The later theory is more plausible than this; the primary
objection to it is that it is too facile and superficial. It is waste of
time to point out with any intelligent and imaginative child with a
tolerable ear for metre who had read a little of the one and the other
poet could see for himself--that much of the play is externally as like
the usual style of Fletcher as it is unlike the usual style of
Shakespeare. The question is whether we can find one scene, one speech,
one passage, which in spirit, in scope, in purpose, bears the same or any
comparable resemblance to the work of Fletcher. I doubt if any man more
warmly admires a poet whom few can have studied more thoroughly than I;
and to whom, in spite of all sins of omission and commission,--and many
and grievous they are, beyond the plenary absolution of even the most
indulgent among critical confessors--I constantly return with a fresh
sense of attraction, which is constantly rewarded by a fresh sense of
gratitude and delight. It is assuredly from no wish to pluck a leaf from
his laurel, which has no need of foreign grafts or stolen garlands from
the loftier growth of Shakespeare's, that I venture to question his
capacity for the work assigned to him by recent criticism.
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