ith his contemporaries, was a somewhat sluggish avoidance of
needless invention. When anyone else had done a popular thing,
Shakspere was pretty sure to imitate him and do it better. But
he hardly ever did anything first. To his contemporaries he
must have seemed deficient in originality, at least as
compared with Lilly, or Marlowe, or Ben Jonson, or Beaumont
and Fletcher. He was the most obviously imitative dramatist of
all, following rather than leading superficial fashion."

Professor Wendell proceeds to give what he is pleased to call examples
of Shakspere's "lack of superficial originality," whatever that may
mean, and assumes that he "had certainly done years of work as a
dramatic hack-writer" before the appearance of "Venus and Adonis." There
is no proof, not even the doubtful authority of tradition, that he was
ever a hack-writer, or ever revised or revamped the dramatic work of
another.

Professor Wendell asserts, upon the authority of Mr. Sidney Lee, that
Shakspere came to London in 1586,--that is, when he was twenty-two.
Aubry, his oldest biographer, says in 1680 that "this William, being
naturally inclined to poetry and acting, came to London, I guess about
eighteen (i.e., in 1582), and was an actor at one of the playhouses, and
did act exceeding well." "He began early to make essays at dramatic
poetry, and his plays took well." The date is important, as will soon be
seen.

Professor Wendell proceeds:--"'Love's Labour's Lost' is obviously in
the manner of Lilly. 'Henry VI.,' certainly collaborative, is a
chronicle history of the earlier kind. Greene and Peele were the chief
makers of such plays until Marlowe developed the type into his almost
masterly 'Edward II.' 'Titus Andronicus' ... is a tragedy of blood much
in the manner of Kyd. 'The Comedy of Errors' adapts for popular
presentation a familiar kind of Latin comedy."

We may differ with some of these assertions because dissent is supported
by the highest authority, both German and English. Ulrici says that
"Lilly's works in fact contain nothing but witty words; the actual wit
of comic characters, situations, actions, and incidents is almost
entirely wanting. Accordingly, his wit is devoid of dramatic power, his
conception of comedy still not distinct from the ludicrous, which is
always attached to one object; he has no idea of a comic whole." "Love's
Labour's Lost" is assigned by the best authority to 1591-92, afte