No similar question is raised, no parallel problem stated, in the case of
any one other among the plays now or ever ascribed on grounds more or
less dubious to that same indubitable hand. This hand I do not recognise
even in the _Yorkshire Tragedy_, full as it is to overflowing of fierce
animal power, and hot as with the furious breath of some caged wild
beast. Heywood, who as the most realistic and in some sense prosaic
dramatist of his time has been credited (though but in a modestly
tentative and suggestive fashion) with its authorship, was as incapable
of writing it as Chapman of writing the Shakespearean parts of _The Two
Noble Kinsmen_ or Fletcher of writing the scenes of Wolsey's fall and
Katherine's death in _King Henry VIII_. To the only editor of
Shakespeare responsible for the two earlier of the three suggestions here
set aside, they may be forgiven on the score of insufficient scholarship
and want of critical training; but on what ground the third suggestion
can be excused in the case of men who should have a better right than
most others to speak with some show of authority on a point of higher
criticism, I must confess myself utterly at a loss to imagine.
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