tural to expect that the genius who brought many of these forms to
their highest perfection should not have been so much an inventor as an
adapter"; "We may naturally expect," he says, "that Shakspere's
transcendent plays owe a considerable debt to the less perfect but not
less original efforts of his contemporaries." This "natural expectation"
is not disappointed, in Professor Thorndike's opinion, by a comparison
between some of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays and those he calls the
"romances" of Shakspere,--"Cymbeline," "The Tempest," and "Winter's
Tale." The argument is circuitous, but must be carefully followed in
order to estimate the validity and weight of the conclusion.

In the first place, it is assumed as probable that Shakspere and
Fletcher wrote "The Two Noble Kinsmen," and that Fletcher wrote part of
"Henry VIII." It is admitted that this last assumption is "at odds with
the weight of authority" and rests mainly, if not wholly, upon
Spedding's essay, in 1850. The only additional suggestion is the new and
original test, the so-called "em-them" test. A laborious table is made,
purporting to show that in the part assigned to Shakspere "them" is used
seventeen times, "'em" only five; that in the part assigned to Fletcher
"them" is used but four times, "'em" fifty-seven. We are not told from
what source this table was made, but "Henry VIII." was first published
in the folio of 1623. Professor Thorndike says that later editions have
strictly followed it, and in Knight's edition, which he certifies to be
a reprint of the first folio, "'em" as a contraction for "them" occurs
just once and no more. Thus far, then, the new "test" seems to give us
no satisfactory aid.

It may be permitted an ordinary reader to wonder how any critic can
persuade himself that Fletcher wrote the speech of Wolsey on his
downfall, or the prophecy of Cranmer at the christening of Elizabeth.
Why is it not a permissible hypothesis that "Henry VIII." was written
during the reign of the great Queen, and subsequently revised by
Shakspere, after her death, and presented as a "new play," as Wotten
calls it?

The only external evidence that Shakspere wrote any portion of "The Two
Noble Kinsmen" is the quarto of 1634. On the contrary, all the previous
external evidence is against that guess, for it was left out of the
First Folio, and Heminge & Condell's positive knowledge is certainly of
more weight than the opinion of Professor Thorndike's sole au