Page:A study of Shakespeare (IA cu31924013158393).pdf/305

 when engaged on the revision and arrangement for the stage of this posthumous work of the new Shakespeare's (a fact which could require no further proof than he had already adduced), should have inserted this reference in order to disguise the name of its real author, and protect it from the disfavour of an audience with whom that name was notoriously out of fashion? This reasoning, conclusive in itself, became even more irresistible—or would become so, if that were anything less than an absolute impossibility—on comparison of parallel passages,

Though kings still hug suspicion in their bosoms, They hate the causer.(Andromana, Act i. Sc. 3.)

Compare this with the avowal put by Shakespeare into the mouth of a king.

Though I did wish him dead, I hate the murderer.(King Richard II., Act v. Sc. 6.)

Again in the same scene:

Compare this with various passages (too familiar to quote) in the Merchant of Venice. The transference of the Rialto to Iberia was of a piece with the discovery of a sea-coast in Bohemia. In the same scene Andromana says to her lover, finding him reluctant to take his leave, almost in the very words of Romeo to Juliet,

Then let us stand and outface danger, Since you will have it so.

It was obvious that only the author of the one passage