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n conviction is that . . . these plays were 'revised, improved, and dressed by some one whom they called Shakespeare.'" {226a} (Whom WHO called Shakespeare?) In that case these plays,--say Titus Andronicus and Henry VI, Part 1,--which Mr. Greenwood denies to HIS "Shakespeare" were just as much HIS Shakespeare's plays as any other plays (and there are several), which HIS Shakespeare "revised, improved, and dressed." Yet HIS Shakespeare is NOT author of Henry VI, {226b} not the author of Titus Andronicus. {226c} "Mr. Anders," writes Mr. Greenwood, "makes what I think to be a great error in citing Henry VI and Titus as genuine plays of Shakespeare." {226d}
He hammers at this denial in nineteen references in his Index to Titus Andronicus. Yet Ben, or Bacon, or the Unknown thought that these plays WERE "genuine plays" of "Shakespeare," the concealed author--Bacon or Mr. Greenwood's man. It appears that the immense poet who used the "nom de plume" of "Shakespeare" did not know the plays of which he could rightfully call himself the author; that (not foreseeing Mr. Greenwood's constantly repeated objections) he boldly annexed four plays, or two certainly, which Mr. Greenwood denies to him, and another about which "the Folio Editor was in no little doubt."
Finally, {227a} Mr. Greenwood is "convinced," "it is my conviction" that some plays which he often denies to his "Shakespeare" were "revised, improved, and dressed by some one whom they called Shakespeare." That some one, if he edited or caused to be edited the Folio, thought that his revision, improvement, and dressing up of the plays gave him a right to claim their authorship--and Mr. Greenwood, a dozen times and more, denies to him their authorship.
One is seriously puzzled to discover the critic's meaning. The Taming of a Shrew, Titus, Henry VI, and King Lear, referred to in Henslowe's "Diary," are not "Shakespearean," we are repeatedly told. But "my own conviction is that . . . " these plays were "revised, improved, and dressed by some one who