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 whom they called Shakespeare." But
to be revised, improved, and dressed by some one whom they called
Shakespeare, is to be as truly "Shakespearean" work as is any play so
handled "by Shakespeare." Thus the plays mentioned are as truly
"Shakespearean" as any others in which "Shakespeare" worked on an
earlier canvas, and also Titus "is not SHAKESPEAREAN at all." Mr.
Greenwood, I repeat, constantly denies the "Shakespearean" character
to Titus and Henry VI. "The conclusion of the whole matter is that
Titus and The Trilogy of Henry VI are not the work of Shakespeare:
that his hand is probably not to be found at all in Titus, and only
once or twice, if at all, in Henry VI, Part I, but that he it
probably was who altered and remodelled the two parts of the old
Contention of the Houses of York and Lancaster, thereby producing
Henry VI, Parts II and III.
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