The question of his
collaboration is a difficult one to settle, but leading critics have
picked out the gold and rejected the dross, and their analyses prove
that Shakespeare's part in these works was not predominant.

=MICHAEL DRAYTON
In the National Portrait Gallery. (Painter unknown)=

It is no function of a simple record like the present to inquire into
this critical question closely; a dozen editions of Shakespeare's plays
published in the last ten years set down the latest researches of
scholars. To not a few of us the tragedy that followed "Pericles" is
among the finest of all that carry Shakespeare's name; surely, in some
passages of sheer undying beauty, "Antony and Cleopatra" stands
well-nigh alone. It dates from 1608, and, like "Coriolanus," the play
that followed (1609), is taken largely from Plutarch (North's
translation). "Cymbeline" is founded on Holinshed, and probably may be
dated 1610. "The Winter's Tale" belongs to 1611, and to this year may be
assigned the poet's moderate part in "Henry VIII."--he is far from being
responsible for the whole play. "The Tempest" belongs, at latest, to
1612. This, the latest and last work of the master-hand, was given with
all its beautiful songs set to music by Robert Johnson, a player and
composer of renown.

So, leaving Miranda and Prospero to console us, the greatest dramatist
of all time laid down his pen. Many a critic and lover of the poet has
seen in the last words of Prospero, spoken when he gives up his magic
wand, a reflection of the poet's mind. His life-work, too, was done.
Unaided, save by his own genius, he had moved from the obscurity of
Warwickshire's by-ways to a place by the side of the Immortals. In all
the firmament of poetry there was no star to outshine his. It may be he
knew that the years still left to him were likely to be few, and that
his heart turned more from the bustle of a great city's ways to the
quiet fields and lanes wherein his earliest inspiration had come to him.
He had written a few scenes of plays that other men would seem to have
designed and completed, but these fragments are of small importance and
may be passed over here. Whatever he had given to lend a lustre to the
work of his contemporaries would seem to have afforded him little
concern. Henceforward his life was to be spent far from the busy centre
of theatrical life, though he was compelled to come to town at short
intervals in the first two or three years followin