'" {229b}
This statement is made {229c} about "these plays," including Titus
Andronicus and Henry VI, while {229d} "Titus and the Trilogy of Henry
VI are not the work of Shakespeare . . . his hand is probably not to
be found at all in Titus, and only once or twice in Henry VI, Part
I," though he probably made Parts II and III out of older plays.
I do not know where to have the critic. If Henry VI, Part I, and
Titus are in no sense by "Shakespeare," then neither "Shakespeare nor
Ben for him edited or had anything to do with the editing of the
Folio. If either or both had to do with the editing, as the critic
suggests, then he is wrong in denying Shakespearean origin to Titus
and Henry VI, Part I.
Of course one sees a way out of the dilemma for the great auto-
Shakespeare himself, who, by one hypothesis, handed over the editing
of his plays to Ben (HE, by Mr. Greenwood's "supposing," was deviling
at literary jobs for Bacon). The auto-Shakespeare merely tells Ben
to edit his plays, and never even gives him a list of them. Then Ben
brings him the Folio, and the author looks at the list of Plays.
"Mr. Jonson," he says, "I have hitherto held thee for an honest
scholar and a deserving man in the quality thou dost profess. But
thou hast brought me a maimed and deformed printed copy of that which
I did write for my own recreation, not wishful to be known for so
light a thing as a poet.
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