1898.] 



SMYTH — PERICLES AND APOLLONIUS. 265 



and style. Of course on the Stapfer-Hugo-Malone supposition it 

 is easy to believe that Shakespeare dipped into his portfolio for a 

 roughly sketched play that would answer his friend's desire and suit 

 his capabilities. 



The second hypothesis was the suggestion of Steevens and was up- 

 held by Hallam and Collier. It asserts that Shakespeare adopted, 

 as he so often did in his first period of apprenticeship, the work of 

 another playwright, improved it, rewrote the last scenes, and put 

 it upon the stage in 1608. 



Shakespeare is believed to have been for some years a writer for 

 the Lord Chamberlain's company. We know that he revised old 

 plays and collaborated with unknown poets in the prepara- 

 tion of new ones. We know, too, that the various features of 

 Shakespeare's art did not crystallize immediately into a personal 

 and unmistakable manner. He was long a rhymster and a euphuist, 

 plucking and checking at many things in his period of tentative 

 endeavor, while his great predecessor, Marlowe, pursued his lonely 

 and original road with invincible independence. We are bound, 

 therefore, when a play comes to us with the name of Shakespeare 

 upon it to weigh it to the uttermost scruple, for there is always a 

 possibility that Shakespeare had a hand in it, either by way of trial, 

 or in assisting another, or in introducing some felicitous touch into 

 a work he was preparing for his own theatre. Because a play is 

 not in the first folio is not conclusive witness against its genuineness ; 

 it may have been impossible to secure the play owing to the stub- 

 born rights of some bookseller. Nor on the other hand does the ap- 

 pearance of Shakespeare's name upon a quarto play argue neces- 

 sarily the authenticity of the play. Literary pirates abounded in 

 the ** spacious days of great Elizabeth," and the products of the stage 

 were often stolen by shorthand writers for publishers who were 

 "just right enough to claim a doubtful right." 



There are many possibilities in the case of a dubious play. It 

 may be a worthy work slightly retouched and heightened by 

 the poet ; such plays are the second and third parts of Henry VI. 

 It may be an old piece entirely rewritten ; such an one is 

 Romeo and Juliet. It may be one in which Shakespeare 

 wrought in concert with a fellow-author, and here we have for 

 examples Henry VIII and Two Noble Kinsmen. It may be 

 trial work rejected by Shakespeare and completed by an inferior 

 hand. And it may be an old piece into which Shakespeare has 



