S. R._).
A reference to ‘childish yeeres’ in the prologue points to boy actors.
The trial (l. 1261) is for an alleged crime on 4 Feb., 43 Eliz. (1601),
and the next court performance after this date was on 22 Feb. 1601 by
the Chapel, to which occasion the production may be assigned. Elizabeth
could be described as a ‘prince’, so that the use of this term does not
bear out Fleay, ii. 323, in assuming a revival of an Edwardian play,
but the characters are mainly abstract and the style archaic for the
seventeenth century, and it is conceivable that the _Prodigality_
of 1567–8 had been revived.
_Locrine c. 1591_
_S. R._ 1594, July 20. ‘The lamentable Tragedie of Locrine, the eldest
sonne of Kinge Brutus, discoursinge the warres of the Brittans, &c.’
_Thomas Creede_ (Arber, ii. 656).
1595. The Lamentable Tragedie of Locrine, the eldest sonne of King
Brutus, discoursing the warres of the Britaines, and Hunnes, with their
discomfiture: The Britaines victorie with their Accidents, and the
death of Albanact. No lesse pleasant then profitable. Newly set foorth,
ouerseene and corrected, By W. S. _Thomas Creede_. [Prologue and
Epilogue.]
1664; 1685. [F_{3}; F_{4} of Shakespeare.]
_Editions_ of 1734 (J. Tonson), 1734 (R. Walker), and by R. B. McKerrow
(1908, _M. S. R._), J. S. Farmer (1911, _T. F. T._), and in _Sh.
Apocrypha_.--_Dissertations_: R. Brotanek (1900, _Anglia-Beiblatt_,
xi. 202); C. Crawford, _Edmund Spenser, L. and Selimus_ (1901, 9 _N.
Q._ vii. 61; _Collectanea_, i. 47); W. S. Gaud, _The Authorship of L._
(1904, _M. P._ i. 409); T. Erbe, _Die L.-Sage_ (1904); J. M. Robertson,
_Did Sh. Write T. A.?_ (1905); E. Köppel, _L. und Selimus_ (1905,
_Jahrbuch_, xli. 193); A. Neubner, _König Lokrin. Deutsche Übersetzung
mit literar-historischer Einleitung_ (1908); F. G. Hubbard (_MS._ cited
by J. W. Cunliffe in _C. H._ v. 84); C. A. Harper, _L. and the Faerie
Queene_ (1913, _M.L.R._ viii. 369).
The interpretation of the W. S. of the title-page in F_{3} of 1664 as
indicating Shakespeare may be accurate, but does not suggest anything
more than revision for a revival, or perhaps only for the press. Some
revision is proved by the allusion in the epilogue to Elizabeth,
That eight and thirtie yeares the scepter swayd,
an allusion which was not chronologically accurate until the close of
the thirty-eighth regnal year on 16 Nov. 1596, after the play was in
print, and could hardly have been made before the beginning of that
year on 17 Nov. 1595, after it had been entered in S. R. As to the
original author, one is bound to be sceptical of the unconfirmed notice
by J. P. Collier (_Bibliographical Account_, i. 95) of an ‘inscription
on an existing copy of the play ... assigning the authorship of it to
Charles Tylney’. This, says Collier, ‘is the handwriting of Sir George
Buck. He adds the information that he himself had written the dumb
shows by which it was illustrated, and that it was originally called
_Elstrild_’. Charles Tilney was a cousin of the Master of the Revels,
and was executed for complicity in the Babington plot in 1586 (Camden,
_transl._ 303). The statement, if true, would give an early date to
the play, which the dumb shows and other ‘Senecan’ characteristics
have been supposed to confirm. Fleay, ii. 321, boldly conjectures that
the epilogue originally referred to ‘eight and twentie yeares’, and
that the play was ‘by’ in the sense of ‘about’, Tilney, supposing the
moral drawn against ‘ciuill discord’ instigated by ‘priuate amours’
to point at Mary of Scots. Recent investigations, however, concerning
the relations of the play to Spenser on the one hand, and to _Selimus_
(q.v.) on the other, suggest a date not earlier and not much later
than 1591, either for the original composition of the play, or for a
very substantial revision of it. Most of the points are well summed up
by Cunliffe in _C. H._ v. 84. _Locrine_ may borrow historical facts
from the _Faerie Queene_ (1590); it does not borrow phrases from it.
It does, however, borrow phrases and whole lines, with more than
Elizabethan plagiarism, from Spenser’s _Complaints_ (1591). There is
also an apparent loan from Wilmot’s _Tancred and Gismund_ (1591).
Some of the _Complaints_ passages are also borrowed by _Selimus_,
which makes similar booty both of _Locrine_ itself and of the _Faerie
Queene_. I agree with Cunliffe that the evidence is clearly in favour
of _Selimus_ being the later of the two plays, but am not so certain
that the second borrowing of the _Complaints_ passages tells against
a common authorship of the two. It would be so, ordinarily, but here
we have to do with an abnormal plagiarist. Whoever the author, he
belongs to the school of the university wits. Marlowe is preferred by
Malone, Peele by Fleay, Ward, Gaud, and for all but the comic scenes by
Hopkinson, Greene by Brooke, Peele and Greene by Robertson.
_The London Prodigal. 1603 < > 05_
1605. The London Prodigall. As it was plaide by the Kings Maiesties
seruants. By William Shakespeare. _T. C. for Nathaniel Butter._
1664; 1685. [F_{3}; F_{4} of Shakespeare.]
_Editions_ in 1709, 1734 (J. Tonson), 1734 (R. Walker), by J. S. Farmer
(1910, T. F. T.), and in _Sh. Apocrypha_.
Shakespeare’s authorship is accepted by few modern critics. An
exception is Hopkinson. Fleay, _Shakespeare_, 299; _B. C._ i. 152,
thinks that he may have ‘plotted’ the play, but that the writer is
the same as that of _Thomas Lord Cromwell_, whom he believes to be
Drayton. Perhaps he is right in regarding an allusion to service ‘under
the king’ (II. i. 16) as pointing to a Jacobean date. Brooke suggests
Marston or Dekker. A play ‘von einem ungehorsamen Khauffmanns Sohn’
appears in Anglo-German repertories of 1604 and 1606 (Herz, 65, 94).
_Look About You. 1599_ (?)
1600. A Pleasant Commodie, Called Looke about you. As it was lately
played by the right honourable the Lord High Admirall his seruaunts.
_For William Ferbrand._
_Editions_ in Dodsley^4 (1874, vii), and by J. S. Farmer (1912, _T. F.
T._) and W. W. Greg (1913, _M. S. R._).
At the end of the play Gloucester proposes to fight the Saracens in
Portugal, and as Anthony Wadeson (q.v.) was writing _The Honourable
Life of the Humorous Earl of Gloster with his Conquest of Portugal_ in
June or July 1601, it has been suggested by Fleay, ii. 267, and Greg,
_Henslowe_, ii. 204, that Wadeson was also the author of _Look About
You_. The play ought itself to appear somewhere in Henslowe’s diary,
and Fleay may be right in identifying it with the _Bear a Brain_ of
1599, although the only recorded payment for that play was not to
Wadeson, but to Dekker. There are reminiscences of _R.J._ II. iv. 42;
III. v. 221 in l. 2329, and of _1 Hen. IV_, II. iv. 295 in l. 2426.
_The Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune. 1582_ (?)
1589. The Rare Triumphs of Loue and Fortune. Plaide before the Queenes
most excellent Maiestie: wherein are many fine Conceites with great
delight. _E. A. for Edward White._
_Editions_ by J. P. Collier (1851, Roxb. Club) and in Dodsley^4 (1874,
vi).
Fleay, ii. 26, assigns the play to Kyd on account of the similarity
of the plot to that of _Soliman and Perseda_, but this is hardly
convincing. On 30 Dec. 1582 Derby’s players performed _A History of
Love and Fortune_ at court, for which a city and battlement were
provided by the Revels office. If the two plays were identical, as
dates and style make not improbable, the city presumably served as a
background for the scenes at court, while the battlement was used for
the presenters Venus and Fortune, who are said in Act I to be ‘set
sunning like a crow in a gutter’.
_Love Feigned and Unfeigned_ (?)
[_MS._] On first and last leaves (sig. a 1 and ii. 8 of a copy (Brit.
Mus. IB. 2172) of Johannes Herolt, _Sermones Discipuli_ (1492).
_Edition_ by A. Esdaile (1908, _M. S. C._ i. 17).--_Dissertation_: E.
B. Daw, _L. F. and U. and the English Anabaptists_ (1917, _M. L. A._
xxxii. 267).
The text is a fragment, but there may have been more, as the original
fly-leaves and end papers of the volume are gone. Sir G. F. Warner
thinks the hand ‘quite early seventeenth century’. The corrections in
the same hand are such as rather to suggest an original composition,
but may also be those of an expert copyist. Miss Daw thinks that the
date of composition was in the seventeenth century, and that the play
represents ideas belonging to (_a_) the Anabaptists and (_b_) the
Family of Love, both of which were then active. She even suggests the
possible authorship of the controversialist Edmond Jessop. Personally,
I find it difficult to assign to the seventeenth century a moral
written precisely in the vein of the middle of the sixteenth century,
even to the notes (2, 69, 103) of action ‘in place’ (cf. ch. xix), and
a phrase (76),
Why stare ye at me thus I wene ye be come to se a play,
closely parallel to _Wit and Wisdom_, 12, which is probably
pre-Elizabethan. The Jacobean activity of Anabaptism and Familism only
revived movements which had been familiar in England from Edwardian
times, were particularly vigorous in 1575, and had apparently died down
during the last decade of Elizabeth’s reign; cf. for Anabaptists C.
Burrage, _The Early English Dissenters_ (1912), and for Familists s.v.
Middleton, _Family of Love_.
_The Maid’s Metamorphosis. 1600_
_S. R._ 1600, July 24 (Hartwell). ‘Two plaies or thinges thone called
the maides metamorphosis thother gyve a man luck and throw him into the
Sea.’ _Richard Oliffe_ (Arber, iii. 168).
1600. The Maydes Metamorphosis. As it hath beene sundrie times Acted by
the Children of Powles. _Thomas Creede for Richard Olive._ [Prologue.]
_Editions_ by A. H. Bullen (1882, _O. E. P._ i), R. W. Bond (1902,
_Lyly_, iii. 341), and J. S. Farmer (1912, _T. F. T._).
Archer’s play list of 1656 (Greg, _Masques_, lxxxvi) started an
ascription to Lyly, which was probably suggested by the similarity
of name to _Love’s Metamorphosis_. Daniel, with Lyly as reviser, is
substituted by Fleay, ii. 324; Day by Gosse and Bullen; Day, with Lyly
as reviser, by Bond. A limit of date is given by the reopening of
Paul’s in 1599, and IV. i. 157 points to the ‘leape yeare’ 1600. Fleay
thinks that the play was performed at Anne Russell’s wedding on 16 June
1600 (cf. ch. V), but, though ‘three or foure Muses’ dance at the end
of the play, there is no indication of a mask, while the accounts of
the wedding say nothing of a play.
_The Marriage of Wit and Science > 1570_
_S. R._ 1569–70. ‘A play intituled the maryage of Wytt and Scyence.’
_Thomas Marsh_ (Arber, i. 399).
N.D. A new and Pleasant enterlude intituled the mariage of Witte and
Science. _Thomas Marsh._
_Editions_ in Dodsley^4 (1874, ii) and by J. S. Farmer (1909, _T. F.
T._).
An allegorical moral, indebted to John Redford’s _Wit and Science_
(_Med. Stage_, ii. 454). Fleay, 64; ii. 288, 294, proposes to identify
this with the _Wit and Will_ played at court in 1567–8 (cf. App. B), as
Will is a character.
_Meleager_ (?)
B. Dobell, in _Athenaeum_ for 14 Sept. 1901, described a MS. in his
possession with the title A Register of all the Noble Men of England
sithence the Conquest Created. The date of compilation is probably
1570–90. On f. 3 is the argument in English of a play headed:
Children of Paules Play.
Publij Ovidij Nasonis Meleager.
Presumably the play was in English also. It was classical in manner
with five acts, a chorus, and dumb-shows. Act I opened with a dumb-show
before Melpomene of the Fates, Althea and the burning brand. It seems
distinct from the _Meleager_ of W. Gager (q.v.).
_The Merry Devil of Edmonton c. 1603_
_S. R._ 1607, Oct. 22 (Buck). ‘A Plaie called the Merry Devill of
Edmonton.’ _Arthur Johnson_ (Arber, iii. 362). [_The Life and Death of
the Merry Devil of Edmonton_, entered 5 April 1608, is a pamphlet by T.
B.]
1608. The Merry Devill of Edmonton. As it hath beene sundry times
Acted, by his Maiesties Seruants, at the Globe, on the banke-side.
_Henry Ballard for Arthur Johnson._ [Prologue; Induction.]
1612; 1617; 1626; 1631.
_S. R._ 1653, Sept. 9. ‘The merry devil of Edmonton, by W^m:
Shakespeare.’ _H. Moseley_ (Eyre, i. 429).
1655. _For William Gilbertson._
_Editions_ in Dodsley (1875, x), and by H. Walker (1897, _T. D._), J.
S. Farmer (1911, _T. F. T._), J. M. Manly (1913, _R. E. C._ ii), and in
collections of _Sh. Apocrypha_.
Moseley’s attribution was repeated in the play lists of Archer in 1656
and Kirkman in 1661 (Greg, _Masques_, lxxxix), and the play was bound
with _Mucedorus_ and _Fair Em_ as ‘Shakespeare, vol. i’ in Charles II’s
library. The attempt of Fleay, ii. 313 (cf. his _Shakespeare_, 294), to
show that Sir John the priest was originally called Oldcastle and gave
a name to the play is too far-fetched, but it leads him to support a
tradition originally based on a note by Coxeter (_Dodsley_^2, v. 247)
that the author was Drayton. He puts it in 1597, apparently because
Jessica calls Lancelot a ‘merry devil’ in _M. V._ II. iii. 2. But the
Host is pretty clearly copied from him of the _Merry Wives_ (_c._
1599), and allusions to the king’s hunting (IV. i. 158, 186), although
perhaps merely part of the historic action, might also have been
topical under James I. The play existed by 1604, when it is mentioned
in T. M.’s _Black Book_ (Bullen, _Middleton_, viii. 36). Jonson calls
it ‘your dear delight’ in the prologue to _The Devil is an Ass_ (1616),
and it was revived at court on 3 May 1618 (Cunningham, xlv).
_Minds. 1575 <_
N.D. Comoedia. A worke in ryme, contayning an Enterlude of Myndes,
witnessing the Mans Fall from God and Christ. Set forth by H. N. and
by him newly perused and amended. Translated out of Base-Almayns into
English. [_No imprint or colophon._] [Preface to the Reader; Prologue
in dialogue.]
This is a translation of the Low German _Comoedia: Ein Gedicht des
Spels van Sinnen, anno 1575_ of Henrick Niklaes, the founder of the
mystical sect known as the Family of Love (cf. s.v. Middleton).
_Misogonus. 1560 < > 77_
[_MS._] In collection of the Duke of Devonshire. [By two hands, of
which one is only responsible for the t.p. and some corrections in the
text. The t.p. has the heading ‘A mery and ρ ... Misogonus’, followed
by the names of the speakers and ‘Laurentius Bariωna Ketthering die
20 Novembris Anno 1577’. The text, which is apparently imperfect,
stopping in iv. 4, is probably all in one other hand, together with a
prologue, at the end of which is ‘Thomas Rychardes’. The inscriptions
‘Anthony Rice’ on the title-page, ‘Thomas Warde Barfold 1577’ on the
prologue-page, and ‘W. Wyll[~m]’ and ‘John York Jesu’ in margins of
the text, are all in later hands, some of them not of the sixteenth
century.]
_Editions_ by A. Brandl (1898, _Q. W. D._), J. S. Farmer (1906), and R.
W. Bond (1911, _E. P. I._).--_Dissertation_: G. L. Kittredge, _The M.
and Laurence Johnson_ (1901, _J. G. P._ iii. 335).
Brandl, following Collier, ii. 368, 378, dates the play in 1560, on the
ground of an allusion in IV. i. 131 to ‘the rising rection ith north’,
i.e. the Pilgrimage of Grace of 1536, as twenty-four years before the
time of action, but it is not quite clear that the rambling dialogue
of rustics, in which the passage occurs, justifies the interpretation
put upon it; nor is the allusion in III. ii. 3 to the weathercock of
Paul’s, set up in 1553 and destroyed in 1561, any more conclusive, as
the phrase may have become proverbial. The style might be either of
_c._ 1560 or, in a provincial play, of _c._ 1577, or, as Bond suggests,
a reviser of _c._ 1577 might have revised a text of ten or twelve years
earlier. For author, Fleay, 16, 58, 60, taking the piece to be that
disliked at court on 31 Dec. 1559, offered Richard Edwardes, and is
followed by Wallace, i. III. There is nothing to suggest that the play
was ever performed at court at all. It seems more natural to look for
him, either in the Thomas Richards or in the Laurence Barjona of the
MS. Conceivably Richards might be the T. R. whose initials appear on
the prints of _Impatient Poverty_ and _Nice Wanton_ (cf. _Mediaeval
Stage_, ii. 460) in 1560. Barjona might be the name of a converted Jew.
But Kittredge regards it as an anagram of Johnson, and points out that
a Laurence Johnson matriculated at Christ’s College, Cambridge, in
1570, and took his B.A. in 1574 and his M.A. in 1577, while a Thomas
Richards of Trinity took his B.A. in 1571, and a Thomas Ward of Jesus
in 1580. A reference to Cambridge learning (III. iii. 74) does not, of
course, go far to prove Cambridge authorship. Anyway, the Barjona of
the title-page is probably the ‘Laur. Bariona’ who signed, also from
Kettering, the epistle to a book called _Cometographia_ on 20 Jan.
1579. It is the work of an Anglican; not therefore of the Laurence
Johnson, who was an Oxford Jesuit. I can add a few facts. A Laurence
Jonson, with one Chr. Balam and George Haysyll of Cambridge, made a
complaint through Lord North to the queen against the Bishop of Ely
in Dec. 1575 (_S. P. D. Eliz._ cv. 88). This is interesting, because
George Haysell of Wisbech was apparently one of Worcester’s players
(cf. ch. xiii) in 1583. There is also a Laurence Johnson who on 12 June
1572 wrote to Lord Burghley about his service in the Mint (_S. P. D.
Eliz._ lxxxviii. 17); possibly the same of whom Burghley wrote to his
‘brother’ William Herlle on 3 April 1575, that he could do nothing for
him (_S. P. D. Eliz._ ciii. 24). Finally a Laurence Johnson engraved
plates in 1603 (_D. N. B._).
_Sir Thomas More c. 1596_
[_MS._] _B.M. Harleian MS._ 7368. [The wrapper is endorsed, ‘The
Booke of Sir Thomas Moore’, and is in part composed of a vellum leaf
also used for that of Munday’s _John a Kent and John a Cumber_. The
character of the damp stains on the two MSS. shows that they must for
some time have lain together. Two passages of the original text have
disappeared, and six passages have been inserted, on fresh leaves or
slips, to replace these and other cancelled matter. One of these leaves
appears to have been misplaced. Greg finds seven distinct hands: (_a_)
the writer of the original text, whom he has now identified (_M. L. R._
viii. 89) with Munday; (_b_) five contributors to the insertions, of
whom one appears also to have acted as a playhouse corrector, another
(writing 30 lines) seems clearly to be Dekker, and a third (writing 148
lines) has been taken (v. _infra_) for Shakespeare; (_c_) the Master
of the Revels, Edmund Tilney, who has given some directions as censor,
of which the most important, at the beginning, runs: ‘Leaue out the
insurrection wholy & the Cause ther off & begin with S^r Tho: Moore att
the mayors sessions with a reportt afterwardes off his good service don
being Shriue off London vppon a mutiny Agaynst the Lumbardes only by
A shortt reporte & nott otherwise att your own perrilles E. Tyllney’.
Whether Greg is right in calling this a ‘conditional licence’ I am not
sure, but he corrects earlier writers by pointing out that the extant
insertions do not carry out Tilney’s instructions, and were probably
made before the play reached him. Although therefore the appearance
of an actor’s name in a s.d. suggests that the play was cast for
performance, it is not likely that it was actually performed, at any
rate in its present state.]
_Editions_ by A. Dyce (1844, _Sh. Soc._), A. F. Hopkinson (1902),
C. F. Tucker Brooke (1908, _Sh. Apocrypha_), J. S. Farmer (1910,
photo-facsimile in _T. F. S._), and W. W. Greg (1911, _M. S.
R._).--_Dissertations_: R. Simpson, _Are there any extant MSS. in
Sh.’s Handwriting?_ (1871, 4 _N. Q._ viii. 1); J. Spedding, _Sh.’s
Handwriting_ (1872, 4 _N. Q._ x. 227), _On a Question concerning
a Supposed Specimen of Sh.’s Handwriting_ (1879, _Reviews and
Discussions_); B. Nicholson, _The Plays of S. T. M. and Hamlet_ (1884,
6 _N. Q._ x. 423); C. R. Baskervill, _Some Parallels to Bartholomew
Fair_ (1908, _M. P._ vi. 109); W. W. Greg, _Autograph Plays by A.
Munday_ (1913, _M. L. R._ viii. 89); L. L. Schücking, _Das Datum
der pseudo-Sh. S. T. M._ (1913, _E. S._ xlvi. 228); E. M. Thompson,
_Shakespeare’s Handwriting_ (1916) and _The Autograph MSS. of Anthony
Munday_ (1919, _Bibl. Soc. Trans._ xiv. 325); P. Simpson, _The Play
of S. T. M. and Sh.’s Hand in It_ (1917, 3 _Library_, viii. 79); J.
D. Wilson and others, _Sh.’s Hand in the Play of S. T. M._ (1919,
_T. L. S._ 24 April onwards); W. J. Lawrence and others, _Was S.T.M.
ever Acted?_ (1920, _T.L.S._ 1 July onwards); M. A. Bayfield and E.
M. Thompson, _Shakespeare’s Handwriting_ (1921, _T. L. S._ 30 June, 4
Aug.).
The play has been dated _c._ 1586 and _c._ 1596, in both of which
years there were disturbances with some analogy to the ‘Ill May Day’
of the plot, and an early date has been regarded as favoured by
mentions (ll. 1006, 1148) of Oagle a wigmaker, since men of the name
were serving the Revels Office in this and similar capacities from
1571 to 1585 (Feuillerat, _Eliz., passim_), and by the appearance
as a messenger in a stage-direction (Greg, p. 89) of T. Goodal, an
actor traceable with Berkeley’s men in 1581 and with the Admiral’s or
Strange’s in the plot of _The Seven Deadly Sins_, _c._ 1590–1. But
Goodal may have acted much longer, and the Admiral’s men had business
relations with a ‘Father Ogell’ in Feb. 1600 (Greg, _Henslowe_, ii.
300). Greg, after comparing Munday’s script in the play with other and
better datable examples of that script, inclines to put it ‘between
1596 and 1602, say 1598–1600’, and Sir E. M. Thompson, on a further
review of the same evidence, suggests 1592 or 1593. This, however,
involves putting the MS. of _John a Kent and John a Cumber_ (cf. ch.
xxiii, s.v. Munday) back to 1590, which, although palaeographically
possible, is inconsistent with evidence pointing to its production
by the Admiral’s in 1594. Certain parallels with _Julius Caesar_ and
_Hamlet_ might suggest the latter part of the possible period, although
the parallel suggested by Schücking with Fletcher’s _The Tamer Tamed_
is too slight to bear out his date of 1605–8, and the attempt of Fleay
(ii. 312; _Shakespeare_, 292) to identify the play with the _Abuses_ of
Paul’s in 1606 is guess-work. Jonson’s apparent debt to _S. T. M._ in
_Bartholomew Fair_, pointed out by Baskervill, is also in favour of a
latish date. Obviously the mention of ‘Mason among the Kings players’
(l. 1151) does not prove a Jacobean date, as Henry VIII had players.
No actor of the name in either reign is known, although an Alexander
Mason was marshal of the royal minstrels in 1494 (Collier, i. 45).
Account must be taken of the support given by Sir E. M. Thompson to the
theory of R. Simpson and Spedding that three of the added pages are in
the hand of Shakespeare. This is based on a minute comparison with the
few undoubted fragments, almost entirely signatures, of Shakespeare’s
writing. Both hands use ‘the native English script’ and are ‘of an
ordinary type’, without marked individual character ‘to any great
extent’, although slight peculiarities, such as ‘the use of the fine
upstroke as an ornamental adjunct to certain letters’, are common to
them. The demonstration would have been more convincing had the hands
been less ‘ordinary’, but Sir E. M. Thompson’s authority is great,
and some support is furnished by P. Simpson from the character of the
punctuation in the addition, and by J. D. Wilson from some orthographic
resemblances to the more reliable Shakespearian quartos. Sir E. M.
Thompson’s views are criticized in G. Greenwood, _Shakespeare’s
Handwriting_ (1920). If Shakespeare was the author, the analogies
between the matter of the addition and the Jack Cade scenes of _Henry
VI_ would be in favour of an earlier date, if that were possible, than
1596 or even 1594, although I should not like to be committed to the
view that Shakespeare might not have scribbled the fragment at any
time in the sixteenth century. On a balance of the mixed literary and
palaeographical evidence before us, the safest guess seems to be 1596.
As to the rest of the authorship, Dr. Greg’s discoveries point to
Munday, with some help from Dekker. Fleay’s argument (_Sh._ 292) for
Lodge and Drayton is flimsy. If Shakespeare had a share, the company
was probably the Chamberlain’s. Goodal’s name proves nothing as to this.