t and Fletcher were the "imitators," not Shakspere.

Further similarities are suggested between the "type" of the "faithful
friend" as shown in five of Beaumont and Fletcher's "romances" and
Gonzalo in "Tempest," Camillo in "Winter's Tale," and Pisanio in
"Cymbeline." The "lily-livered heroes" and the "poltroons" are left out
of the laborious comparison, perhaps because none of either can be found
in Shakspere sufficiently like the original types in Beaumont and
Fletcher. The examples of the "faithful friend" are not happy. For
Gonzalo sets Prospero adrift in a crazy boat and Camillo betrays one
patron to save another.

Still following the assumption that "Philaster" was earlier than
"Cymbeline," we find Professor Thorndike asserting that "Cymbeline"
"shows a puzzling decadence" in style, "an increase in the proportion of
double endings," "a constant deliberate effort to conceal the metre";
"the verse constantly borders on prose"; "Shakspere's structure in
general is like Fletcher's, particularly in the use of parentheses and
contracted forms for 'it is,' 'he is,' 'I will.'" There is a "loss of
mastery" in "Cymbeline," "an apparently conscious and not quite
successful struggle to overcome the difficulties of the new structure."
An apologetic phrase that all this does not impute any "direct
imitation" of Fletcher does not redeem it from the imputation that
Shakspere was not content with copying Fletcher's plot, characters,
situations, but he deliberately departed, when "Philaster" met his eye,
from the methods he had used for more than twenty years, and carefully
copied the mannerisms of a contemporary who, according to established
chronology, had been known to the public hardly three years. The merits
of the charge, whether of direct or indirect imitation, must be
determined solely by the priority in date of the two plays. Meanwhile,
the critic's argument would have more force if he had told us how
"Cymbeline" shows a "puzzling decadence," how "the structure is like
Fletcher's," how the struggle to overcome the difficulty of its novelty
appears. As the argument stands it reminds one of Lowell's remark in
relation to this style of criticism: "Scarce one but was satisfied that
his ten finger tips were a sufficient key to those astronomic wonders of
poise and counterpoise ... in his metres; scarce one but thought he
could gauge like an ale-firkin that intuition whose edging shallows may
have been sounded, but whose abysse