"
To me the difference appears immeasurable between the reasons for
admitting the possibility of Shakespeare's authorship in the case of
_Arden of Feversham_, and the pretexts for imagining the probability of
his partnership in _A Warning for Fair Women_. There is a practically
infinite distinction between the evidence suggested by verbal or even
more than verbal resemblance of detached line to line or selected passage
to passage, and the proof supplied by the general harmony and spiritual
similarity of a whole poem, on comparison of it as a whole with the known
works of the hypothetical author. This proof, at all events, we surely
do not get from consideration in this light of the plea put forward in
behalf of _A Warning for Fair Women_. This proof, I cannot but think, we
are very much nearer getting from contemplation under the same light of
the claim producible for _Arden of Feversham_.
_A Warning for Fair Women_ is unquestionably in its way a noticeable and
valuable "piece of work," as Sly might have defined it. It is perhaps
the best example anywhere extant of a merely realistic tragedy--of
realism pure and simple applied to the service of the highest of the
arts.
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