The following plays also were published during Shakespeare's life-time with his name, in full or in initials, on the title-pages: Locrine, 1595; The Life of Sir John Oldcastle, 1600—known to be by Munday, Drayton, Wilson, and Hathway; History of Thomas Lord Cromwell, 1602; The London Prodigal, 1605; The Puritan, or The Widow of Watling Street, 1607; A Yorkshire Tragedy, 1608. These, with Pericles, Prince of Tyre—also published under his name in 1609—were printed in the 3rd folio, 1664, and reprinted in the 4th, 1685, and finally by Rowe in his edition of Shakespeare's Plays. The Two Noble Kinsmen, by Fletcher and Shakespeare, was published in 1634.
Of the first six of these plays the opinion of the critics is tolerably unanimous that Shakespeare had nothing whatever to do with them. Yet, as in Locrine (printed so early as 1595) it is said, "newly set forth, overseen and corrected, by W. S." it is possible, though most unlikely, that it may be one of the plays on which he operated in the early part of his dramatic career; and the fame of his Poems lately printed, may have induced the publisher to place his initials in the title-page. As to Pericles, it was rejected, with Locrine, &c., by Pope, Theobald, and all the editors down to Malone, who printed all these pieces in 1780 in the Supplement to the edition of Johnson and Steevens; he did not, however, include any of them in his own edition of 1790. Steevens admitted Pericles into his edition of 1793 on the authority of Farmer, but marked with an asterisk, as being only in part Shakespeare's, to which opinion Malone, who at first thought it wholly his, acceded. It finally was included in Reed's and in the Boswell-Malone or Variorum edition, which succeeding editors have followed. From mine it has been excluded, as I am most firmly of opinion that it does not contain a single line of Shakespeare's, and that it is an insult to his memory to give it a place among his genuine works. In fact the deliberate rejection of it by Heminge and Condell from the folio ought to outweigh all conjectural proofs in its favour. These, we must recollect, were not ordinary players, they were Shakespeare's fellows or partners in the theatres; and it was therefore utterly impossible that any play could be acted there without their knowing who was the author. They must, then, have known that Shakespeare had had nothing to do with it; for their admission of 1 Hen. VI. and Titus Andronicus proves that evidence even of the slenderest kind would have turned the beam with them. His name at full length in the title-page proves nothing; for it is also in that of Sir John Oldcastle, 1600, which is known not to be his.
As to the Two Noble Kinsmen, it was published in 1634 as "written by the memorable worthies of their time, Mr. John Fletcher and Mr. William Shakespeare"—putting the greater last—an evident bookseller's artifice; for surely Shakespeare at the zenith of his fame, and toward the close of his dramatic career, would not join with a young poet in the composition of a play, a thing that he never seems to have done, even when he was a young poet himself. Mr. Dyce, who had rejected, afterwards adopted the theory of its being in a certain sense a joint composition; and he makes some strange hypotheses upon the subject, which to me seem utterly devoid of probability. Surely, for example, it is not to be supposed that a man of Shakespeare's business-habits would, when winding-up, as we may term it, leave behind him, in the hands of the House, an unfinished drama, and that what he left should have been the beginning and the end of a play! It is pretty generally agreed that the entire play, except the first and fifth acts, is by Fletcher. To me it seems certain that the first act, though the work of a superior poet, is not Shakespeare's; and I feel quite confident that the first, as well as the second, scene of the last act is by Fletcher; while the concluding scenes are by some other poet, different from, and, I think, superior to, the writer of the first act. My theory is, that Fletcher either obtained the commencement of a play by some one else, or began to write in conjunction with some one, and, the play being unfinished at his death, it was concluded by another poet, possibly Massinger, who alone seems capable of writing such a noble termination of so fine a drama.
THE TEXT
CORRECTED AND ELUCIDATED.
INTRODUCTION.
I. THE TEXT. II. THE VERSE.
COMEDIES.
HISTORIES.