an academy to be often of necessity
perambulated by the most peripatetic student of Shakespeare, will remain
as a monument of critical or uncritical industry, a storehouse of curious
if not of precious relics, and a warning for other than fair women--or
fair scholars--to remember where "it is written that the shoemaker should
meddle with his yard and the tailor with his last, the fisher with his
pencil and the painter with his nets."

To me the difference appears immeasurable between the reasons for
admitting the possibility of Shakespeare's authorship in the case of
_Arden of Feversham_, and the pretexts for imagining the probability of
his partnership in _A Warning for Fair Women_. There is a practically
infinite distinction between the evidence suggested by verbal or even
more than verbal resemblance of detached line to line or selected passage
to passage, and the proof supplied by the general harmony and spiritual
similarity of a whole poem, on comparison of it as a whole with the known
works of the hypothetical author. This proof, at all events, we surely
do not get from consideration in this light of the plea put forward in
behalf of _A Warning for Fair Women_. This proof, I cannot but think, we
are very much nearer getting from contemplation under the same light of
the claim producible for _Arden of Feversham_.

_A Warning for Fair Women_ is unquestionably in its way a noticeable and
valuable "piece of work," as Sly might have defined it. It is perhaps
the best example anywhere extant of a merely realistic tragedy--of
realism pure and simple applied to the service of the highest of the
arts. Very rarely does it rise for a very brief interval to the height
of tragic or poetic style, however simple and homely. The epilogue
affixed to _Arden of Feversham_ asks pardon of the "gentlemen" composing
its audience for "this naked tragedy," on the plea that "simple truth is
gracious enough" without needless ornament or bedizenment of "glozing
stuff." Far more appropriate would such an apology have been as in this
case was at least superfluous, if appended by way of epilogue to _A
Warning for Fair Women_. That is indeed a naked tragedy; nine-tenths of
it are in no wise beyond the reach of an able, industrious, and practised
reporter, commissioned by the proprietors of the journal on whose staff
he might be engaged to throw into the force of scenic dialogue his
transcript of the evidence in a popular and exciting ca