the Jealous Comedy or with the date of the production of the Winter's Tale.

Verplanck shows that the writer or writers of the play not only drew the main plot and incidents from Greene's book, but occasionally used its very language with the same freedom with which he or they employed old Holinshed in the historical plays. "This is done," says Verplanck, "in both cases in such a manner that it is evident that he wrote with the book before him."

I find no traces of Bacon's style or familiar expressions in this play. I can not believe that he originated it, or, if revised, that he revised it. Attention has been called to the words of Perdita in the third scene of the fourth act, beginning thus:

as embodying Bacon's enumeration and description of flowers. But the words of Perdita are directly in line with Drayton's prose and poetical references to flowers, and the poetry of the Winter's Tale tallies exactly with the style of Drayton and Dekker. I will briefly give some examples of similarity in the use of words and phrases, beginning with Drayton.

The following words in this play, the most of which are found only once in the plays, are also peculiar to Drayton. Those occurring but once are first given alphabetically:

Amazedly, ampler, behind-hand, clipping, fixure, forceful, forewarn, hardened, hornpipes, hovering, industriously, limber, magnificence, missingly, multiply, pomander, pranked-up, reiterate, scanted, singularities, stupid, surpassing, wafting, caparison, cogitation, hent, ponderous,

slackness, sneaping, thwack, tincture, verier." Expressions either identical or almost so are, "And see it instantly; as driven snow; damask roses; fortune speed us; homely shepherd; I conjure thee; in the behalf of; in respect of; it shall scarce boot me; kites and ravens; methinks I see; more straining on; reverse thy doom; she had just cause; stuck in ears; think'st thou; what case stand I in; wolves and bears."

I recognize the hand of Thomas Dekker in this play by the following familiar expressions, used in the Winter's Tale and common to him. They are: "And no more ado; aye, prithee; be advised; by this good light; fie, fie; get you hence; go to, go to; hang him; imagine me; in my conscience; lend me thy hand; O'er head and ears."

Words used only once in the plays and also used by Dekker are: "Doxy, ebb'd, fantastical, fooleries, hammered, imprudently, prognostication, and tittle tattling."

Ben Jonson's fling at the writer of the Winter's Tale, that "he wanted art and sometimes sense" has been heretofore alluded to, and the reason given by Ben, that the writer pictured Bohemia as having a seacoast, when the sea was not within a hundred miles, certainly fits Dekker very well, for he, of all the writers of plays in that era, was the one who cared least for the unities and proprieties either of place or time.

The reader will notice that in these examinations, I have singled out Michael Drayton and Thomas Dekker as active participants in the composition of some of the so-called Shakespeare plays. Michael Drayton particularly has impressed himself upon me as one of the chief composers of some of the plays, either as an originator or reviser. The fact that he was a scholar, a churchman, a

thorough Protestant, a great lover of his country, a good, careful, and laborious poet, a wag, full of wit and humor and given to coarse merriment, a Warwickshire man, familiar with the Warwickshire dialect, a poetical historian, a trusted associate and protege of courtiers and noblemen, and an admirer and lover of the gentle sex, presents a strong circumstance in behalf of my opinion; and when added to the similarity between his style and that of one of the chief writers of the plays, is very convincing to the impartial mind. Born in the forest of Arden, he causes Arden to say:

"Of all the forests here within this mighty Isle,

If those old Britons then, we sovereign did instile,
I needs must be the great'st; for greatness 'tis alone
That gives our kind the place."

Drayton had the genius and the ability to create a Rosalind, a Celia, and an Orlando and place them in the forest of Arden. I trace him in Cymbeline, in Antony and Cleopatra, in Coriolanus, and in Macbeth.

Thomas Dekker has also impressed me as a careless, witty, and at times eloquent participator in the making of some of the plays, for the reason that his style, as shown in his own plays, can be traced in some of the Shakespeare plays, and for the further reason that, living as he did from hand to mouth, he cared nothing for the question of proprietorship in a play, or if he did, he would cheaply sell the product of his brain. If the reader will, for instance, turn to the play of Romeo and Juliet, Act 4, Scene 5, and carefully read what appears there after the words "Enter Peter," he will find a good illustration of Dekker's style, and not only of Dekker's style, but of his

peculiarities. He was very fond of the phrase "music with her silver sound." This is a quotation from a poem by Richard Edwards, in the "Paradise of Dainty Devices," and is quoted thrice in the scene in Romeo and Juliet above referred to. Dekker uses it in Fortunatus, thus:

"Yet, I feel nothing here to make me rich;

Here's no sweet music with her silver sound."

He uses it again in the same comedy and also in Satiromastix.

Another peculiarity of Dekker's, that of leaving out the preposition, is noticeable in Fortunatus, Act 4, Scene 1. There Dekker says, "Doom me some easier death"; while in Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 1, Benvolio says, "Stand not amazed-the prince will doom thee death."

I have not undertaken to add to the tracings by the Baconians of Bacon's hand in the plays, either as a reviser or originator, because that field has been well cultivated, and what I have suggested may lead to greater cultivation. Neither have I troubled myself with what Ben Jonson has written on the subject, for, as to him, I have adopted the opinion which Drummond gave to the world when he said that Jonson was "a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others; given rather to lose a friend than a jest; jealous of every word and action of those about him, especially after drink, which is one of the elements in which he lived and a dissembler of the parts which reigned in him."

If what I have written will help to throw light upon the authorship of the Shakespeare plays, I shall be abundantly repaid for my labor, recognizing, as I do, that it is imperfect and incomplete.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE DRAMATIC ROMANCE OF CYMBELINE.

"More particulars must justify my knowledge."

-Cymbeline, ii, 4.

So far as is now known, the play of Cymbeline did not appear in print until 1623. It is really not a tragedy, but rather, as Hazlitt terms it, a dramatic romance. The studious reader will notice that the writer or writers paid little or no attention to antiquarian or historical accuracy. Dr. Johnson finds fault with "the folly of the fiction and the absurdity of the conduct" as well as "the confusion of names and manners of different periods." Malone notices that the writer has peopled Rome, not with real Romans, but with modern Italians, such for instance as Philario and Iachimo, while another critic calls attention to the writer's mistake in using the expression "three thousand pounds" of tribute. Such absurdity and carelessness would indicate that the writer or writers wrote hastily and as if they were not in the habit of analyzing every character and every country. The first thought in the mind of the student who is at all familiar with any of the plays of Thomas Dekker, as for instance his Satiro-mastix, will be that such confusion and such anachronisms as are displayed in Cymbeline indicate that Thomas Dekker had a hand in its composition. They certainly indicate that Francis Bacon, had he originally composed a play founded on the name and reign of an ancient English king, would have been careful as to descriptions, whether of name,