Tudor Shakespeare. Other
plays assigned, without grounds, to Shakespeare by late
seventeenth-century booksellers are _The Merry Devil of Edmonton, The
Arraignment of Paris, Fair Em, Mucedorus_, and _The Birth of Merlin_.

A few other anonymous plays have been ascribed to Shakespeare by modern
critics. Of chief note are _Arden of Feversham_, 1592, first attributed
to Shakespeare by Edward Jacob in 1770; _Edward III_, 1596, included
with other false attributions to Shakespeare in a bookseller's list of
1659, and edited and assigned to Shakespeare by Capell in 1760; _Sir
Thomas More_, an old play of about 1587, preserved in manuscript until
edited by Dyce in 1844 and assigned to Shakespeare by Richard Simpson in
1871. There is no evidence for the ascription of various portions of
these plays to Shakespeare, except that certain passages seem to some
critics characteristic of him. But at the date when the three plays
were written his style had not attained its characteristic
individuality; and the assignment of these anonymous plays to any
particular author neglects the obvious fact that many writers of that
period present similar traits of versification and imagery. The
attribution to Shakespeare of the Countess of Salisbury episode in
_Edward III_, parts of the insurrection scenes in _Sir Thomas More_, and
a few passages in _Arden of Feversham_ has scarcely any warrant beyond
the enthusiastic admiration of certain critics for these passages.

Thus only one play of the Shakespeare Apocrypha has any considerable
claim to admission into the canon. The evidence for his participation in
_The Two Noble Kinsmen_ is about as strong as in _Pericles_, and the
part assigned to him is fairly comparable with his contribution to
_Henry VIII_.

An account of the Shakespeare Apocrypha is, however, incomplete without
reference to the forgeries of documents or plays. Theobald published
_Double Falsehood_ in 1728, as based on a seventeenth-century manuscript
which he conjectured to be by Shakespeare. John Jordan, a resident of
Stratford, forged the will of Shakespeare's father, and probably some
other papers in his _Collections_, 1780; William Henry Ireland, with the
aid of his father, produced in 1796 a volume of forged papers purporting
to relate to Shakespeare's career, and on April 2, 1796, Sheridan and
Kemble presented at Drury Lane the tragedy of _Vortigern_, really by
Ireland, but said by him to have been found among Shakespeare's