f the succeeding act, till maledictions and outbursts
of grief on the part of Cornelia conclude the piece at the same point at
which it had commenced."

It has never been claimed that "Cornelia" was the model for "Titus."
"Cornelia" and "The Spanish Tragedy" are the only dramas that can be
certainly called Kyd's. Comparison between these, or either of the
others doubtfully attributed to him, and "Titus Andronicus," shows
beyond question that the only similarity between the most similar is
that both are "tragedies of blood." There is no likeness of plot,
characterization, action or diction. There is in "Titus" none of Kyd's
"huffing, bragging, puft" language. A ghost concludes "Jeronimo" whose
"hopes have end in their effects" "when blood and sorrow finish my
desires," "these were spectacles to please my soul." In "Titus," even
the Satanic Aaron, "in the whirlwind of passion," "acquires and begets a
temperance" that "gives it smoothness."

When Tamora proposes crimes to her sons, that fiends would refuse to
execute, Lavinia does not shriek, nor rant, nor call upon the gods, but
speaks what nobody but Shakspere could have uttered,--

"O Tamora! thou bear'st a woman's face."

It is not necessary to consider the claim sometimes made, that Kyd wrote
an old "Taming of the Shrew" or an old "Hamlet." "It is a mere arbitrary
conjecture" that he was the author of either.

There is therefore no proof that Shakspere imitated Kyd, and Professor
Wendell's assertion that "Titus Andronicus" is "much" in his manner is
utterly without support.

"The Comedy of Errors" was unquestionably suggested by the "Twins" of
Plautus. Is it therefore an imitation?

What is literary imitation? Did Dante imitate Virgil because Virgil's
ghost was the guide through the "Inferno"? Did Milton imitate Dante in
"Paradise Lost" because he describes the same scenes in different words?
Did he imitate the author of Genesis because he reproduces the Garden of
Eden in majestic poetry? "Paradise Lost" seems to Professor Wendell
"almost superhuman," but when any suggestion of transcendent power is
applied to Shakspere, it assumes an "unnecessary miracle." Shakspere,
whom ten generations of great men have failed to imitate, is in the
opinion of Professor Wendell but an imitator, because while, as he says,
"he could not help wakening to life the stiffly conventional characters
which he found, as little more than names, in the tales and the
fictions he ada