old, by Heaven! Let still the woman take
An elder than herself.'

And again:

'Then let thy love be younger than thyself,
Or thy affection cannot hold the bent;
For women are as roses, whose fair flower
Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour.'

It is, we confess, very difficult to suppose that Shakspeare, with his
unquestionable good feeling, could have written this unhandsome insult
to his own wife, though it is very easy to imagine his passing it over
in a hurried perusal previous to its presentation in the green-room.

One thing at least appears certain, and not disputed--the plays
apparently rise, if we may use the expression, as the series goes on;
all at once, Shakspeare, with a fortune, leaves London, and the supply
ceases. Is this compatible with such a genius thus culminating, on any
other supposition than the death of the poet and the survival of the
employer?

Well, reader, how like you our hypothesis? We confess we do not like
it ourselves; but we humbly think it is at least as plausible as most
of what is contained in the many bulky volumes written to connect the
man, William Shakspeare, with the poet of _Hamlet_. We repeat, there
is nothing recorded in his everyday life that connects the two, except
the simple fact of his selling the poems and realising the proceeds,
and their being afterwards published with his name attached; and the
statements of Ben Jonson, which, however, are quite compatible with
his being in the secret. In fact, the only other hypothesis which we
think will serve at all, is to suppose that Shakspeare, like Mohammed,
instead of going to a garret, went to a cave, and received his _Koran_
from Gabriel; but then the mischief is, that Shakspeare is the most
readable of authors, and the _Koran_, perhaps the most unreadable
trash ever inflicted on a student--at least its translation is; and
besides, no angel of them all could ever have shewn such an
acquaintance with our (to a celestial) unkindred humanity as these
poems display. Perhaps the best and crowning hypothesis is that of
Byron about Junius:

That what we Shakspeare call,
Was really, truly, nobody at all.

Thus, whether Shakspeare were written by nobody or not, it seems
pretty well proved that _nobody gave_ the plays to Shakspeare; so
that, whether by inheritance, _purchase_, or divine afflatus, the man
who wrote Shakspeare was--William Shakspeare.

A NIGHT ON THE MOUNTAINS OF