ward II." His merits and his faults have 
 been discussed by many scholars; his style 
 is characterized as the "mighty line"; he is 
 said by many to have invented and intro- 
 duced blank verse as the vehicle of the 
 drama, although "Gorboduc, " acted be- 
 fore the Queen in 1561 and published in 
 1565, Gascogne's "Jocasta, " played in 1566, 
 and Whetstone's "Promos and Cassandra," 
 printed in 1578, were wholly or partly in 
 blank verse. But it is admitted by all 
 
vs. Shakspere 39 
 
 editors and critics that Marlowe's only 
 historical plays are "The Massacre" and 
 "the almost masterly Edward II.," as 
 Professor Wendell somewhat ambiguously 
 calls it. The "Massacre" ends with the 
 death of Henry III. of France, who was 
 assassinated on the ist of August, 1589; 
 "it cannot, therefore, have been written 
 earlier than about 1590." Whatever its 
 true date, it is not claimed to bear any 
 likeness to either part of the "Contention." 
 On the contrary, "it was a subject in which 
 Marlowe wotild naturally revel; for in the 
 progress of the action, blood could be made 
 to flow as freely as water." The resem- 
 blance is sought in his Edward II., which, 
 as all the facts tend to show, was his latest 
 work, written after the "Massacre" and 
 certainly not published in his lifetime. It 
 was entered at Stationer's Hall in July, 1593, 
 a little more than a month after Marlowe's 
 death. But here stands the "Contention" 
 with a fixed date, proved to have been in 
 existence "in or close upon the first half of 
 
40 Critics 
 
 the decade commencing in 1585," and the 
 admission of all scholars that it preceded 
 Marlowe's " Edward II. " If, therefore, " Mar- 
 lowe wrote one or both parts of the "Con- 
 tention," the extravagant assumption must 
 be made "that his mind was so thor- 
 oughly disciplined at the period when he 
 produced ' Tamburlaine, ' ' Faustus ' and the 
 'Jew of Malta' that he was able to lay 
 aside every element, whether of thought 
 or expression, by which those plays are 
 characterized, adopt essentially different prin- 
 ciples for the dramatic conduct of a story, 
 copy his characters from living and breath- 
 ing models of actual men; come down from 
 his pomp and extravagance of language, not 
 to reject poetry, but to aUy poetry with 
 familiar and natural thoughts ; and delineate 
 crime not with the glaring and fantastic 
 pencil that makes demons spout forth fire 
 and blood . . . but with a severe portraiture 
 of men who walk in broad daylight upon the 
 common earth, rendering the ordinary pas- 
 sions of their fellows, — pride, and envy, and 
 
vs. Shakspere 41 
 
 ambition, and revenge, — most fearful, from 
 their alliance with stupendous intellect and 
 unconquerable energy. This was what Mar- 
 lowe must have done before he could have con- 
 ducted a single sustained scene of either part 
 of the ' Contention ' ; before he could have 
 depicted the fierce hatreds of Beaufort and 
 Gloster, the never-subdued ambition of 
 Margaret and York, the patient suffering, 
 amidst taunting friends and reviling enemies, 
 of Henry, and, above all, the courage, the 
 activity, the tenacity, the self-possession, 
 the intellectual supremacy and the passion- 
 less ferocity of Richard. " 
 
 Does it need more to show that Marlowe 
 was not the author of the "Contention"? 
 Here is the proof, and it does not rest upon 
 conjecture, or inference from disputed facts, 
 but upon records that have survived the 
 waste of three centuries. The "First Part 
 of the Contention" was printed by Thomas 
 Creed, for Thomas MUlington, in 1594; 
 "The True Tragedy of Richard," the old 
 name of the " Second Part of the Contention, " 
 
42 Critics 
 
 by "P. S. " for Thomas Millington, in 1595. 
 The title page gives the name of no author 
 for either play, and it is claimed by eminent 
 authority that both were piratical editions; 
 but if Marlowe was the xmquestioned author, 
 were not his friends and associates stUl 
 living, three years after his death, to claim 
 the honor of creating two dramas which 
 immeasm-ably surpassed any other he ever 
 wrote? If it be asked why Shakspere's 
 friends did not claim the authorship for him, 
 it is answered that as soon as another 
 edition appeared, they did. In 1619, three 
 years after his death, a new edition of these 
 very plays appeared, with Shakspere's full 
 name on the title page, and enlarged by 
 additions from the second and third parts of 
 " Henry VI. " And this proof is further 
 supported: In an entry in the Stationer's 
 Registers under date of April 19, 1602, 
 appears the following remark: — "Thom. Pa- 
 vier: By assignment from Th. Millington 
 salvo jure cujuscunque: the First and Second 
 Parts of 'Henrv VI.', two books." This 
 
vs. Shakspere 43 
 
 entry refers to the two plays first published 
 in 1594 and 1595, the first of which is always 
 called "The First Part of the Contention," 
 and both of which in the edition of 1 61 9 were 
 under the title of "The whole Contention 
 between the two famous Houses of Lan- 
 caster and York," by the same Th. Pavier 
 who had received them "by assignment" 
 from the original publisher of the editions 
 of 1594 and 1595, — Thomas Millington. 
 Pavier knew in 161 9, and therefore put his 
 name on the title page of his edition, that 
 Shakspere was the author of the two 
 parts of the "Contention," but instead of 
 giving them the extended titles of the former 
 editions, briefly and inaccurately designated 
 them as "The First and Second Parts of 
 Henry VI." It results from these facts, 
 that when Malone was attempting to show 
 that Shakspere was imitating Marlowe's 
 " Edward II. " in the lines— 
 
 "Scorning that the lowly earth 
 Should drink his blood, mounts up to the air, " 
 
 and — 
 
44 Critics 
 
 " Frown 'st thou thereat, aspiring Lancaster?" 
 he forgot the important and established truth 
 that Marlowe was imitating Shakspere in the 
 "Contention." 
 
 For two centuries, tintil Malone's "Dis- 
 sertation," nobody had claimed that Mar- 
 lowe wrote any portion of the " Contention " ; 
 for nearly two centuries, the "Second and 
 Third Parts of Henry VI." had appeared as 
 the sole work of Shakspere, embodying act 
 for act, scene for scene, event for event and 
 character for character, the whole "Con- 
 tention," and nobody had claimed that he 
 was not the sole author of both. We 
 therefore respectfully submit that Professor 
 Wendell has no warrant for his assertion that 
 "to his contemporaries he must have seemed 
 deficient in originality, as least as compared 
 with Lilly or Marlowe. " " Henry VI. " was 
 not "collaborative." Marlowe did not de- 
 velop the type of chronicle history into his 
 " almost masterly Edward II. " 
 
 But Professor Wendell further asserts 
 that "Greene and Peele were the chief 
 
vs. Shakspere 45 
 
 makers of such plays" before Marlowe, and 
 the implication is that Shakspere, in his 
 historical plays, "followed the superficial 
 fashion" set by them. 
 
 Of Greene's dramas, only two purport to 
 have been his work, — "Friar Bacon and 
 Friar Bungay" and "The Scottish History 
 of James the Fourth. " " Orlando Furioso, " 
 generally assigned to him, has no name on 
 its title page; " Alphonsus, King of Aragon, " 
 is probably his, as it bears the initials " R. G. " ; 
 "The Looking Glass for London and Eng- 
 land" bears the joint names of Lodge and 
 Greene; "The pleasant conceyted comedy 
 of George-a-Green, the Pinner of Wake- 
 field," sometimes assigned to him, is of 
 doubtful authorship. 
 
 "Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay" is 
 characterized by Knight as "the old story 
 of the Brazen Head. There is here, luiques- 
 tionably, more facility in the versifica- 
 tion, much less of what we may distinguish 
 by the name of fustian, and some ap- 
 proach to simplicity and even plaj^ulness. 
 
46 Critics 
 
 But whenever Greene gets hold of a king, 
 he invariably makes him talk in the right 
 royal style which we have already seen ; and 
 our Henry III. does not condescend to dis- 
 course in a bit more simple English than the 
 Soldan of Egypt or the King of Nineveh. " 
 
 This play was first printed in 1594. 
 
 The old popular tradition of Friar Bacon 
 and his magic arts is interwoven with the 
 loves of Prince Edward and Earl Lacy. 
 Legend and love story have nothing in 
 common, and their connection is merely 
 accidental. The Friar's design fails through 
 the stupidity of his servant, but no ex- 
 planation is given of the folly of entrusting 
 such weighty matters to a fool. The love 
 story ttims upon the retirement from the 
 amorous contest in favor of Lacy, but no 
 reason is assigned for the resulting trials of 
 the successful party. There is no glimpse 
 of history or of historical chronicle in the 
 piece. Of one thing we may be certain: 
 With all his wonderful power, Shakspere 
 was incapable of imitating "The honorable 
 
vs. Shakspere 47 
 
 Historie Of Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay. " 
 "James the Fourth" appeared in print in 
 1598 under the title "The Scottish Historie 
 of James the Fourth, slaine at Flodden, 
 intermisted with a pleasant Comedie &c." 
 Of this drama Ulrici says that "Greene, 
 led astray perhaps by Marlowe, ventured 
 upon a task quite beyond him. He as yet 
 obviously had no idea of the dignity of his- 
 tory, of an historical spirit, of an historical 
 conception of the subject, or of an historical 
 form of the drama. History with him 
 resolves itself into a romance. " This opin- 
 ion is fully sustained by the play itself; 
 James falls in love with Ida, the daughter 
 of the Countess of Arran, but in spite of his 
 disloyalty, his Queen is faithful. James 
 repents for the very good reason that Ida 
 spurns him, but not until he has ordered 
 the Queen to be killed. The murder is 
 unsuccessfully attempted, and after her 
 partial recovery, she rushes between the 
 armies, disarms the hostility of her father, 
 the English King, and wins back her hus- 
 
48 Critics 
 
 band's love. The chief characters are 
 Oberon, King of Fairies, and Rohan, a 
 "misanthropic recltise. " Rohan has this 
 veracious "history" enacted before Oberon, 
 and so justifies himself for having with- 
 drawn from a bad world. This is the 
 "pleasant Comedie" which is connected 
 with the main action by Slipper, Rohan's 
 son, who plays the part of clown. It is not 
 strange that the impartial critic summed up 
 the review with the remark that "the at- 
 mosphere of history was evidently too pure 
 and cool for Greene's taste. " The play is a 
 romance from beginning to end ; it has no 
 pretension to the character of an historical 
 drama. Mr. Dyce says of it: "From what 
 source our author derived the materials of 
 this strange fiction I have not been able to 
 discover; nor cotild Mr. David Laing of 
 Edinburg, who is so profoimdly versed in 
 the ancient literature of his country, point 
 out to me any Scottish chronicle or tract 
 which might have afforded hints to the poet 
 for its composition. " 
 
vs. Shakspere 49 
 
 The play originally called in 1599 "The 
 Chronicle History of Alphonsus, King of 
 Aragon" is based upon a semi-historical 
 foundation, and yet, as the highest authority 
 has pronounced, Greene "has erected such 
 a romantic and fantastic structtire upon this 
 foundation, that it would be doing him an 
 injustice to judge his work from the stand- 
 point of an historical drama. " 
 
 It is plainly an imitation of " Tamburlaine. ' ' 
 Alphonsus, singly and alone, conquers the 
 crown of Aragon and half the world in 
 addition, accompanied by monotonous noise 
 and blood. The ghost of Mahomet is intro- 
 duced as if to give variety to the scene, but 
 fails utterly, and, nobody can guess why, 
 refuses to give the required oracle, but 
 finally, importuned by the attendant priests, 
 gives a false one. Even the mamage of 
 Alphonsus with Iphigenia fails to enliven 
 the style of the poet. But the machinery 
 that moves the action is all wonderful and 
 striking and quite un-historical. Venus and 
 the Muses recite the Prologue and act the 
 
50 Critics 
 
 dtunb shows, representing at the beginning 
 of each act a retrospection of the Past and 
 a forecast of the Future. And Venus herself, 
 with the help of Calliope, writes the play, 
 "not with pen and ink, but with flesh and 
 blood and living action." "This ... in- 
 dicates the fundamental idea of the piece. 
 Wherever the all-powerful goddess of love 
 and beauty herself plans the actions and 
 destinies of mortals, there extraordinary 
 things come to pass with playful readiness 
 and grace. " 
 
 "The Historic of Orlando Furioso, " issued 
 from the London press in 1594, is a light 
 production hastily sketched for a Court 
 Festival, based upon the great romance of 
 Ariosto, "but the superstructure presents 
 the most extravagant deviations from 
 Ariosto's plan. The pomposity of the dic- 
 tion is not amiss in the mouths of such 
 stately personages as the Emperor of Africa, 
 the Soldan of Egypt, the Prince of 
 Mexico, the King of the Isles and the mad 
 Orlando. " 
 
vs. Shakspere 51 
 
 It may not be amiss to quote an example : 
 
 "Discourteous woman, nature 's fairest ill, 
 The woe of man, that first created curse, 
 Base female sex, sprung from black Ate's loins. 
 Proud, disdainful, cruel and unjust, 
 Whose words are shaded with enchanting wiles. 
 Worse than Medusa mateth all our minds ; 
 And in their hearts sit shameless treachery. 
 Turning a truthless vile circumference ! 
 O, could my fury paint their furies forth! 
 For hell's no hell, compared to their hearts. 
 Too simple devils to conceal their arts ; 
 Bom to be plagues unto the thoughts of men, 
 Brought for eternal pestilence to the world." 
 
 It is difficult to think of Shakspere "bom- 
 basting out a blank verse" like this. 
 
 The dramatic characters recite passages 
 from the classic authors; the enchantress 
 Melissa gives a whole speech in Latin 
 hexameters; Orlando bursts into Italian 
 rhymes to utter his rage against Angelica, — 
 "a want of taste," says the commentator, 
 " which brings the already unsuccessful 
 scene, the centre of the whole action, down 
 to the sphere of the ridiculous." 
 
52 Critics 
 
 Nobody has been able to determine how 
 much of the "Looking Glass for London 
 and England" was written by Lodge, how 
 much by Greene. Knight thinks the poetry 
 should be assigned to Greene. The whole 
 piece is made up of an extraordinary mixture 
 of Kings of Nineveh, Crete, CiciHa, and 
 Paphlagonia; of usurers, judges, lawyers, 
 clowns, and riiffians; of angels, magi, sailors, 
 lords, and "one clad in Devil's attire." The 
 Prophet Hosea presides over the whole per- 
 formance, with the exception of the first 
 and last scenes, — a silent, invisible observer 
 of the characters, for the purpose of uttering 
 an exhortation to the people at the end of 
 each scene, that they should take warning 
 from Nineveh. There is a flash of lightning 
 which kills two of the royal family, and then 
 another which strikes the parasite, Radagon. 
 Both admonitions are equally futile. At 
 last an angel prays repeatedly, and in 
 answer Jonah is sent to preach repen- 
 tance. His mission is successful, and at last 
 Jehovah himself descends in angelic form and 
 
vs. Shakspere 53 
 
 proclaims mercy. It has been thought that 
 the piece was writtin to silence the Ptiritan 
 zealots who claimed that the secular drama 
 had demoraUzed the stage, and forgotten 
 the purity of the Moral and Miracle plays; 
 but it has never been suggested that this was 
 a "chronicle history." 
 
 " George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wake- 
 field," is not generally credited to Greene, 
 but Ulrici, from the style, assigns it to him. 
 It makes no claim as an historical drama, 
 but is based upon two popular legends and 
 some events during the reign of King 
 Edward, without specif jdng which king of 
 that name, and "without regard to chron- 
 ological order or historical truth." 
 
 Such is a brief and fair summary of the 
 works, whether authentic or doubtful, of 
 Robert Greene. Let us turn to those of 
 Peele, the friend of Greene and Marlowe. 
 
 Dyce assigns to him "The History of the 
 two valiant Kinghts, Syr Clyomon, Knight 
 of the Golden Shield, sonne of the King of 
 Denmark, and Syr Clamides the White 
 
54 Critics 
 
 Knight," printed without the author's name 
 in 1584. 
 
 The subject, a chivalrous romance, with 
 dragons and sorcerers and lost princesses, 
 is more a narrative in dialogue than a drama. 
 It is full of long speeches without any real 
 action. It resembles the "Moralities": the 
 clown is called "Subtle Shift," sometimes 
 " Vice." " Rumour " and " Providence " ap- 
 pear, the one to tell Clyomon what has 
 happened dtiring his absence, the other to 
 prevent Clyomon 's mistress "from com- 
 mitting rash and unnecessary suicide." The 
 clown calls the piece a " pageant" ; it cannot 
 be called "a chronicle history." 
 
 Peele's " Arraignment of Paris, a Pastorall" 
 is a coiirt drama in the style of Lilly, intended 
 to flatter the Queen, "poor in action but all 
 the richer in gaUant phrases, provided with 
 songs, one in Italian, and with all kinds of 
 love scenes between shepherds and shep- 
 herdesses, nymphs and terrestrial gods" ; the 
 diction is interesting, because it shows 
 revolt from the prevailing "euphuism," and 
 
vs. Shakspere 55 
 
 therefore Peele must be given the praise of 
 first opposing Lilly's affected style. 
 
 The subject and action are as far removed 
 from history as earth from heaven; Paris 
 is accused by Juno and PaUas before the 
 assembled gods, for having pronounced an 
 unjust sentence; he is released without 
 punishment, but as the fair plaintiffs persist 
 in their appeal, the decision is left to Diana, 
 who then awards the fatal apple, not to 
 any of the three goddesses, but to the wise 
 nymph Eliza, who is as chaste as she is 
 beautiful and powerful. Juno, Pallas, and 
 Venus of course agree to this decision and 
 lay all their gifts at the feet of the Queen. 
 At the end, even the three Fates appear, in 
 order, in a Latin chant, to deliver up the 
 emblems of their power, and therewith the 
 power itself, to the exalted nymph. 
 
 "The Old Wife's Tale, a pleasant con- 
 ceited Comedie, " pubHshed in 1595, is a 
 dramatized old wife's story told to three 
 erring fancies, FroUc, Antic and Fantastic, 
 quite in the style of a fairy tale, "always 
 
56 Critics 
 
 wavering in the peculiar twilight, between 
 profound sense and nonsense, between 
 childish play and matxrred humor." Two 
 brothers who have lost their sisters appear, 
 and then an insolent giant, swaggering with 
 a double-edged sword and attended by an 
 enamored fool, and finally a knight-errant 
 devoting his fortune to pay the stingy sex- 
 ton for the btuial of a victim of poverty; 
 they are now hunting for the princess, the 
 sisters, and the beloved lady, and to free 
 them from the sorcerer; none of them 
 succeed in the effort, except the knight, 
 "and he only by the help of the ghost of 
 the poor Jack whose body he buried." 
 
 " The Battel of Alcazar fought in Barbarie" 
 is attributed to Peele and was published 
 in 1586, soon after Marlowe's " Tamburlaine," 
 after which it is modelled and to which it 
 expressly refers. The commentator says: 
 " It is a mere battle piece, full of perpetual 
 fighting and noise, of which the action almost 
 exclusively consists." There is nothing to 
 show that it had any connection with history 
 
vs. Shakspere 57 
 
 or chronicle, or was anything better than a 
 hurriedly written, spectacular drama. 
 
 The "Edward I. " of Peele bears this title: 
 "The famous Chronicle of King Edward the 
 First, surnamed Edward Longshanks, with 
 his Return from the Holy Land. Also the 
 life of Llewellen Rebell in Wales. Lastly, 
 the sinking of Queene Elinor, who sunk at 
 Charing-crosse, and rose again at Potters- 
 hith, now named Queenshith." 
 
 The title itself proves that it is not a 
 "chronicle" but an unhistorical fiction. 
 The events pass by in one straight, con- 
 tinuous line, the dramatic personages are 
 characterized almost solely by their actions, 
 the language is a mere sketch. The Queen 
 murders the Lady Mayoress, and on her 
 death-bed confesses a double adultery; she 
 commits perjury by denying the murder 
 and calls upon Heaven to sink her into the 
 depths of the earth if she had spoken falsely. 
 "That she 'sunk at Charing-crosse' before 
 it was erected to her memory, is a sufficiently 
 remarkable circumstance in Peele's play. 
 
58 Critics 
 
 but it is more remarkable that, assiiming 
 to be a ' famous Chronicle, ' and in one or 
 two of the events following the Chronicle, 
 he has represented the Queen altogether 
 to be a fiend in female shape, — proud, 
 adulterous, cruel, treacherous and bloody." 
 The play contradicts the Chronicle, and 
 therefore cannot be called a chronicle 
 history. HoUinshed, the soiirce of aU Shak- 
 spere's histories, says of Queen Eleanor: 
 " She was a godly and modest princess, 
 ftill of pity, and one that showed much 
 favor to the English nation, ready to relieve 
 every man's grief that sustained wrong, and 
 to make those friends that were at discord, 
 so far as in her lay." 
 
 Mr. Hallam has characterized this violation 
 of historical truth as a "hideous mis- 
 representation of the virtuous Eleanor of 
 Castile. . . . The 'Edward I.' of Peek 
 is a gross tissue of abstirdity with some 
 facility of language, but nothing truly good." 
 Nobody but Professor Wendell has ever even 
 intimated that Shakspere imitated it. 
 
vs. Shakspere 59 
 
 It is hardly necessary to consider "The 
 Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe," 
 published in 1599, because, in the deliberate 
 opinion of those who have studied the 
 subject most deeply, it was not written till 
 "Romeo and Juliet" was upon the stage 
 in 1592. In it there are distinct traces of 
 Shakspere's influence. "The love scenes, 
 and the images and similes describing 
 the charms of the beauty of nature, remind 
 one of those incomparable pictures in ' Romeo 
 and Juliet. ' " In Peele's other plays he has 
 made but feeble attempts to depict love, 
 beauty, or grace; in "King David" he has 
 "depicted them with a remarkably high 
 degree of success." 
 
 These are all the works of Peele which 
 have come down to our time, and after this 
 review of his and of Greene's dramas, it 
 does not seem that "Greene and Peele 
 were the chief makers of such plays, " that 
 is, of "chronicle histories," before Marlowe. 
 The truth is, that aU the supporters of 
 Malone's theory have taken Malone's un- 
 
6o Critics 
 
 supported statement as indisputable fact; 
 they have not sufficiently examined the 
 works of Greene and Peele, but have assumed, 
 as Malone assumed, that Greene's charge 
 in his " Groat's Worth of Wit " was conclusive 
 proof that Shakspere did not write the two 
 parts of the "Contention, " and that Greene, 
 or one of the friends he addresses, was in 
 fact the author. 
 
 This assumption has again and again been 
 shown to be without foundation. There 
 was no point in Greene's dying sarcasm 
 if he merely quoted a line written by himself ; 
 if he quoted one written by Shakspere, 
 the whole argument of Professor Wendell, 
 that "Henry VI.' was "certainly collabo- 
 rative," that his early work was "hack- 
 writing, " that " he hardly ever did an}rtliing 
 first, " that " to his contemporaries he 
 must have seemed deficient in originality," 
 falls to the ground. 
 
 Having done what Malone failed to do, 
 and what Professor Wendell seems not to 
 have done, — having reviewed at some length 
 
vs. Shakspere 6i 
 
 the works of Shakspere 's contemporaries to 
 whom the older chronicle plays are attributed 
 by Malone, — we invoke, in support of the 
 position we have taken, the opinion of 
 Mr. Charles Knight in his "Essay on Henry 
 VI. and Richard III." 
 
 "The dramatic works of Greene, which 
 were amongst the rarest treasures of the 
 bibliographer, have been rendered accessible 
 to the general reader by the valuable labors 
 of Mr. Dyce. To those who are familiar 
 with these works we will appeal, without 
 hesitation, in saying that the character 
 of Greene's mind, and his habits of composi- 
 tion, rendered him utterly incapable of 
 producing, not the Two Parts of the 'Con- 
 tention, ' or one Part, but a single sustained 
 scene of either Part. 
 
 " And yet a belief has been long entertained 
 in England, to which some wise and judicious 
 still cling, that Greene and Peele either 
 wrote the Two Parts of the 'Contention' 
 in conjunction; or that Greene wrote one 
 Part and Peele the other Part; or that, at 
 
62 Critics 
 
 any rate, Greene had some share in these 
 dramas. This was the theory propagated 
 by Malone in his 'Dissertation'; and it 
 rests not upon the slightest examination 
 of these writers, but solely on the far-famed 
 passage in Greene's posthumous pamphlet, 
 the 'Groat's Worth of Wit,' in which he 
 points out Shakspere as 'a crow beautified 
 with our feathers.' The hypothesis seems 
 to us to be little less than absurd. . . . 
 He parodies a hne from one of the produc- 
 tions of which he had been so plundered, to 
 carry the point home, to leave no doubt 
 as to the sting of his allusion. But, as has 
 been most justly observed, the epigram 
 would have wanted its sting if the line 
 parodied had not been that of the very 
 writer attacked." 
 
 "Titus Andronicus" is a "tragedy of 
 blood" written by Shakspere, according 
 to the highest authority, when he was 
 twenty-three or twenty-four years of age. 
 Ben Johnson says, in his "Bartholomew 
 Fair" (1614), that it had been on the stage 
 
vs. Shakspere 63 
 
 for twenty-five or thirty years. It was 
 doubtless a very early work, but whether 
 "much in the manner of Kyd," as Professor 
 Wendell asserts, can be best determined 
 by reference to Kyd's works. The claim 
 has been made by other critics that "Titus" 
 was " collaborative, " but Professor Wendell's 
 is that it was an "imitation." 
 
 "The Tragedy of SoUman and Perseda," 
 first printed in 1599, is of doubtful author- 
 ship, but has sometimes been credited to 
 Kyd. "The piece still bears a striking 
 resemblance to the old Moral Plays and 
 thereby proves its relatively early origin. 
 A chorus consisting of the allegorical figures 
 Love, Happiness, and Death opens the play 
 and each separate act, and ends it with a con- 
 troversy in which all the personified powers 
 boast of their deeds and triumphs over the 
 others, till at the end of the fifth act Death 
 remains the victor, and the whole concludes 
 with a eulogy of Queen Elizabeth, the only 
 mortal whom Death does not venture to 
 approach." "Titus Andronicus" will be 
 
64 Critics 
 
 searched in vain for "much" or little of this 
 "manner of Kyd. " 
 
 "The First Part of Jeronimo, with the 
 Warres of Portugal and the Life and Death 
 of Don Andrea," not pubHshed till 1605, is 
 not an authentic work of Kyd, but is at- 
 tributed to him by some because, judging 
 from the subject, it belongs to "The Spanish 
 Tragedy " and is regarded by Henslowe as the 
 first part of it. A. W. Schlegel says that 
 "both of these parts are ftill of absurdities, 
 that the author had ventured upon describing 
 the most forced situations and passions 
 without being aware of his want of power, 
 that especially the catastrophe of the second 
 part, which is intended to surpass every 
 conceivable horror, is introduced in a trivial 
 manner, merely producing a ludicrous effect, 
 and that the whole was Uke a child's drawings, 
 wholly unmindful of the laws of proportion." 
 
 Ulrici maintains that "Jeronimo" itself 
 may be treated as a play in three parts 
 connected only externally: first, the war 
 between Portugal and Spain; second, the 
 
vs. Shakspere 65 
 
 life and death of Don Andrea, and third the 
 acts of Jeronimo, who is, however, only a 
 subordinate character. But whether the 
 play be treated as a whole or as composed 
 of substantially separate parts, its action 
 and interest are centred in the story of 
 the love of Don Andrea and BelUmperia ; 
 Lorenzo, her brother, persecutes both because 
 he is jealous of Andrea's success. Andrea 
 is finally killed; at his funeral, his ghost 
 appears for no assigned reason, except to 
 exchange greeting with his friend Horatio. 
 "Revenge" and Charon also appear, the one 
 " to forbid Andrea's ghost from divulging the 
 secrets of Hell, the other to accompany 
 him back to the lower regions," and the 
 learned critic adds that "this allegorical 
 by-play is inserted so arbitrarily, so inappro- 
 priately and so unmeaningly, that it forms 
 the best standpoint for judging the piece 
 as regards its composition and poetical 
 character. In this respect its value is next 
 to nothing." 
 If Kyd wrote "Jeronimo," of which there 
 S 
 
66 Critics 
 
 is no satisfactory proof, and if Shakspere 
 wrote "Titus," "much in the manner of 
 Kyd, " which we venture to think more 
 doubtful than the authorship of " Jeronimo," 
 then Shakspere's supposed imitation was 
 much "better" than the original "popular 
 thing." 
 
 That Kyd wrote "The Spanish Tragedy, 
 containing the lamentable end of Don Horatio 
 and BelHmperia with the pitifuU Death of 
 Old Hieronimo," first published in 1599, 
 is certified by Heywood in his "Apology for 
 Actors, " and there is good authority for the 
 opinion that it was acted as early as 1588. 
 We quote the summary of the plot: 
 
 "It is not wanting in abstirdities, for the 
 play opens and is connected with 'Jeronimo' 
 by a conversation between Andrea's ghost 
 and ' Revenge ' ; both remain continually on 
 the stage as silent, invisible spectators, in 
 order, at the end of every act, to add a 
 few words, in which Andrea laments over 
 the delay in the revenge of his death upon 
 the Infanta Belthazar, and ' Revenge' ad- 
 
vs. Shakspere 67 
 
 monishes him to be patient; at the end of the 
 fifth act both retiirn satisfied to the lower 
 regions. Then Bellimperia suddenly falls 
 in love with Horatio, who now steps into 
 Andrea's place, and is persecuted by Lorenzo, 
 at first without any cause whatever, and is 
 finally assassinated. By some means which 
 remain perfectly unexplained and incom- 
 prehensible, Lorenzo keeps old Jeronimo 
 from the Court, so that he cannot bring 
 forward his accusation against the murderers 
 of his son. Jeronimo is consequently seized 
 with madness, which, however, suddenly 
 tiirns into a well calculated and prudent 
 action. The conclusion of the piece is a 
 general massacre, in which Jeronimo, after 
 having killed Lorenzo, bites ofE his own 
 tongue, stabs the Duke of Castile, and then 
 himself with a penknife." 
 
 It can hardly seem strange that the 
 critic should add: "This at once explains 
 why no piece was more generally ridiculed 
 by contemporary and younger poets, than 
 " The Spanish Tragedy." 
 
68 Critics 
 
 If Shakspere imitated Kyd in "Titus," 
 from such stuff as this, he was surely 
 wise in his "sluggish avoidance of needless 
 invention." 
 
 We are tempted to suggest, however, 
 that "The Spanish Tragedy" affords a rich 
 and ample field to modern critics who 
 are soUcitous to save the life and work of 
 "the gentle William" from the imputation 
 of being " superhimian " : Is it not clear that 
 "Hamlet" was only an imitation of "The 
 Spanish Tragedy"? Did not Hamlet have 
 a friend whose name was Horatio ? Was not 
 Hamlet, like Jeronimo, "essentially mad," 
 and did not his madness "turn into a well 
 calculated and prudent action"? 
 
 Kyd was the undoubted author of another 
 work, under the following title: "Pompey 
 the Great, his fair CorneUa's Tragedie: 
 effected by her Father's and Husband's 
 downe-cast Death and fortune, written in 
 French by that excellent Poet, R. Garnier, 
 and translated into English by Thomas Kyd." 
 This translation was printed in 1595. The 
 
vs. Shakspere 69 
 
 play is thus summarized: It is "a piece 
 which is constructed upon a misunderstood 
 model of the ancients ; it is altogether devoid 
 of dramatic action, in reality merely lyrics 
 and rhetoric in dialogue. The whole of the 
 first act consists of one emphatic jeremiad 
 by Cicero, about the desperate condition 
 of Rome as it then was, its factiousness, its 
 servility, — a jeremiad which is continued 
 at the end of the act, by the chorus, in 
 rhymed stanzas. In this tone it proceeds 
 without a trace of action through the whole 
 of the succeeding act, till maledictions and 
 outbursts of grief on the part of Cornelia 
 conclude the piece at the same point at which 
 it had commenced." 
 
 It has never been claimed that "Cornelia" 
 was the model for "Titus." "Cornelia" 
 and "The Spanish Tragedy" are the only 
 dramas that can be certainly called Kyd's. 
 Comparison between these, or either of the 
 others doubtfully attributed to him, and 
 "Titus Andronicus, " shows beyond question 
 that the only similarity between the most 
 
70 Critics 
 
 similar is that both are " tragedies of blood." 
 There is no likeness of plot, characterization, 
 action or diction. There is in "Titus" none 
 of Kyd's "huffing, bragging, puft" language. 
 A ghost concludes " Jeronimo " whose " hopes 
 have end in their effects" "when blood and 
 sorrow finish my desires," "these were 
 spectacles to please my soul." In " Titus," 
 even the Satanic Aaron, "in the whirlwind 
 of passion," "acquires and begets a tem- 
 perance" that "gives it smoothness." 
 
 When Tamora proposes crimes to her sons, 
 that fiends would refuse to execute, Lavinia 
 does not shriek, nor rant, nor call upon the 
 gods, but speaks what nobody but Shakspere 
 could have uttered, — 
 
 "O Tamora! thou bear'st a woman's face." 
 
 It is not necessary to consider the claim 
 sometimes made, that Kyd wrote an old 
 " Taming of the Shrew " or an old " Hamlet." 
 "It is a mere arbitrary conjecture" that he 
 was the author of either. 
 
 There is therefore no proof that Shakspere 
 
vs. Shakspere 71 
 
 imitated Kyd, and Professor Wendell's as- 
 sertion that "Titus Andronicus" is "much" 
 in his manner is utterly without support. 
 
 "The Comedy of Errors" was unquestion- 
 ably suggested by the "Twins" of Plautus. 
 Is it therefore an imitation? 
 
 What is literary imitation? Did Dante 
 imitate Virgil because Virgil's ghost was the 
 guide through the "Inferno"? Did Milton 
 imitate Dante in "Paradise Lost" because 
 he describes the same scenes in different 
 words ? Did he imitate the author of Genesis 
 because he reproduces the Garden of Eden in 
 majestic poetry? " Paradise Lost" seems to 
 Professor Wendell "almost superhuman," 
 but when any suggestion of transcendent 
 power is applied to Shakspere, it assumes 
 an " unnecessary miracle. ' ' Shakspere, whom 
 ten generations of great men have failed to 
 imitate, is in the opinion of Professor Wendell 
 but an imitator, because while, as he says, 
 " he could not help wakening to life the stiffly 
 conventional characters which he found, 
 as little more than names, in the tales and 
 
72 Critics 
 
 the fictions he adapted for the stage," he 
 wrote chronicle plays, comedies, romances, 
 tragedies, after others had worked in the 
 same fields. 
 
 Milton was born in 1608. "That was the 
 year," says Professor Wendell, "when Shak- 
 spere probably came to the end of his tragic 
 period, and, with the imitativeness which 
 never forsook him, was about to follow 
 the newly popular manner of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher." 
 
 But let us turn to Professor Wendell's 
 opinion of Milton and quote his language: 
 "With Milton, the case is wonderfully 
 different. Read Scripture, if you will, and 
 then turn to your 'Paradise Lost.' Turn 
 then to whatever poet you chance to love 
 of Greek antiquity or of Roman. Turn to 
 Dante himself. . . . Then turn back 
 to Milton. Different you wiU find him, no 
 doubt, in the austere isolation of his masterful 
 and deHberate Puritanism and learning; 
 but that difference does not make him 
 irrevocably lesser. Rather you will grow 
 
vs. Shakspere 73 
 
 more and more to feel how wonderful his 
 power proves. Almost alone among poets, 
 he could take the things for which he had 
 need from the masters themselves, as con- 
 fidently as any of the masters had taken 
 such matters from lesser men; and he could 
 so place these spoils of masterpieces in his 
 own work that they seem as truly and as 
 admirably part of it as they seemed of the 
 other great works where he found them." 
 '"Paradise Lost' transcends all traces of 
 its lesser origins, until those lesser origins 
 become a matter of mere curiosity." 
 
 And so it appears that Professer Wendell 
 applies one definition of the word " imitation" 
 to Shakspere, another to Milton. If Shak- 
 spere found chronicle plays in the theatre, 
 and transformed them into the most vivid 
 and truthful history ever written, "those 
 lesser origins become a matter of mere 
 curiosity," and the charge of imitation 
 fails. If the "Comedy of Errors" is an 
 "imitation" of Plautus, "Paradise Lost" 
 is an "imitation" of Moses. If "Paradise 
 
74 Critics 
 
 Lost" is not an "imitation" but "something 
 utterly apart," "something almost super- 
 htmian . . in its grand soHtude"; if 
 Milton has "so placed the spoils of master- 
 pieces in liis own work that they seem 
 truly and admirably a part of it," then 
 " Love's Labour 's Lost" is not an "imitation" 
 of Lilly, nor " Henry VL" of Greene or Peele 
 or Marlowe, nor "Titus Andronicus" of Kyd. 
 
 But this indictment against Shakspere 
 is made more definite in form, and may 
 therefore be more conclusively answered. 
 This is the charge as stated by Professor 
 Wendell: 
 
 "A young American scholar whose name 
 has hardly yet crossed the Atlantic, — Pro- 
 fessor Ashley Horace Thorndike, — has lately 
 made some studies in dramatic chronology 
 which go far to confirm the tinromantic 
 conjecture that to the end Shakspere re- 
 mained imitative and little else. Professor 
 Thorndike, for example, has shown with 
 convincing probability that certain old plays 
 concerning Robin Hood proved popular; 
 
vs. Shakspere 75 
 
 a little later, Shakspere produced the woods 
 and outlaws of 'As You Like It.' The 
 question is one of pure chronology ; and pure 
 chronology has convinced me, for one, that 
 the forest scenes of Arden were written to 
 fit available costumes and properties. . . . 
 Again, Professor Thorndike has shown that 
 Roman subjects grew popular, and tragedies 
 of revenge such as Marston's ; a little later, 
 Shakspere wrote 'Julius Caesar' and 'Ham- 
 let.' With much more elaboration Profes- 
 sor Thorndike has virtually proved that the 
 romances of Beatmiont and Fletcher — dif- 
 ferent both in motive and in style from 
 any popular plays which had preceded 
 them — ^were conspicuously successful on the 
 London stage before Shakspere began to 
 write romances. It seems likely, therefore, 
 that 'Cymbeline,' which less careful chro- 
 nology had conjectttred to be a model for 
 Beaumont and Fletcher, was in fact imitated 
 from models which they had made. In 
 other words. Professor Thorndike has shown 
 that one may account for all the changes 
 
76 Critics 
 
 in Shakspere, after 1600, by merely assuming 
 that the most skilful and instinctive imitator 
 among the early Elizabethan dramatists, re- 
 mained to the end an instinctively imitative 
 follower of fashions set by others." 
 
 Again, he says: "The Hkeness of their 
 work to the romances of Shakspere — in 
 subject, in structtire, in peculiarities of verse, 
 — has been often remarked; and they have 
 consequently been supposed to have begun 
 by skilful superficial imitation of his spirit- 
 ually ripest phase. The question is one of 
 chronology not yet fixed in detail; but as I 
 have told you already, the studies of my 
 friend Professor Thorndike have virtually 
 proved that several of their plays must have 
 been in existence decidedly before the dates 
 commonly assigned to 'Cymbeline, ' the 
 'Tempest' or the 'Winter's Tale.' If he 
 is right, — and I beUeve him so, — the relation 
 commonly thought to have existed between 
 them and Shakspere is precisely reversed. 
 Shakspere was the imitator, not they; 
 indeed, as we have seen, he was from the 
 
vs. Shakspere n 
 
 beginning an imitator, not an inventor. 
 And here his imitations are not in all respects 
 better than his models." 
 
 Here the grave accusation is distinctly 
 made that Shakspere imitated Beaumont 
 and Fletcher, and to support it, reference is 
 made to one man only. Professor Thorndike, 
 his pupil and disciple. 
 
 And so, in this new case, we have two 
 judges, and the curious fact that the in- 
 structor refers to the student and the 
 student to the instructor as the sole authority 
 for the soundness of the decision. 
 
 The "Introduction" of Professor Thorn- 
 dike to his "Influence of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher on Shakspere" sufficiently shows 
 the animus of his essay: he cites the libel 
 of Greene, and intimates that it is an ac- 
 cusation of plagiarism which we have re- 
 jected, but which "contains an element of 
 truth worth keeping in mind"; he repeats 
 in positive words the charge of Professor 
 Wendell that Shakspere began by "imitating 
 or revamping the work of others"; that 
 
78 Critics 
 
 "Titus Andronicus" and "Henry VI.," "so 
 far as they are his, are certainly imitative 
 of other plays of the time," and adds that 
 " Richard II. " and " Richard III. " show the 
 influence of Marlowe's tragedies, and " Love's 
 Labour 's Lost" of Lilly's comedies. 
 
 We have sufficiently answered as to Henry 
 VI.," "Titus Andronicus," and "Love's 
 Labour 's Lost." There is no proof of- 
 fered as to the histories of the two Richards. 
 The assertion is made without authority 
 or example, without even the application 
 of the usual "verse-tests" by which author- 
 ship is so conveniently determined. 
 
 Having repeated the erroneous and un- 
 supported statements of his master. Professor 
 Thorndike announces that after these early 
 "imitations" Httle attention has been given 
 to Shakspere's subsequent indebtedness to 
 his contemporaries, for the reason that 
 "to most students it has seemed absurd," 
 while to him it is clear that " Hamlet" and 
 "Lear" "contain traces of the 'tragedy 
 of blood type'"; that "a closer adherence 
 
vs. Shakspere 79 
 
 to current forms can be seen in the relation 
 between the ' Merchant of Venice ' and the 
 'Jew of Malta,' " "or in the many points of 
 similarity between ' Hamlet ' and the . . . 
 tragedies dealing with the theme of blood 
 revenge," and that "characters . . . are 
 often clearly developments of types familiar 
 on the stage," "as for example, lago is a 
 development of the conventional stage vil- 
 lain." He is certainly correct in saying 
 that to most students these assumptions 
 "seem absurd." Let us examine them 
 briefly, for the ptirpose of learning whether 
 they deserve any more serious adjective. 
 Marlowe's "Jew of Malta" appeared about 
 1589. As the author annotuices in the 
 prologue, it is based upon Machiavel's 
 theory of life — pure selfishness. The Jew 
 makes war upon all the world, for the 
 gratification of his passion for revenge; 
 he poisons his daughter "and the entire 
 ntmnery in which she had taken refuge"; he 
 kills, he betrays, he prepares a burning 
 caldron for a whole garrison, — "tragedy 
 
8o Critics 
 
 such as this is simply revolting. The char- 
 acters of Barabas and of his servant, and 
 the motives by which they are stimtdated, 
 are the mere coinage of extravagance; 
 and the effect is as essentially tmdramatic 
 as the personification is unreal." The con- 
 duct of the drama is in keeping with the 
 character of this incomprehensible monster 
 of vindictiveness ; he is "without shame 
 or fear, and bloodthirsty even to madness." 
 His bad schemes are always successful; 
 but the action proceeds without connection, 
 the characters come and go without apparent 
 cause; the three Jews, the monks and nuns, 
 the mother of Don Mathias "appear and 
 disappear so unexpectedly, and are inter- 
 woven with the action in so entirely an 
 external manner, that the defects of the 
 composition are at once apparent." 
 
 If this seems a good model for Shakspere's 
 Shylock, it will seem impossible, when Bar- 
 abas shows us his own portrait: 
 
 "As for myself, I walk abroad a-nights, 
 And kill sick people groaning under walls; 
 
vs. Shakspere 8i 
 
 Sometimes I go about and poison wells; 
 And now and then, to cherish Christian thieves 
 I am content to lose some of my crowns; 
 That I may, walking in my gallery, 
 See 'em go pinion'd along by my door. 
 Being young, I studied physic, and began 
 To practice first upon the Italian; 
 There I enriched the priest with burials, 
 And always kept the sexton's arms in use. 
 With digging graves and ringing dead men's 
 
 knells ; 
 And after that was I an engineer, 
 And in the wars 'twixt France and Germany, 
 Under pretence of helping Charles the Fifth, 
 Slew friend and enemy with my stratagems. 
 And after that was I an usurer. 
 And with extorting, cozening, forfeiting, 
 And tricks belonging unto brokery, 
 I filled the jails with bankrupts in a year. 
 And with young orphans planted hospitals. 
 And every moon made some or other mad. 
 And now and then one hung himself for 
 
 grief. 
 
 Pinning upon his breast a long great scroll, 
 
 How I with interest tormented him. 
 
 But mark how I am bless 'd for plaguing them; 
 6 
 
82 Critics 
 
 I have as much coin as will buy the town. 
 But tell me now, how hast thou spent thy time ? ' ' 
 
 And the servant answers in sympathetic 
 lines: 
 
 "Faith, master, in setting Christian villages on 
 
 fire. 
 Chaining of eunuchs, binding galley slaves. 
 One time I was an ostler in an inn. 
 And in the night-time secretly would I steal 
 To travellers' chambers, and there cut' their 
 
 throats ; 
 Once at Jerusalem, where the pilgrims kneel'd, 
 I strewed powder on the marble stones. 
 And therewithal their knees would rankle so 
 That I have laughed a-good to see the cripples 
 Go limping home to Christendom on stilts." 
 
 Undoubtedly, the "groundlings" shouted 
 with delight when this fiend was plunged 
 into the boiling caldron which he had heated 
 for others. Barabas dies, " in the midst of 
 his crimes, with blasphemy and cursing on 
 his lips ; everything is the same at the end 
 as it was from the beginning." 
 
vs. Shakspere 83 
 
 To the tinlearned reader, there is no "re- 
 lation" between this wild drama and the 
 perfect art shown in Shakspere's Jew, who 
 utters no curse when the gentle Portia 
 pronounces sentence, but retires with dignity, 
 from her court, because "he is not well." 
 
 Professor Thorndike tells us that the 
 "traces" of blood revenge in "Hamlet" and 
 "Lear" have been frequently "remarked." 
 What those traces are we are not informed, 
 but he assures us that "they have not led 
 to any careful investigation of Shakspere's 
 indebtedness to his contemporaries." That 
 investigation was reserved for his research, 
 and we hope to show how successfully he 
 has performed his great task. Meanwhile, 
 we may be allowed to say that if "Lear" 
 contains any "trace" of the tragedy of 
 blood, it is utterly undiscoverable to the 
 ordinary reader, in the action, character or 
 fate of the victims; and as for "Hamlet," 
 so far is he from any idea of blood revenge, 
 that he doubts and disobeys the message 
 from the other world, doubts indeed the 
 
84 Critics 
 
 existence of any other world, and dies at 
 last not a bloody death, but by a foil "un- 
 bated and envenomed." 
 
 If lago is but the development of the 
 conventional stage villain, his origin and 
 some of the missing links of his evolution 
 ought to be shown; they have never been 
 guessed, and no critic can produce a single 
 member of his kindred. 
 
 From such premises, Professor Thorndike 
 concludes that "it is only natural to expect 
 that the genius who brought many of these 
 forms to their highest perfection should not 
 have been so much an inventor as an adapt- 
 er " ; " We may naturally expect, " he says, 
 "that Shakspere's transcendent plays owe 
 a considerable debt to the less perfect but 
 not less original efforts of his contemporaries." 
 This "natural expectation" is not disap- 
 pointed, in Professor Thorndike's opinion, 
 by a comparison between some of Beaumont 
 and Fletcher's plays and those he calls the 
 "romances" of Shakspere, — "Cymbeline," 
 "The Tempest," and "Winter's Tale." The 
 
vs. Shakspere 85 
 
 argument is circtiitous, but must be carefully- 
 followed in order to estimate the validity 
 and weight of the conclusion. 
 
 In the first place, it is assumed as probable 
 that Shakspere and Fletcher wrote "The 
 Two Noble Kinsmen," and that Fletcher 
 wrote part of "Henry VIII." It is ad- 
 mitted that this last assumption is "at odds 
 with the weight of authority" and rests 
 mainly, if not wholly, upon Spedding's 
 essay, in 1850. The only additional sug- 
 gestion is the new and original test, the 
 so-called " em-them ' ' test. A laborious table 
 is made, purporting to show that in the 
 part assigned to Shakspere "them" is used 
 seventeen times, "'em" only five; that in 
 the part assigned to Fletcher "them" is 
 used but four times, "'em" fifty-seven. 
 We are not told from what source this table 
 was made, but "Henry VIII." was first 
 published in the folio of 1623. Professor 
 Thorndike says that later editions have 
 strictly followed it, and in Knight's edition, 
 which he certifies to be a reprint of the 
 
86 Critics 
 
 first folio, '"em" as a contraction for 
 "them" occurs just once and no more. 
 Thus far, then, the new "test" seems to 
 give us no satisfactory aid. 
 
 It may be permitted an ordinary reader 
 to wonder how any 'critic can persuade 
 himself that Fletcher wrote the speech of 
 Wolsey on his downfall, or ^^the prophecy of 
 Cranmer at the christening of Elizabeth. 
 Why is it not a permissible hypothesis that 
 " Henry VIII. " was written during the 
 reign of the great Queen, and subsequently 
 revised by Shakspere, after her death, and 
 presented as a "new play," as Wotten calls 
 it? 
 
 The only external evidence that Shakspere 
 wrote any portion of " The Two Noble Kins- 
 men ' ' is the quarto of 1 634. On the contrary, 
 all the previous external evidence is against 
 that guess, for it was left out of the First 
 Folio, and Heminge & Condell's positive 
 knowledge is certainly of more weight 
 than the opinion of Professor Thorndike's 
 sole authority, Mr. Littledale. Moreover, 
 
vs. Shakspere 87 
 
 the play was not included among Shakspere 's 
 works in the foUo of 1632, and did not appear 
 among them -until, with six other doubtful 
 plays, the editions of 1664 and 1685. In 
 view of this proof, it is admitted that the 
 question of collaboration is likely to remain 
 forever unsettled, "because it does not 
 admit of complete demonstration.*' Never- 
 theless, collaboration is assumed, and the 
 "em-them" test is applied to the text so 
 as to credit 1034 lines to Shakspere, i486 
 to Fletcher. 
 
 German critcism has taken up the subject 
 with minute care, and, we may assert with 
 confidence, has settled beyond doubt that 
 Shakspere never wrote a single line of 
 "The two Noble Kinsmen." And it may 
 be added with equal certainty that if the 
 citations from that play are correctly credited 
 to Fletcher, he never wrote a line of "Henry 
 VIII." Professor Thorndike is not con- 
 sistent with himself. On one page he calls 
 his theory conjectural, on another, a "reason- 
 able conclusion." The play itself ought 
 
88 Critics 
 
 to convince any fair mind that Shakspere 
 had no share in it, for it contains an obvious 
 imitation of Ophelia's madness in " Hamlet," 
 which in some points " is a direct plagiarism." 
 But it was important for Professor Thorndike 
 to show what he calls a "probability" that 
 Shakspere and Fletcher collaborated, in 
 order to estabUsh his theory that Fletcher 
 " influenced " Shakspere. With the vanishing 
 of the ' ' probability ' ' the ' ' influence ' ' vanishes. 
 The second step in the argument is a 
 review of the chronology of the plays of 
 Beaumont and Fletcher, among which only 
 seven are immediately important. "The 
 Woman Hater," licensed 20th May, 1607, 
 published in quarto 1607, as lately acted, 
 again in 1648, and assigned to Beaumont 
 and Fletcher. Its first representation is 
 put by Mr. Fleay on April 5th, 1607. Pro- 
 fessor Thorndike conjectures that this play 
 was produced in 1606. "Philaster, " the 
 most important in connection with our 
 subject, was first published in 1620. Mr. 
 Fleay dates its composition in 1611; Pro- 
 
vs. Shakspere 89 
 
 fessor Thorndike, in 1608. The " Four Plays 
 in One" he likewise assigns conjectvirally 
 to the same year. The fact is, it was first 
 printed in the folio of 1647, ^^^ '^o authority 
 fixes the date of its production. "Thiery 
 and Theodoret" was first published in 1621, 
 without giving the name of any author. 
 The quarto of 1648 credits Fletcher as 
 the sole author; that of 1649, Beaumont 
 and Fletcher as the joint authors. Fleay 
 places the date about 161 7; Oliphant main- 
 tains that it was written about 1607 or 
 1608, and afterwards revised in 161 7 by 
 Fletcher and Massinger; Professor Thorn- 
 dike ventures the guess that it was written 
 in 1607. 
 
 "The Maid's Tragedy" he places doubt- 
 fully in 1609. It was first published in 
 1 61 9 without naming its authors. The 
 only evidence as to its date is that it was 
 licensed October 31st, 161 1. 
 
 "Cupid's Revenge" was acted at Court in 
 1 61 2, and first published in 161 5. Professor 
 Thorndike thinks it was an effort to repeat 
 
90 Critics 
 
 the success of "Philaster," and therefore 
 assigns it to 1609 or 1610. 
 
 "A King and No King" he puts without 
 hesitation in the year 161 1, and this is 
 supported by authority. Professor Thorn- 
 dike remarks that this is the only play 
 (of Beaumont and Fletcher), "acted before 
 1 61 2, the year of whose production is fixed." 
 
 The only reason for referring to "The 
 Woman Hater " is to fix the date of Beaiunont 
 and Fletcher's appearance. There is ab- 
 solutely no proof that they were known 
 to literatiire before that play was licensed 
 by Sir George Buc on the 20th May, 1607. 
 Yet Professor Thorndike, in spite -of this, 
 assigns "The Woman's Prize," first printed 
 in 1647, and first acted, so far as the record 
 shows, November 28th, 1633, to the year 1604. 
 
 It is to be noted that of the six other plays 
 referred to by Professor Thorndike, and 
 claimed to have been in existence before 
 the end of 161 1, the dates of all except 
 " A King and No King " are only conjecturally 
 given. 
 
vs. Shakspere 91 
 
 Compared with these, the chronology of 
 "CymbeUne," "Tempest" and "Winter's 
 Tale " is reviewed. " CymbeUne, " according 
 to Dr. Simon Forman's Diary, was acted 
 between April 20th, 1610, and May 15th, 
 1 611; it must therefore have been written 
 before the last named date. Mr. Fleay 
 fixes the date in 1609, Malone in 1605, and 
 both Chalmers and Drake substantially 
 agree with Malone. Ulrici assigns the date 
 of composition to 1609 or 16 10. 
 
 "The Tempest," according to Professor 
 Thorndike, cannot be dated earlier than 
 October 13th, 1610, nor later than 1613, 
 and was probably written and acted late in 
 1 6 ID or early in 161 1. Ulrici agrees with 
 this. 
 
 "The Winter's Tale," as appears by 
 Forman's Diary, was acted May 15, 1611. 
 Ulrici says : " It is now a matter of certainty 
 that it must have been brought upon the 
 stage between August, 1610, and May, 
 161 1." It has been suggested with some 
 plausibility that this play was an early pro- 
 
92 Critics 
 
 duction by Shakspere which he remodelled. 
 A play called "A Winternyght's Pastime" 
 is entered at Stationer's Hall as early as 
 1594. Professor Thorndike fixes the date 
 between January ist and May isth, 1611 
 and assumes that the drama is imitated from 
 Jonson's " Masque of Oberon." He suggests 
 that as in the "Masque" the chariot of 
 Oberon is drawn by two white bears, 
 " perhaps here, as in the dance, costume and 
 actor reappeared in the play, in the bear who 
 chases Antigonus." Anything to show that 
 Shakspere imitated anybody. 
 
 The argument is based upon this chro- 
 nology and the alleged similarity between the 
 enumerated dramas ; the issue is made upon 
 the respective dates of Beaumont and Fletch- 
 er's "Philaster" and Shakspere's "Cymbe- 
 Hne." There is no claim that Shakspere 
 imitated Beatunont and Fletcher or was 
 influenced by them, except in his three 
 "romances," and of these, "Cymbeline" 
 is placed first. Professor Thorndike under- 
 takes to prove that "Philaster" was written 
 
vs. Shakspere 93 
 
 before October 8th, 1610, and this is his 
 reasoning : 
 
 " In the ' Scotirge of Folly ' by John Davies 
 of Hertford, entered in the Stationer's 
 Register October 8th, 16 10, occurs an 
 epigram referring to this play." Let us 
 examine this statement first. On the next 
 page he says: "The 'Scourge of Folly' 
 furnishes no further clue in regard to the 
 date of the epigram." On page 59 of the 
 same essay, referring to another play, " Don 
 Quixote," the statement is made that it 
 was "entered S. R. 1611 and printed 1612." 
 The entry was therefore in the nature of a 
 "license to print." It is clear that in this 
 instance the actual printing or publication 
 was after the entry. The same rule must 
 apply to other plays of the same period. 
 The date of entry affords no proof whatever 
 of the date of publication or of presentation. 
 Therefore the date of the entry of "The 
 Scourge of Folly," October 8th, 1610, as 
 Professor Thorndike states, "affords no 
 clue in regard to the date" of Davies 's 
 
94 Critics 
 
 " epigram." The " epigram " may have been 
 written long after the entry in the Stationer's 
 Register, and probably was, because it is 
 not to be assumed that the "epigram" 
 appeared in the entry of the play, and 
 Davies cannot be assumed to have had any 
 knowledge of the existence of " Philaster " 
 until it appeared upon the stage, a date 
 entirely uncertain. 
 
 Further, Professor Thomdike says : " There 
 is no reason why 'Philaster' may not 
 have been produced before Burbage took 
 up the Blackfriar's lease in 1608. There 
 is in fact no early limit that can be set for 
 the date; the final limit is of course fixed 
 by Davies' epigram." Of what value is the 
 final Hmit " fixed by the epigram " when there 
 is no proof of the date of that? What 
 grotmd is there, beyond mere arbitrary 
 assumption, for assigning "Philaster" to 
 1608? That play was not printed till 1620. 
 Mr. Fleay, Professor Thorndike's constant 
 authority, says it was written in 161 1, 
 after "Cymbeline" was upon the stage. 
 
vs. Shakspere 95 
 
 There is absolutely no proof, therefore, that 
 "Philaster" was written before October 8th, 
 1610, no proof when it was entered, licensed 
 or first acted ; and so it is clear, as Professor 
 Thorndike says, that "the date, 1608, 
 adopted by Dyce, Leonhardt, and Macaulay, 
 is no more than a conjecture." On the 
 other hand, as we have shown, the external 
 evidence is conclusive that " Cymbeline" was 
 upon the bills before May 15th, 161 1, and 
 therefore the argtiment that "Philaster" 
 preceded "Cymbeline" finds no better sup- 
 port than the opinion of Dyce, Leonhardt, 
 and Macaulay. It is mere conjecture. 
 
 Professor Thorndike expressly admits that 
 of the six plays which are claimed as "ro- 
 mances," "A King and No King" "is the 
 only one acted before 161 2 the year of whose 
 production is fixed," but he states without 
 qualification that "Winter's Tale" and the 
 "Tempest" were not acted until after 
 "Philaster." As we have seen, "Winter's 
 Tale"was acted May 15th, 1611, and Professor 
 Thorndike himself says that " 'The Tempest' 
 
9^ Critics 
 
 was probably written and acted late in 1610 
 or early in 1611"; "Cupid's Revenge" "was 
 acted the Sunday following New Year's 1612 ; 
 'A King and No King' in December, 161 1." 
 These are the only two of the sbc of which 
 the date of acting is given. Nowhere does 
 Professor Thorndike pretend to give any date 
 whatever when "Philaster" was acted; the 
 only question discussed is as to the year 
 of authorship, and that is left uncertain. 
 The statement that "Winter's Tale" and 
 "The Tempest" were "not acted until 
 after ' Philaster ' " is utterly without warrant 
 or authority. If Shakspere is to be ad- 
 judged the "imitator" of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, the judgment must rest upon facts 
 or inference from facts, and not upon the 
 tmsupported opinion of Professor Wendell's 
 pupil. 
 
 Professor Thorndike in fact admits that 
 "we cannot be certain about the date of 'Cym- 
 beUne,' " but yet assumes that "Philaster" 
 preceded it, both in date of production and 
 public appearance, and proceeds to draw 
 
vs. Shakspere 97 
 
 a long parallel between the "romances" of 
 Beaumont and Fletcher and those of Shak- 
 spere, for the purpose of showing that the 
 "romance" or the heroic "romance" was 
 a new style of drama, "created" by Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher and probably adapted 
 and improved by Shakspere. 
 
 Whether there is any difference in defini- 
 tion between the "romance" and the "heroic 
 romance" seems immaterial, since Professor 
 Thorndike uses one term as synonymous 
 with the other. He gives "the most no- 
 ticeable characteristics of the romances": 
 "A mixture of tragic and idyllic events, 
 a series of highly improbable events, heroic 
 and sentimental characters, foreign scenes, 
 happy denouements." This definition is 
 elaborated in connection with the " romances" 
 of Beaumont and Fletcher: 
 
 ist. They took the plots from any 
 source. 
 
 2nd. The plots are ingenious and im- 
 probable. 
 
 3rd. The plots lack realism. 
 
gS Critics 
 
 4th. The plots deal with heroic persons 
 and actions. 
 
 5th. The characters are not historical. 
 
 6th. The plays are located far off, for 
 example, in Milan, Athens, Messina, Lisbon. 
 
 7 th. The action has little to do with the 
 real Ufe of any historic period, but with 
 "romance." 
 
 8th. The story is of sentimental love, 
 as contrasted with gross, sensual passion. 
 
 9th. There is variety of emotional effect. 
 
 loth. There is always a happy denouement. 
 
 All these elements of the definition are 
 applied to "Cymbeline," "The Tempest" 
 and "Winter's Tale," and it is maintained 
 that none of Shakspere's previous dramas 
 present the same features. This is a con- 
 venient method of showing that Beaumont 
 and Fletcher "created the romantic drama" 
 and that Shakspere was "influenced" in 
 writing "Cymbeline" by "Philaster," but 
 it is not criticism ; it is rather an attempt to 
 "create" a definition and apply it to 
 " Philaster, " and then to deny its application 
 
vs. Shakspere 99 
 
 to " Midsummer Night's Dream, " " Much Ado 
 About Nothing," "The Merchant of Ven- 
 ice," "Twelfth Night" or "Measure for 
 Measure." 
 
 Why does Professor Wendell call the 
 "Two Gentlemen of Verona" a "roman- 
 tic comedy," if Beaumont and Fletcher 
 "created" the type which Professor Thorn- 
 dike pronounces "romance"? He deliber- 
 ately classifies "Much Ado" and "Twelfth 
 Night" as "romantic comedies." Is not 
 "Philaster" a " romantic comedy " ? Then, 
 as "Much Ado" was probably written in 
 1599, "Twelfth Night" in 1598, when 
 Beaimiont was twelve or thirteen and 
 Fletcher twenty-two or twenty-three, it 
 seems qtiite "probable" that they were 
 "influenced" in writing their "romances" 
 by Shakspere. If there is any fundamental 
 difference between "romantic comedy" and 
 "romance," what is it? This is a difficult 
 question, which Professor Thorndike has 
 attempted but failed to answer. He admits 
 that "Philaster" has some generic re- 
 
loo Critics 
 
 semblance to "Measure for Meastire, " but 
 says that "No one would think of finding 
 close resemblance between it and anyone 
 of the 'romances.'" If the resemblance 
 is generic, does it matter whether it is 
 "close"? If "Meastire for Measure" falls 
 within the laborious definition of a "ro- 
 mance," or of a "tragi-comedy," as both 
 that play and " Philaster " are called, why 
 should n't we think of " Measure for Meastire," 
 produced in 1604, four years before the 
 wildest conjecture puts the date of "Philas- 
 ter," as the model upon which Beaumont 
 and Fletcher built? 
 
 "Measure for Measure" answers every 
 detail of the definition : the plot is taken from 
 "Promos and Cassandra"; it is ingenious 
 and improbable, lacks realism, deals with 
 heroic persons and actions, a sovereign 
 duke and his rascal brother; the characters 
 are not historical; the location is far off; 
 the action has little to do with the real life 
 of any historical period; the story involves 
 sentimental love, as distinctly contriasted 
 
vs. Shakspere loi 
 
 with sensual passion; there is variety of 
 emotional effect; the denouement is happy. 
 If therefore the definition of "romance" is 
 correct, "Measure for Measure" is as much 
 of that type as "Philaster"; Beatimont and 
 Fletcher did not "create" it, and there is 
 no reason for supposing that Shakspere 
 imitated them in "Cymbeline, " "Tempest," 
 or "Winter's Tale." 
 
 But certain traits of construction are 
 named as peculiar to the six "romances" of 
 Beaumont and Fletcher and those of Shak- 
 spere, and it is sought to show that Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher set the fashion in these 
 also. 
 
 ist. They did not observe the unities. 
 
 2nd. They disregarded the chronicle 
 method. 
 
 3rd. They left out battles and armies. 
 
 4th. They presented a series of contrasted 
 and interesting situations leading up to a 
 startling climax. 
 
 5th. The by-plots assist the main action. 
 
 6th. There is the use of tragi-comedy. 
 
I02 Critics 
 
 Does any attentive reader of Shakspere's 
 comedies, whether called romantic or tragi- 
 comic, or by whatever other name, need to 
 be told that many of them contain all these 
 traits? General review is impossible, but 
 take "The Merchant of Venice" as an 
 illtistration : 
 
 The unities are not observed. We think 
 it is generally thought that Shakspere was 
 in the habit of disregarding them. The 
 chronicle method is ignored. We are not 
 aware that Shakspere ever followed it 
 except in writing historical plays. Battles 
 and armies are left out. This comedy, hke 
 others by the same cunning hand, presents 
 a series of contrasted and interesting situa- 
 tions leading up to a startling climax. 
 Need we call to mind the rash contract of 
 the merchant, and its almost tragic result, 
 the game of the caskets, the trial and defeat 
 of the clamorous Shylock ? The by-plot 
 assists the main action, else why does 
 Jessica keep house for Portia while she goes 
 to play "A Daniel come to judgment"? 
 
vs. Shakspere 103 
 
 There is the use of tragi-comedy in the ruin 
 of the merchant, in the whetting of the 
 Jew's knife for the heart of his assured 
 victim. If these "traits" characterize the 
 "romances" of Beaumont and Fletcher, 
 they are possibly more Hkely to have been the 
 " imitators, " because " Shylock " was created 
 in 1596 or 1597, some years before "Philas- 
 ter" was exhibited as a stage decoration. 
 
 It is virged further that in the " romances " 
 of Beaumont and Fletcher "the characters 
 are not individuals, but types," and that 
 those types are repeated until they became 
 conventionalized. There is always a very 
 bad and a very good woman, a very generous 
 and noble man and one so bad as to seem a 
 monster. There is the type of the " love-lorn 
 maiden," of "the lily-livered" hero, of the 
 faithful friend, of the poltroon. It is sup- 
 posed by many that such types repeated 
 in play after play do not mark the highest 
 original power, but rather poverty of in- 
 vention, weak and shadowy conception, in- 
 distinctness of coloring. Professor Thorndike, 
 
I04 Critics 
 
 however, cannot too much commend this 
 style, because it gives such wide scope for 
 intense passion, startUng situation, and suc- 
 cessfiil stage effect, and proceeds to seek 
 for similar types in Shakspere's "romances" 
 as further proof that he "imitated" "Phil- 
 aster." In his view, the characters show 
 " surprising loss of individuality." Imogen's 
 character "fails to supply really individual 
 traits"; "Perdita and Miranda have even 
 less marks of individuality than Imogen." 
 They are like Beaumont and Fletcher's 
 heroines who appear in the same stage 
 costumes, wearing the same masks, differing 
 only in stage postures and dialogue. More 
 than this : Professor Thorndike would reduce 
 the "creations" of Viola and Rosalynd to 
 the conventional type of the "love-lorn" 
 maiden, to mere adaptations for the stage, 
 because they dressed in boy's clothes; of 
 Perdita, to an "imitation" of Lady Amelia 
 in "Palamon and Arcyte" because she 
 gathered flowers prettily and was commended 
 by the Queen. He makes the surprising 
 
vs. Shakspere 105 
 
 statement that the three heroines in "Cym- 
 beline," the "Tempest" and "Winter's 
 Tale" have on the stage "few quaHties to 
 distingiiish them from almost any of Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher's." It is difficult to 
 discuss such generalizations with the tem- 
 perance of criticism. They can be true only 
 if Professor Thorndike's theory is correct, — 
 that the delineation of character is solely 
 for stage effect. There is another theory 
 announced and recorded by Shakspere him- 
 self, and illustrated in every drama he wrote, 
 — that the sole end and aim of the stage 
 itself and of the characters it represents, 
 is "to hold the mirror up to nature," and 
 therefore his characters are not "types"; 
 they are men and women who were born, 
 not manufactured; each is a separate, in- 
 dividual human being; each different from 
 every other. We know them, for they 
 have entered our houses, sat at our tables, 
 talked with us, laughed and wept with us, 
 made us shudder at crime and exult in the 
 triumph of virtue. 
 
io6 Critics 
 
 Therefore, there is but one "Lear": his 
 madness was never imitated outside of 
 Bedlam; but one Lady Macbeth, and we 
 have seen her walking in her awful dream. 
 Beaumont and Fletcher in six romances 
 delineate "love-lorn maidens," "conven- 
 tionalized types, " who differ little from each 
 other, except that three of them "mas- 
 querade in boy's clothing" and three do 
 not. They have "little individuality," "are 
 utterly romantic," "utterly removed from 
 life"; all are presented to produce novel 
 situations leading up to a startling climax. 
 
 Imogen is not like Miranda or Perdita; 
 neither is a "type" of the "love-lorn" 
 maiden; all are living, acting individuals, 
 differing from each other like those we know, 
 resembling each other only as one beautifvil 
 and pure woman resembles another. Pro- 
 fessor Thorndike, who is the advocate of 
 Beatunont and Fletcher, may keep his 
 personal opinion that Imogen lacks "in- 
 dividual traits," but we respectftdly decline 
 to take his opinion as a critic that she is 
 
vs. Shakspere 107 
 
 like Arethusa in "Philaster." For us and 
 for all men and women, Shakspere has 
 created the character of Imogen, as of 
 Perdita and Miranda, and her "individual 
 traits" are clear enough, to those who have 
 had the happiness of her acquaintance, to 
 show that neither in feature or dress, neither 
 in manners or morals, did she "imitate" any 
 of the heroines of Beaumont and Fletcher. 
 But even as a critic we must differ from 
 Professor Thorndike ; he accuses Miranda of 
 unpardonable indelicacy, and says she " pro- 
 posed" to Ferdinand! He gives her language 
 from " Tempest, " and remarks with satisfac- 
 tion that it sounds " very much like one of 
 Beaumont and Fletcher's heroines, " meaning 
 of course Arethusa, and so draws the obvious 
 conclusion that Shakspere in this remarkable 
 instance clearly "imitated" the "creators" 
 of the "heroic romantic drama." The diffi- 
 culty with this statement first of all is, that 
 it is not true: Miranda does not "propose" 
 to Ferdinand; before her sweet confession 
 of love, Ferdinand had given all lovers the 
 
io8 Critics 
 
 best form of proposal ever spoken, in this 
 language : 
 
 "I, 
 Beyond all limit of what else i' the world, 
 Do love, prize, honor you." 
 
 Arethusa does "propose" to Philaster, 
 and therefore her "proposal" does not 
 "sound very much like" the proposal in 
 " Tempest, " or, if it does, it tends strongly to 
 show that Beaumont and Fletcher attempted 
 an "imitation" from "The Tempest." Pro- 
 fessor Thorndike the critic has here been 
 misled by his zeal as the partisan : is n't it 
 just possible that the like zeal has misled 
 him in the conclusion that "CymbeUne" 
 was an imitation of "Philaster"? 
 
 The second class of "types," as shown by 
 the dramas of Beaumont and Fletcher, is the 
 "evil woman" — Evadne in the "Maid's 
 Tragedy," Bacha in "Cupid's Revenge," 
 Megra in "Philaster," Brunhalt in "Thierry 
 and Theodoret" and Arane in "A King and 
 No King." Professor Thorndike says that 
 "four of them brazenly confess adultery, 
 
vs. Shakspere 109 
 
 and four attempt murder," and that "the 
 resemblance. . . is tinmistakable . . 
 and on the stage even more than in print" 
 these characters "must have seemed to all 
 intents identical." 
 
 The only parallel to this in Shakspere's 
 "romances," as drawn by Professor Thorn- 
 dike, is that the "wicked Queen in 'Cymbeline' 
 is very like the wicked queens of Beaumont 
 and Fletcher," and that "there are other 
 characters . . . who show resemblances 
 to Beaumont and Fletcher's stock types." 
 What the resemblances are we are not told, 
 and we need not inquire until we learn which 
 " type " is the original, which the " imitation." 
 Meanwhile, we may rest upon the fact that, 
 so far as queens are concerned, there is no 
 "stock type" in Shakspere; they differ from 
 each other as widely as Hamlet's mother 
 from Imogen's mother-in-law. If any of 
 them resemble Beaumont and Fletcher's 
 queens, it is clear that Beatimont and 
 Fletcher were the " imitators, " not Shakspere. 
 
 Further similarities are suggested between 
 
no Critics 
 
 the " type " of the " faithful friend " as shown 
 in five of Beaumont and Fletcher's "ro- 
 mances" and Gonzalo in "Tempest," Ca- 
 miUo in "Winter's Tale," and Pisanio in 
 " Cymbeline." The " hly-livered heroes" and 
 the "poltro'ons" are left out of the laborious 
 comparison, perhaps because none of either 
 can be found in Shakspere sufficiently Uke 
 the original types in Beaumont and Fletcher. 
 The examples of the "faithful friend" are 
 not happy. For Gonzalo sets Prospero adrift 
 in a crazy boat and Camillo betrays one 
 patron to save another. 
 
 Still following the assumption that " Phil- 
 aster" was earlier than "CymbeHne, " we 
 find Professor Thorndike asserting that 
 "CymbeHne" "shows a puzzUng decadence" 
 in style, "an increase in the proportion of 
 double endings," "a constant deliberate 
 effort to conceal the metre"; "the verse 
 constantly borders on prose"; "Shakspere's 
 structvire in general is like Fletcher's, par- 
 ticularly in the use of parentheses and con- 
 tracted forms for 'it is,' 'he is,' 'I will.'" 
 
vs. Shakspere m 
 
 There is a " loss of mastery " in " Cymbeline," 
 "an apparently conscious and not quite 
 successful struggle to overcome the dififi- 
 culties of the new structure." An apologetic 
 phrase that all this does not impute any 
 "direct imitation" of Fletcher does not re- 
 deem it from the imputation that Shakspere 
 was not content with copying Fletcher's 
 plot, characters, situations, but he deliber- 
 ately departed, when "Philaster" met his 
 eye, from the methods he had used for more 
 than twenty years, and carefully copied the 
 mannerisms of a contemporary who, ac- 
 cording to estabUshed chronology, had been 
 known to the public hardly three years. 
 The merits of the charge, whether of direct 
 or indirect imitation, must be determined 
 solely by the priority in date of the two 
 plays. Meanwhile, the critic's argument 
 wotild have more force if he had told us how 
 "Cymbeline" shows a "puzzUng decadence," 
 how "the structure is like Fletcher's," how 
 the struggle to overcome the difficulty of 
 its novelty appears. As the argument stands 
 
1 1 2 Critics 
 
 it reminds one of Lowell's remark in relation 
 to this style of criticism: "Scarce one but 
 was satisfied that his ten finger tips were a 
 sufficient key to those astronomic wonders 
 of poise and counterpoise .... in 
 his metres; scarce one but thought 
 he could gauge like an ale-firkin that 
 intuition whose edging shallows may 
 have been sounded, but whose abysses, 
 stretching down amid the sunless roots 
 of Being and Consciousness, mock the 
 pltimmet." 
 
 Professor Thorndike takes the ftu-ther 
 point, in his review of the Drama from 1601 
 to 161 1, that during that period "There are 
 almost no romantic tragi-comedies " ; that 
 in fact, including "Measure for Measure," 
 there are only five which offer the slightest 
 generic resemblance to the heroic tragi- 
 comedies Hke "Philaster" and "Winter's 
 Tale"; that when "Philaster" appeared, 
 there had been "no play for seven or eight 
 years at all resembling it"; and draws the 
 conclusion that Shakspere, who had been 
 
vs. Shakspere 113 
 
 writing " gloomy tragedies " for several years, 
 suddenly left that style and wrote "Cym- 
 beline" in imitation of " Philaster, " because 
 "Philaster" had "filled the audience with 
 surprise and delight. ' ' The uncomplimentary 
 and uncritical remark is added that perhaps 
 "Timon" and " Coriolanus" had not achieved 
 great success on the stage — at any rate 
 the success of "Philaster" arotised his 
 interest. 
 
 "Timon" is assigned by most critics to 
 the last of Shakspere's life, by many to the 
 year 161 2. "Cymbeline, " as we have seen, 
 was acted before May isth, 161 1; it is 
 therefore difficult to understand, if the date 
 assigned to "Timon" is correct, how its 
 failure could have "influenced" the produc- 
 tion of "Cymbeline." 
 
 But Professor Thorndike's statement is in- 
 correct. During the decade named, " Meas- 
 ure for Measure" was acted at Court in 
 1604; his conjectural date of "Philaster" 
 is 1608. As we have shown, "Measure for 
 Measure" ftilly answers his definition of 
 
114 Critics 
 
 the "romance" or "heroic tragi-comedy, " 
 and he admits that it bears a generic re- 
 semblance to "Philaster." His statement 
 that for seven or eight years before " Phil- 
 aster" "no play had appeared at all resem- 
 bling it" is therefore without support, and 
 contradicts his own admission. He assumes 
 much more, and to support his conclusion 
 argues that "Philaster" was perhaps pro- 
 duced before 1608. The importance of the 
 point justifies deliberate attention. Against 
 the opinion of most scholars, against the 
 express statement of Dryden, he assigns 
 " Pericles " to the year 1608 ; credits Shakspere 
 with the authorship of the "Marina story;" 
 admits that "the plot is . . . Hke those 
 of the romances, and particularly like that 
 of the 'Winter's Tale,' in dealing with a 
 long series of tragic events leading to a 
 happy ending," but endeavors to escape the 
 inevitable conclusion, by the statement, 
 utterly inconsistent with his own chro- 
 nology, that, "if the play was as late as 
 1608, there is a possibility of Beaumont 
 
vs. Shakspere 115 
 
 and Fletcher's influence just as in the 
 romances." 
 
 "Pericles" contains a sentimental love 
 story, the plot is like that of the " romances, " 
 the variety of the emotional effects is similar, 
 and there is a contrast of tragic and idylUc 
 elements. The play is founded upon a 
 "romantic story." All this is admitted, 
 but Professor Thorndike thinks the love 
 story is not sufficiently prominent, the 
 idyllic elements are not treated as in the 
 romances, and Marina is therefore not like 
 any of the heroines of Beaumont and Fletcher, 
 but, while "something Uke Portia, more like 
 Isabella. ' ' And so ' ' Pericles ' ' is distinguished 
 from the romances because the "treatment" 
 is "different, " and finally, because Professor 
 Thorndike is committed to the theory that 
 Beaumont and Fletcher "created" a new 
 type of drama, he asserts that " ' Pericles ' is 
 doubtless earUer than Shakspere's romances, 
 but there is no probability that it preceded all 
 of Beaumont and Fletcher's." Dryden in 
 his Prologue to Davenant's "Circe" says; 
 
ii6 Critics 
 
 "Shakspere's own muse his Pericles first 
 bore, " and the great weight of opinion is that 
 it was a very early production. The "Story 
 of Marina" is as romantic as "Cymbeline," 
 and is of the same "type" as "Philaster," 
 and therefore, if Dryden is right, there is a 
 strong probability that "Pericles" preceded 
 all of Beaumont and Fletcher's romances, 
 and that in "Cymbeline" Shakspere did not 
 imitate them. 
 
 We come at last to the end of the argument. 
 Professor Thorndike, premising that the 
 historical portion of "Cymbeline" and the 
 exile of Posthumous have no parallels in 
 " Philaster, " institutes a detailed comparison 
 between the plots, characters, and com- 
 position of the two plays, and shows that they 
 are so strikingly similar as to justify the 
 positive conclusion that "Shakspere in- 
 fluenced Beaumont and Fletcher or that they 
 influenced him." We may admit more 
 than this: If "CymbeUne" followed "Phil- 
 aster, " he was not only influenced by them, 
 be not only imitated them, he was a plagia- 
 
vs. Shakspere 117 
 
 rist ; and no apologetic words that, upon the 
 assumption stated, "CymbeHne" did not 
 owe a very large share of its total effect 
 to "Philaster, " can make less the gravity 
 of the charge, and if the assumption is 
 groundless or even probably grotindless, 
 no excuse remains to the critic who makes 
 it. 
 
 Let us see: After all his learned re- 
 view of dramatic chronology, after all his 
 statements conveying the assurance that 
 "Philaster" was the original "type" of the 
 "romance," Professor Thorndike says in so 
 many words, which for accuracy we quote : 
 "Some such statement of the influence of 
 ' Philaster ' on ' Cymbeline ' could be adopted 
 if we were certain of our chronology. But the 
 evidence for the priority of 'Philaster' is 
 not conclusive, and its support cannot be 
 confidently relied upon. Leaving aside, then , 
 the question of exact date, and only pre- 
 mising the fact that both plays were written 
 at about the same time, we must face the 
 questions, — which is more plausible, that 
 
ii8 Critics 
 
 Shakspere influenced Beatunont and Fletcher 
 or that they influenced him? Which on 
 its face is more likely to be the original, 
 ' Cymbeline ' or ' Philaster ' ? " 
 
 If "Cymbeline" was flrst written, then 
 "Philaster" becomes not an original but a 
 copy, adaptation, imitation, plagiarism, if 
 you wiU. The similarities remain the same, 
 the argimient is reversed. We have shown 
 that the evidence is conclusive, in the 
 opinion of the best critics, that "Cymbeline" 
 preceded "Philaster." Coleridge, Ulrici, 
 Tieck and Knight think that "this varied- 
 woven romantic history had inspired the 
 poet in his youth" to attempt its adaptation 
 to the stage ; that having had but a temporary 
 appearance, Shakspere long afterwards, near 
 the end of his career, may have remodelled 
 it, and Malone, Chalmers, and Drake assign 
 "Cymbeline" with "Macbeth" to 1605 or 
 1606. Our argximent might be safely put 
 upon this point alone. Professor Thorn- 
 dike's is placed solely upon " plausibility " 
 and " likelihood." To support it, he assumes 
 
vs. Shakspere 119 
 
 again the certainty of "the priority of 
 Philaster " — which he had just admitted to be 
 uncertain — in order to show "the nature 
 of Shakspere's indebtedness," and then 
 concludes from " the nature of the indebted- 
 ness," and from the fact that "Philaster" 
 " was followed immediately by five romances 
 of the same style in plot and characters" 
 "which mark Fletcher's work for the next 
 twenty years," that "these facts create a 
 strong presiimption that 'Philaster' was 
 the original," "a strong presumption that 
 ' Cymbeline' was the copy," and finally ends 
 the argiiment as it began, with these flattering 
 words: "We may, indeed, safely assert that 
 Shakspere almost never invented dramatic 
 types." And this is the argtmient which 
 Professor Wendell thinks "virtually proves 
 that several of their plays (Beatimont and 
 Fletcher's romances) must have been in exist- 
 ence decidedly before ' CymbeHne, ' ' The Tem- 
 pest' or 'Winter's Tale,' " "that the relation 
 commonly thought to have existed between 
 them and Shakspere is precisely reversed." 
 
I20 Critics 
 
 Let us answer both Teacher and Pupil. 
 Suppose, to follow the Thorndike method, 
 that "CymbeHne" appeared before "Phil- 
 aster, " that six romances by Beaumont and 
 Fletcher followed in rapid succession, while 
 only two by Shakspere appeared, but differing 
 essentially from each other and from " Phil- 
 aster. " Suppose that "CymbeUne" upon its 
 first night "filled the audience with surprise 
 anddeUght, " that Beaumont and Fletcher, 
 perceiving "its dramatic and poetic ex- 
 cellence," copied in "Philaster" a portion 
 of its plot and attempted to copy some 
 of its characters and situations. Suppose 
 their experiment with this copy took the 
 crowd by storm — Isn't it reasonable to 
 suppose that they would repeat the profitable 
 attempt as many times as the applause 
 warranted? Isn't that just what they did, 
 repeating and imitating themselves over 
 and over, until Beaumont died? Does the 
 number of repetitions and imitations in- 
 crease the "plausibility" or "HkeUhood" of 
 the theory that "Philaster" was the original 
 
vs. Shakspere 121 
 
 of the type? If Shakspere found his gain 
 increasing by copying the fable, character, 
 style, and denouement of "Philaster, " why 
 did he not continue to copy in " The Tempest" 
 and " Winter's Tale, " and why is it impossible 
 for Professor Thorndike to deny originality 
 to either of these plays, except by his careless 
 error as to Miranda's "proposal" and the 
 reference to Lady Amelia gathering flowers 
 at Oxford in 1566? Professor Thorndike 's 
 argument comes to this and only this: If 
 Shakspere wrote "Cymbeline" before Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher wrote " Philaster, " then 
 Shakspere was the "creator of the heroic ro- 
 mances." If the question of priority is doubt- 
 ful, it is just as impossible to prove the 
 " plausibiUty " or " likelihood " of priority as it 
 is to prove the date. There is no proof, there- 
 fore, no presumption, strong or weak, that 
 "Cymbeline" was influenced by " Philaster " 
 or was a ' ' copy " of it. But there is proof that 
 Beaumont and Fletcher repeatedly and habitu- 
 ally imitated Shakspere, and we cite it mostly 
 from Professor Thorndike's essay. 
 
122 Critics 
 
 In "The Two Noble Kinsmen" there is a 
 "distinct imitation of the circumstances 
 of Ophelia's madness and death in Hamlet." 
 In "The Woman Hater," assigned conjec- 
 turally to 1605 or 1606 by Professor Thorn- 
 dike, there are " several burlesque imitations 
 of Hamlet." 
 
 In "The Knight of the Burning Pestle" 
 (1607-1608) there are btirlesque imitations 
 of passages in " Henry IV." and in "Romeo 
 and Juliet." 
 
 In " Philaster " occurs this Une : 
 
 " Mark but the King, how pale he looks with 
 fear," 
 
 — a distinct parody of the similar line in 
 " Hamlet " ; but it will be remarked that Pro- 
 fessor Thorndike calls it an " echo," not an 
 imitation. 
 
 In "The Woman's Prize," improbably as- 
 signed to 1604, the whole play is imitated 
 from "The Taming of the Shrew," — is in 
 fact an attempted sequel to it, and Pro- 
 fessor Thorndike wanders from chronol- 
 ogy to indulge a sneer, by the remark 
 
vs. Shakspere 123 
 
 that "The Woman's Prize" was "very well 
 
 liked," the "Taming of the Shrew" only 
 
 "liked." Possibly that was because then, 
 
 as now, some people preferred imitations. 
 
 In "The Woman's Prize," there is also 
 
 a burlesque on "Hamlet" and a parody on 
 
 "King Lear." In " The Triumph of Death" 
 
 these lines occur : — 
 
 " No, take him dead drunk now, without re- 
 pentance. 
 His lechery enseamed upon him," 
 
 and Professor Thomdike says " it sounds Uke 
 
 a bit from an old revenge play." It is a 
 
 distinct imitation from "Hamlet" where the 
 
 King is seen at his prayers. 
 
 In the " Scornful Lady " there is one certain 
 and one possible slur at "Hamlet." 
 
 In "Cupid's Revenge" there is an imita- 
 tion from "Antony and Cleopatra." 
 
 In "Philaster" Arethusa imitates Lear when 
 he awakens from insanity to consciousness. 
 
 Upon the Wendell-Thorndike theory, we 
 have a few undisputed facts bearing upon 
 the' "plausibility" of the conclusion that 
 
1 24 Critics 
 
 Beaumont and Fletcher "influenced" Shak- 
 spere, the likelihood that "Philaster" was 
 the original, "C5mibeUne" the "copy." 
 Shakspere at the age of forty-six, long after 
 he had portrayed the real insanity of Lear, 
 the simulated insanity of Hamlet, the 
 confessional dream of Lady Macbeth; long 
 after he had "filled the audience with 
 sttrprise and delight" by the romantic 
 realities of Hero and Portia, of Viola and 
 Rosalind; years after he had anticipated 
 the heroic "romance" in the romantic 
 adventures of Marina; long after he had 
 depicted the heroic triumph of Isabella 
 over the lustful Angelo — this man, Shak- 
 spere, condescended to imitate a youth of 
 twenty-two, whose name was Beaumont, 
 to steal from him much of the plot, char- 
 acters, action, and denouement of "Phil- 
 aster " and to make the theft more open and 
 unblushing, presented "Cymbeline" upon 
 the same stage within a year of the original 
 " type, " and assigned the parts to the same 
 actors who had won remarkable popular 
 
vs. Shakspere 125 
 
 applause for the drama from which he had 
 "cribbed" his imitation. And this imita- 
 tion was not from friendly authors, but from 
 those of a hostile school, who had during 
 their whole career borrowed from his plots, 
 parodied his phrases, and ridiculed his 
 masterpieces by slurs and burlesques. We 
 respectfully dissent from the assertion that 
 these facts "create a strong presumption 
 that 'Philaster' was the original," "Cym- 
 beline" the "copy." On the contrary, it 
 seems to us that they are utterly inconsistent 
 with any such presumption, and with the 
 whole theory and teaching of Professors 
 Wendell and Thorndike. 
 
 That theory, as we have shown, is based 
 upon the assumption that Marlowe, or 
 Greene, or Peele, or somebody else, wrote 
 most of "Henry VI"; the assumption that 
 Fletcher helped Shakspere write "Henry 
 VIII"; the assumption that Shakspere as- 
 sisted Fletcher in the composition of "The 
 Two Noble Kinsmen"; the unsupported, 
 tlie admitted conjecture that "Philaster" 
 
1 26 Critics 
 
 was written before October 8th, 16 10; the 
 imwarranted assertion that Beaumont and 
 Fletcher "created the romance" in spite of 
 the admission that the date of creation 
 depends upon the priority of "CymbeHne" 
 or "Philaster, " which is likewise admitted 
 to be wholly uncertain; the suppression 
 of the proof from "Measure for Measure" 
 that, years before " Philaster, " Shakspere, 
 within the proposed definition, had produced 
 a romantic tragi-comedy ; the guess as to pri- 
 ority in favor of Beaumont and Fletcher, in 
 spite of repeated imitations by them from pre- 
 vious plays of Shakspere. And so the argu- 
 ment in support of the theory is a pyramid 
 of ifs, supporting an apex that vanishes 
 into the thin air of an invisible conclusion. 
 
 To us, after all this latest effort to depose 
 the sovereign of English literattire from the 
 throne where he was worn the crown for 
 more than three centuries, and seat there a 
 pretender, having no title, either by divine 
 right or the suffrages of mankind, Shakspere 
 is the sovereign still. 
 
vs. Shakspere 127 
 
 He needed and he sought no allies to win 
 his realm; he imitated no fashions of other 
 courts to maintain his own; he took good 
 care that the records of his universal con- 
 quests should be kept, — written by his own 
 hand, and fortunately preserved by his friends, 
 — secure from the interpolations and imita- 
 ■ tions of his contemporaries and successors. 
 
 Much has been written of Shakspere's 
 
 impersonality, and we have been taught 
 
 to think that his dramas are utterly silent 
 
 as to his own experience. But now and 
 
 then one finds in them a glimpse of it, as 
 
 the hghtning flash in the darkest night 
 
 for an instant shows the heavens and the 
 
 earth. That others attempted to imitate 
 
 him is clear enough; that he imitated others, 
 
 and least of all Beaumont and Fletcher, 
 
 nobody can reasonably believe who reads 
 
 his opinion of the imitator in "Julius Caesar" : 
 
 " A barren spirited fellow; one that feeds 
 
 On objects, arts, and imitations. 
 
 Which, out of use, and stal'd by other men, 
 
 Begin his fashion." 
 
128 Critics vs. Shakspere 
 
 Matthew Arnold's verdict has not been re- 
 versed. 
 
 ' ' Others abide our question. Thou art free. 
 We ask and ask — Thou smilest and art still, 
 Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill, 
 Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty, 
 
 ' ' Planting his stedfast footsteps in the sea, 
 Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place, 
 
 ; Spares but the cloudy border of his base 
 To the foil'd searching of mortality ; 
 
 "And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams 
 know, 
 
 i Self-schooVd, self-scann'd, self -honour' d, self- 
 secure. 
 Didst tread on earth unguess'd at. — Better so! 
 
 "All pains the immortal spirit must endure. 
 All weakness which impairs, all grief s which bow. 
 Find their sole speech in that victorious brow."