Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449, page 29 by Various Authors
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peare? And his name would better suit his friends and the then public, than any mere recluse, unknown poet, until his name, like other myths, acquired sanctity by age. Indeed, we fear it is not necessary to go back to Shakspeare's time to find the practice of assumed authorship of purchased plays, without either the reasons or the excuses which apply to Shakspeare. Unfortunately, however, for those who claim Shakspeare for Shakspeare, the secret was not wholly kept. Robert Greene, a well-known contemporary, a writer of reputation, but one who led the skeldering life peculiar to most of his class, addressed, on his death-bed, in 1592, a warning to his co-mates not to trust to the puppets 'that speak from our mouths.' He then goes on in these remarkable words, which we believe every critic thinks were intended for Shakspeare: 'Yes, trust them not; for there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that, with his tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and, being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.' Again: with this view, the disputed passages--those in which critics have agreed that the genius is found wanting--the meretricious ornaments sometimes crowded in--the occasional bad taste displayed--in short, all the imperfections discernible and disputable in these mighty dramas, are reconcilable with their being the interpolations of Shakspeare himself on his poet's works.
The dedication of the Venus and the Lucrece to Lord Southampton is, we confess, somewhat against us, for we cannot but think these poems came from the pen that wrote Romeo; but, after all, Southampton was so generous a patron, that Shakspeare might be excused in assuming the authorship, in order to make the books (as his poems) a better return for the thousand pounds bestowed. But if Southampton really knew him to be the author of the dramas, how comes it that Ral