Louisville, Ky.
DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: I thank you very much for the many beautiful designs which you have given for Christmas presents, and for the pictures and silhouettes which you have published, from which we have copied in tableaux vivants and shadow pantomimes. We had "The Modern and Mediæval Ballad of Mary Jane" (published in January, 1877) in our church entertainment, and it "took" immensely. "The Stalwart Benjamin" and "Lord Mortimer" were cut from pasteboard, and fastened up by wires, and, of course, no one knew that they were not people. The "Ballad" was read behind the scenes.—Truly yours,
KITTY B. WHIPPLE.
Boston.
DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: Papa has bought me every number of the ST. NICHOLAS you have ever published, and as I have seen several letters asking you about different things, I thought I would ask you about something I do not understand. If it is not really known who wrote the plays "Titus Andronicus" and "Pericles, Prince of Tyre," what circumstances lead people to think Shakspeare wrote them?
I have enjoyed you extremely, and as the Little Schoolma'am seems always to answer such questions, I write to you hoping you will ask her.—I am your fond admirer,
ETHEL DAVIS.
The Little Schoolma'am says it is not absolutely certain who wrote the plays you name, but this is about the way the matter stands:
The play "Titus Andronicus" is not now believed to have been originally written by Shakspeare. It is considered too horrible and repulsive to be his work. However, it may have been brought to him to be retouched and made ready for the stage. Hence is it, perhaps, that some passages of his are found in it.
"Pericles," as well as "Timon of Athens," is believed to have been the work of some other writer, afterward completed and partially altered by Shakspeare. It is thought that most of the last three acts of "Pericles" are Shakspeare's, though some of their prose scenes and all the choruses are by another hand.