spirit of hilarity, which makes him the first | The character belongs to the school of which to enjoy his own detection-and withal, Molière is the head, rather than to the school though grossly selfish, so thoroughly genial of Shakspere. that many love him and few can refuse to laugh with him—is Falstaff to be compared with Parolles, the notorious liar-great way fool-solely a coward? The comparison will not bear examining with patience, and much less with painstaking. And what shall we say of the clown? He is "the artificial fool ;" and we do not like him, therefore, quite so much as dear Launce and dearer Touchstone. To the Fool in Lear' he can no more be compared than Parolles to Falstaff. But he is, nevertheless, great-something that no other artist but Shakspere could have produced. Our poet has used him as a vehicle for some biting satire. There can be no doubt that he is "a witty fool," "a shrewd knave, and an unhappy." CHAPTER V. THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. "THE TAMING OF THE SHREW' was first printed in the folio collection of Shakspere's Plays in 1623. It is not one of those plays enumerated as Shakspere's by Meres, in 1598. The matured opinion of Malone as to the date of this play is thus given :-"I had supposed the piece now under consideration to have been written in the year 1606. On a more attentive perusal of it, and more experience in our author's style and manner, I am persuaded that it was one of his very early productions, and near, in point of time, to "The Comedy of Errors,' 'Love's Labour's Lost,' and 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona.' In the old comedies, antecedent to the time of our author's writing for the stage (if, indeed, they deserve that name), a kind of doggrel measure is often found, which, as I have already observed, Shakspeare adopted in some of those pieces which were undoubtedly among his early compositions: I mean his Errors' and 'Love's Labour's Lost.' This kind of metre, being found also in the play before us, adds support to the supposition that it was one of his early productions." Mr. Collier, however, doubts whether "The Taming of the Shrew' can be treated altogether as one of Shakspere's performances:- "I am satisfied," he says, 66 that more than one hand (perhaps at distant dates) was concerned in it, and that Shakespeare had little to do with any of the scenes in which Katharine and Petruchio are not engaged." Farmer had previously expressed the same opinion, declaring the Induction to be in our poet's best manner, and a great part of the play in his worst, or even below it. To this Steevens replies-"I know not to whom I could impute this comedy, if Shakspeare was not its author. I think his hand is visible in almost every scene, though perhaps not so evidently as in those which pass between Katharine and Petruchio." Mr. Collier judges that "the underplot much resembles the dramatic style of William Haughton, author of an extant comedy, called 'Englishmen for my Money,' which was produced prior to 1598." But there is another play, 'The Taming of a Shrew,' which first appeared in 1594, under the following title:-'A pleasant conceited Historie called the taming of a Shrew. As it was sundry times acted by the Right honourable the Earle of Pembrooke his servants. Printed at London by Peter Short, and are to be sold by Cuthbert Burbie, at | younger sisters do not woo them in assumed his shop at the Royal Exchange, 1594.' The comedy opens with an Induction, the characters of which are a Lord, Slie, a Tapster, Page, Players, and Huntsmen. The incidents are precisely the same as those of the play which we call Shakspere's. There is this difference in the management of the character of Sly in the anonymous comedy, that, during the whole of the performance of 'The Taming of a Shrew,' he occasionally makes his remarks; and is finally carried back to the alehouse door in a state of sleep. In Shakspere we lose this most diverting personage before the end of the first act. After our poet had fairly launched him in the Induction, and given a tone to his subsequent demeanour during the play, the performer of the character was perhaps allowed to continue the dialogue extemporally. We doubt, by the way, whether this would have been permitted after Shakspere had prescribed that the Clowns should “speak no more than what is set down for them." The scene of 'The Taming of a Shrew' is laid at Athens; that of Shakspere's at Padua. The Athens of the one and the Padua of the other are resorts of learning; the former opening thus: Welcome to Athens, my beloved friend, To Plato's school, and Aristotle's walks." Alfonso, a merchant of Athens (the Baptista of Shakspere), has three daughters, Kate, Emilia, and Phylema. Aurelius, son of the duke of Cestus (Sestos), is enamoured of one, Polidor of another, and Ferando (the Petrucio of Shakspere) of Kate, the Shrew. The merchant hath sworn, before he will allow his two younger daughters to be addressed by suitors, that "His eldest daughter first shall be espoused." The wooing of Kate by Ferando is exactly in the same spirit as the wooing by Petrucio; so is the marriage; so the lenten entertainment of the bride in Ferando's countryhouse; so the scene with the Tailor and Haberdasher; so the prostrate obedience of the tamed Shrew. The underplot, however, is essentially different. The lovers of the characters; though a merchant is brought to personate the Duke of Cestus. The real duke arrives, as Vincentio arrives in our play, to discover the imposture; and his indignation occupies much of the latter part of the action, with sufficient tediousness. All parties are ultimately happy and pleased; and the comedy ends with the wager, as in Shakspere, about the obedience of the several wives, the Shrew pronouncing a homily upon the virtue and beauty of submission, which sounds much more hypocritical even than that of the Kate of our poet. There cannot be a doubt that the anonymous author and Shakspere sometimes used the same images and forms of expression-occasionally several whole lines: the incidents of those scenes in which the process of taming the shrew is carried forward are invariably the same. The spectators of each play had the same plots to delight them. They would equally enjoy the surprise and self-satisfaction of the drunken man when he became a lord; equally relish the rough wooing of the master of "the taming school;" rejoice at the dignity of the more worthy gender when the poor woman was denied "beef and mustard ;" and hold their sides with convulsive laughter when the tailor was driven off with his gown, and the haberdasher with his cap. This undoubted resemblance involves some necessity for conjecture, with very little guide from evidence. The first and most obvious hypothesis is, that 'The Taming of a Shrew' was an older play than Shakspere's; and that he borrowed from that comedy. The question then arises, who was its author? The dramatic works of Greene, which have been collected as his, are only six in number; and one was written in connexion with Lodge. The 'Orlando Furioso' is known to have been his, by having been mentioned by a contemporary writer. This play, in its form of publication, appears to us to bear a striking resemblance to 'The Taming of a Shrew.' The title of the first edition is as follows: "The Historie of Orlando Furioso, one of the twelve Pieres of France. As it was plaid before the Queenes Maiestie. London, Printed by John Danter for Cuthbert Burbie, and are to be sold at his Shop nere the Royal Exchange, 1594.' Compare this with the title of 'The Taming of a Shrew.' Each is a 66 'Historie;" each is without an author's name; each is published by Cuthbert Burbie; each is published in the same year, 1594. Might not the recent death of Greene-the reputation which he left behind him-the unhappy circumstances attending his death, for he perished in extreme poverty —and the remarkable controversy between Nash and Harvey, in 1592, “principally touching Robert Greene"-have led the bookseller to procure and publish copies of these plays, if they were both written by him? It is impossible, we think, not to be struck with the striking resemblance of these anonymous performances, in the structure of the verse, the extravagant employment of mythological allusions, the laboured finery intermixed with feebleness, and the occasional outpouring of a rich and gorgeous fancy. In the comic parts, too, it appears to us that there is an equal similarity in the two plays a mixture of the vapid and the coarse, which looks like the attempt of an educated man to lower himself to an unin formed audience. It is very difficult to establish these opinions without being tedious; but we may compare a detached passage or two :— ORLANDO FURIOSO. TAMING OF A SHREW. "Fer. Tush, Kate, these words add greater love in me, And make me think thee fairer than before: Sweet Kate, thou lovelier than Diana's purple robe, Whiter than are the snowy Apennines, Or icy hair that grows on Boreas' chin. And care not thou, sweet Kate, how I be clad; Thou shalt have garments wrought of Median silk, Enchased with precious jewels fetch'd from far By Italian merchants, that with Russian stems Plough up huge furrows in the terrene main." Take a passage, also, of the prose, or comic, parts of the two plays, each evidently intended for the clowns : Ralph. Sirrah Tom, I believe it was he that was at our town o' Sunday: I'll tell thee what he did, sirrah. He came to our house when all our folks were gone to church, and there was nobody at home but I, and I was turning of the spit, and he comes in and bade me fetch him some drink. Now, I went and fetched him "Orl. Is not my love like those purple- some; and ere I came again, by my troth, he coloured swans, That gallop by the coach of Cynthia? Org. Yes, marry is she, my lord. ran away with the roast meat, spit and all, and Orl. Is not her face silver'd like that milk- sirrah, he did so course the boys last Sunday; white shape, When Jove came dancing down to Semele? Org. It is, my lord. Orl. Then go thy ways and climb up to the clouds, And tell Apollo, that Orlando sits And if he do deny to send me down and, if ye call him madman, he 'll run after you, and tickle your ribs so with flap of leather that he hath, as it passeth." TAMING OF A SHREW. "San. Boy, oh disgrace to my person! Zounds, boy, of your face, you have many boys with such pickadenaunts, I am sure. Zounds, would you not have a bloody nose for this? Boy. Come, come, I did but jest; where is that same piece of pie that I gave thee to keep? San. The pie? Ay, you have more mind of your belly than to go see what your master does. Boy. Tush, 't is no matter, man; I prithee give it me, I am very hungry I promise thee. San. Why, you may take it, and the devil burst you with it! one cannot save a bit after supper, but you are always ready to munch it up. Boy. Why, come, man, we shall have good cheer anon at the bride-house, for your master's gone to church to be married already, and there's such cheer as passeth. San. O brave! I would I had eat no meat this week, for I have never a corner left in my belly." 'The Historie of Alphonsus King of Aragon' one of the plays published with Greene's name, after his death-furnishes a passage or two which may be compared with the old Taming of a Shrew :'— ALPHONSUS KING OF ARAGON. "Thou shalt ere long be monarch of the world. All christen'd kings, with all your pagan dogs, Shall bend their knees unto Iphigena. The Indian soil shall be thine at command, Where every step thou settest on the ground Shall be received on the golden mines. Rich Pactolus, that river of account, Which doth descend from top of Tivole mount, Shall be thine own, and all the world beside." 'Go, pack thou hence unto the Stygian lake, And make report unto thy traitorous sire, How well thou hast enjoy'd the diadem, Which he by treason set upon thy head; And, if he ask thee who did send thee down, Alphonsus say, who now must wear thy crown. "I swear by fair Cynthia's burning rays, By Merops' head, and by seven-mouthed Nile, Had I but known ere thou hadst wedded her, Were in thy breast the world's immortal soul, This angry sword should rip thy hateful chest, And hew thee smaller than the Libyan sands. That damned villain that hath deluded me, That I might muster bands of hellish fiends, The English commentators and dramatic antiquaries, in looking around for a probable author of 'The Taming of a Shrew,' named Greene, and Peele, and Kyd. A correspondent of the editor of 'The Pictorial Shakspere,' on the other side the Atlantic, has brought forward some remarkable resemblances between this unknown author and Marlowe. He says, "A peculiarity of expression ('Russian stems') in Marlowe's first play, 'Tamburlaine,' which had before puzzled me in the old "Taming of a Shrew,' led me to compare the two passages, and (judge my surprise) I found the one an almost verbatim reprint of the other. This coincidence induced me to compare more closely the style of the metrical portion of 'The Taming of a Shrew' with that of 'Tamburlaine,' and afterwards of Marlowe's other plays, in which I found so strong a general resemblance, as, conjoined with many direct transfers of lines from one to the other, seem to afford good ground for attributing both to one author. As the first witness in this case, I will place side by side such passages from Marlowe's acknowledged works as are copied into the one without a claimant :— MARLOWE. 'Now that the gloomy shadow of the night, Longing to view Orion's drizzling look, Leaps from the antarctic world unto the sky, And dims the welkin with his pitchy breath.' Faustus, p. 8, ed. 1818. 'Fairer than rocks of pearl and precious stone, Whose eyes are brighter than the lamps of heaven.' Tamburlaine, I., Act III., Sc. 3. (Applied to a Man.) 'Image of honour and nobility In whose sweet person is comprised the sum 'Eternal Heaven sooner be dissolved, Tamburlaine, I., Act III., Sc. 2. Thy garments shall be made of Median silk, Enchased with precious jewels of mine own.' Tamburlaine, I., Act I., Sc. 2. 'And Christian merchants that with Russian stems Plough up huge furrows in the Caspian Sea.' Tamburlaine, I., Act I., Sc. 2. 'The terrene main.' II., Act I., Sc. 1. 'Wagner. Come hither, sirrah boy! Robin. Boy! oh disgrace to my person! Zounds, boy in your face! You have seen many boys with beards, I am sure.' Faustus, p. 12, ed. 1818. 'Boy. Come hither, sirra boy! Sander. Boy! oh disgrace to my person! Sounes, boy of your face! You have many boys with such pickadenaunts, I am sure.' P. 184. 6 And ravishing sounds of his melodious harp.' P. 200. "In other passages the imitation is strong, but not so direct; for example, 'Her sacred beauty hath enchanted heaven; And, had she lived before the siege of Troy, Helen (whose beauty summon'd Greece to arms, And drew a thousand ships to Tenedos) Whose sacred beauty hath enchanted me; "The thousand ships' is a favourite allusion of Marlowe's. We have it again in With ravishing sounds of his melodious harp.''Faustus.' It seems to have been in unison with his characteristic love of the magnificent." UNKNOWN AUTHOR. Faustus, p. 20. 'Now that the gloomy shadow of the night, Longing to view Orion's drisling looks, Leaps from th' antarctic world unto the sky, And dims the welkin with her pitchy breath.' Taming of a Shrew, p. 161, rep. 1779. 'Whose eyes are brighter than the lamps of heaven, Fairer than rocks of pearl and precious stone.' P. 167. (Applied to a Woman.) 'The image of honor and nobility, In whose sweet person is comprised the summe Of nature's skill and heavenly majesty!' The writer then proceeds to say, "Whatever view is taken of such glaring imitations, they may be well termed extraordinary. That an author should so closely repeat himself is at least unusual. That any one should so openly plagiarise from the works of a living writer universally known, and where detection would be certain, is next to incredible. Is not the latter hypothesis, also, rendered peculiarly improbable from the fact that the thefts are not from a single work, but are scattered over three distinct plays? Does it not appear more reasonable to suppose that the author of those three works should use a second time images familiar to his mind, than that another should to such an extent collect and appropriate them? "A point naturally suggested here is, 'Are there any repetitions, like those under consideration, in the acknowledged works of Marlowe ?'-which I think may be answered in the affirmative. For, on very hastily running over them, a number have presented themselves, not, perhaps, so striking as those |