Eminent among these was the tragedy of _Andromana, or the
Merchant's Wife_, long since rejected from the list of Shirley's works as
unworthy of that poet's hand. Unquestionably it was so; not less
unworthy than _A Larum for London_ of Marlowe's. The consequent
inference that it must needs be the work of the new Shakespeare's was
surely no less cogent in this than in the former case. The allusion
occurring in it to a play bearing date just twenty-six years after the
death of Shakespeare, and written by a poet then unborn, was a strong
point in favour of his theory. (This argument was received with general
marks of adhesion.) What, he would ask, could be more natural than that
Shirley when engaged on the revision and arrangement for the stage of
this posthumous work of the new Shakespeare's (a fact which could require
no further proof than he had already adduced), should have inserted this
reference in order to disguise the name of its real author, and protect
it from the disfavour of an audience with whom that name was notoriously
out of fashion? This reasoning, conclusive in itself, became even more
irresistible--or would become so, if that were anything less than an
absolute impossibility--on comparison of parallel passages,
Though kings still hug suspicion in their bosoms,
They hate the causer.
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