ble of the deepest and bitterest penitence,--incapable of
dying with a hideous and homicidal falsehood on her long polluted lips.
Her latest breath is not a lie but a prayer.

Considering, then, in conclusion, the various and marvellous gifts
displayed for the first time on our stage by the great poet, the great
dramatist, the strong and subtle searcher of hearts, the just and
merciful judge and painter of human passions, who gave this tragedy to
the new-born literature of our drama; taking into account the really
wonderful skill, the absoluteness of intuition and inspiration, with
which every stroke is put in that touches off character or tones down
effect, even in the sketching and grouping of such minor figures as the
ruffianly hireling Black Will, the passionate artist without pity or
conscience, {141} and above all the "unimitated, inimitable" study of
Michael, in whom even physical fear becomes tragic, and cowardice itself
no ludicrous infirmity but rather a terrible passion; I cannot but
finally take heart to say, even in the absence of all external or
traditional testimony, that it seems to me not pardonable merely nor
permissible, but simply logical and reasonable, to set down this poem, a
young man's work on the face of it, as the possible work of no man's
youthful hand but Shakespeare's.

No similar question is raised, no parallel problem stated, in the case of
any one other among the plays now or ever ascribed on grounds more or
less dubious to that same indubitable hand. This hand I do not recognise
even in the _Yorkshire Tragedy_, full as it is to overflowing of fierce
animal power, and hot as with the furious breath of some caged wild
beast. Heywood, who as the most realistic and in some sense prosaic
dramatist of his time has been credited (though but in a modestly
tentative and suggestive fashion) with its authorship, was as incapable
of writing it as Chapman of writing the Shakespearean parts of _The Two
Noble Kinsmen_ or Fletcher of writing the scenes of Wolsey's fall and
Katherine's death in _King Henry VIII_. To the only editor of
Shakespeare responsible for the two earlier of the three suggestions here
set aside, they may be forgiven on the score of insufficient scholarship
and want of critical training; but on what ground the third suggestion
can be excused in the case of men who should have a better right than
most others to speak with some show of authority on a point of higher
criticism, I