(492) General Observation.  All the editors and critics agree with Mr. Theobald in supposing this play spurious.  I see no reason for differing from them; for the colour of the stile is wholly different from that of the other plays, and there is an attempt at regular versification, and artificial closes, not always inelegant, yet seldom pleasing.  The barbarity of the spectacles, and the general massacre, which are here exhibited, can scarcely be conceived tolerable to any audience; yet we are told by Jonson, that they were not only borne, but praised.  That Shakespeare wrote any part, though Theobald declares it incontestible, I see no reason for believing.

The testimony produced at the beginning of this play, by which it is ascribed to Shakespeare, is by no means equal to the argument against its authenticity, arising from the total difference of conduct, language, and sentiments, by which it stands apart from all the rest.  Meeres had probably no other evidence than that of a title-page, which, though in our time it be sufficient, was then of no great authority; for all the plays which were rejected by the first collectors of Shakespeare’s works, and admitted in later editions, and again rejected by the critical editors, had Shakespeare’s name on the title, as we must suppose, by the fraudulence of the printers, who, while there were yet no gazettes, nor advertisements, nor any means of circulating literary intelligence, could usurp at pleasure any celebrated name.  Nor had Shakespeare any interest in detecting the imposture, as none of his fame or profit was produced by the press.

The chronology of this play does not prove it not to be Shakespeare’s.  If it had been written twenty-five years, in 1614, it might have been written when Shakespeare was twenty-five years old.  When he left Warwickshire I know not, but at the age of twenty-five it was rather too late to fly for deer-stealing.

Ravenscroft, who in the reign of Charles II, revised this play, and restored it to the stage, tells us, in his preface, from a theatrical tradition, I suppose, which in his time might be of sufficient authority, that this play was touched in different parts by Shakespeare, but written by some other poet.  I do not find Shakespeare’s touches very discernible, (see 1765, VI, 364) (rev. 1778, VIII, 559)

Vol.  IX.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

Prologue. (4,2)

And hither am I come A prologue arm’d; but not in confidence Of author’s pen, or actor’s voice; but suited In like conditions as our argument]

I come here to speak the prologue, and come in armour; not defying the audience, in confidence of either the author’s or actor’s abilities, but merely in a character suited to the subject, in a dress of war, before a warlike play.

I.i.12 (8,3) And skill-less as unpractis’d infancy] Mr. Dryden, in his alteration of this play, has taken this speech as it stands, except that he has changed skill-less to artless, not for the better, because skill-less refers to skill and skilful.