SOLUTION OF A LITERARY PROBLEM. 



105 



12 3 

 Fig. 8.— 



4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 

 — Beaumont and Fletcher 



J?HAKESPEARE. 



ber of four-letter words was slightly greater than that of three letters, 



although the excess was by no means so persistent in small groups. The 



curve of their composition is, 



on the whole, quite like that 



of Shakespeare. The lack of 



persistency of form among 



small groups may be accounted 



for by the fact that the work 



is in a large, though unknown, 



degree a joint product. The 



comparison with Shakespeare 



is shown in Fig. 8. 



It was in the counting 

 and plotting of the plays of 

 Christopher Marlowe, how- 

 ever, that something akin to a. sensation was produced among 

 those actually engaged in the work. Here was a man to whom 

 it has always been acknowledged, Shakespeare was deeply indebted; one 

 of whom able critics have declared that he 'might have written the 

 plays of Shakespeare.' Indeed a book has been only recently pub- 

 lished to prove that he did write them. Even this did not lessen 

 the interest with which it was discovered that in the characteristic 



curve of his plays Christopher 

 Marlowe agrees with Shakes- 

 peare about as well as Shakes- 

 peare agrees with himself, as is 

 shown in Fig. 9. Finally, an 

 interesting incident developed 

 in an examination of a bit of 

 dramatic composition by Pro- 

 fessor Shaler, of Harvard Uni- 

 versity, entitled 'Armada 

 Days.' It was a brochure of 

 only about twenty thou- 

 sand words, printed for private circulation, in which the author had 

 endeavored to compose in the spirit and style of the Elizabethan Age. 

 Although too small to produce anything like a 'normal' curve it was 

 counted and plotted, and the diagram indicated that Professor Shaler 

 had not only caught the spirit of the literature of the time, but that he 

 had also unconsciously adopted the mechanism which seems to charac- 

 terize it. In the excess of the four-letter word and in other respects 

 the curve was rather decidedly Shakespearean, although it was written 

 before its author knew anvthinor of such an analvsis as this. 



12 3 4 

 Fig. 9. — 



6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Iti 

 Mari.owe Shakespeare. 



