play
satirised by Chapman under the title of _The Prodigal Child_ was
undoubtedly written by Shakespeare, and it is no more likely that
Chapman would use the actual name of the play at which he points than
that he would use the actual names of the various persons or of the
company of players whose actions and work he caricatures.

In 1594 George Chapman published _Hymns to the Shadow of Night_, and in
1595 his _Ovid's Banquet of Sense_ and _A Coronet for his Mistress
Philosophy_, dedicating both publications to his friend Matthew Roydon.
The dedication of these poems to Roydon was an afterthought; they were
not primarily written with Roydon in mind.[26] It has been made evident
that Chapman had first submitted these poems to the Earl of Southampton
in an endeavour to win his patronage, and failing to do so dedicated
them to Roydon and attacked Shakespeare in the dedications, where he
refers to him in the capacity of reader to the Earl of Southampton, and
imputes to his adverse influence his ill-success in his attempt. In the
dedication to _The Shadow of Night_ he writes:

"How then may a man stay his marvailing to see passion-driven men
reading but to curtail a tedious hour and altogether hidebound with
affection to great men's fancies take upon them as killing censures
as if they were judgements butchers or as if the life of truth lay
tottering in their verdicts.

"Now what supererogation in wit this is to think skill so mightily
pierced with their loves that she should prostitutely shew them her
secrets when she will scarcely be looked upon by others but with
invocation, fasting, watching; yea not without having drops of their
souls like an heavenly familiar. Why then should our _Intonsi
Catones_ with their profit ravished gravity esteem her true favours
such questionless vanities as with what part soever thereof they seem
to be something delighted they queamishly commend it for a pretty
toy. Good Lord how serious and eternal are their idolatrous platts
for riches."

The expression "passion-driven," as applied by Chapman to Shakespeare in
1594, especially in a dedication written to Matthew Roydon,--who in this
same year published _Willobie his Avisa_,--plainly refers to
Shakespeare's relations at that time with Mistress Davenant, who was the
original for the figure now known as the Dark Lady of the Sonnets, as
well as for the Avisa of _Willobie his Avisa_. The words "r