Whether or not this fact, taken in conjunction with the
accident already mentioned, should be assumed as the immediate cause of
Shakespeare's subsequent change of service, he was not prepared to
pronounce with such positive confidence as they might naturally expect
from a member of the Society; but he would take upon himself to affirm
that his main thesis was now and for ever established on the most
irrefragable evidence, and that no assailant could by any possibility
dislodge by so much as a hair's breadth the least fragment of a single
brick in the impregnable structure of proof raised by the argument to
which they had just listened.
This demonstration being thus satisfactorily concluded, Mr. F. proceeded
to read his paper on the date of _Othello_, and on the various parts of
that play respectively assignable to Samuel Rowley, to George Wilkins,
and to Robert Daborne. It was evident that the story of Othello and
Desdemona was originally quite distinct from that part of the play in
which Iago was a leading figure. This he was prepared to show at some
length by means of the weak-ending test, the light-ending test, the
double-ending test, the triple-ending test, the heavy-monosyllabic-
eleventh-syllable-of-the-double-ending test, the run-on-line test, and
the central-pause test.
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