‘Two Noble Kinsmen.’
Two other pieces, ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen’ and ‘Henry VIII,’ which are attributed to a similar partnership, survive. [259b] ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen’ was first printed in 1634, and was written, according to the title-page, ‘by the memorable worthies of their time, Mr. John Fletcher and Mr. William Shakespeare, gentlemen.’ It was included in the folio of Beaumont and Fletcher of 1679. On grounds alike of æsthetic criticism and metrical tests, a substantial portion of the play was assigned to Shakespeare by Charles Lamb, Coleridge, and Dyce. The last included it in his edition of Shakespeare. Coleridge detected Shakespeare’s hand in act I., act II. sc. i., and act III. sc. i. and ii. In addition to
those scenes, act IV. sc. iii. and act V. (except sc. ii.) were subsequently placed to his credit. Some recent critics assign much of the alleged Shakespearean work to Massinger, and they narrow Shakespeare’s contribution to the first scene (with the opening song, ‘Roses their sharp spines being gone’) and act V. sc. i. and iv. [260] An exact partition is impossible, but frequent signs of Shakespeare’s workmanship are unmistakable. All the passages for which Shakespeare can on any showing be held responsible develop the main plot, which is drawn from Chaucer’s ‘Knight’s Tale’ of Palamon and Arcite, and seems to have been twice dramatised previously. A lost play, ‘Palæmon and Arcyte,’ by Richard Edwardes, was acted at Court in 1566, and a second piece, called ‘Palamon and Arsett’ (also lost), was purchased by Henslowe in 1594. The non-Shakespearean residue of ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen’ is disfigured by indecency and triviality, and is of no literary value.