(3) Halliwell observed what appears to be an allusion to Macbeth in the comedy of the Puritan, 4to, 1607:  ‘we’ll ha’ the ghost i’ th’ white sheet sit at upper end o’ th’ table’; and Malone had referred to a less striking parallel in Caesar and Pompey, also pub. 1607: 

     Why, think you, lords, that ’tis ambition’s spur
     That pricketh Caesar to these high attempts?

He also found a significance in the references in Macbeth to the genius of Mark Antony being rebuked by Caesar, and to the insane root that takes the reason prisoner, as showing that Shakespeare, while writing Macbeth, was reading Plutarch’s Lives, with a view to his next play Antony and Cleopatra (S.R. 1608).

(4) To these last arguments, which by themselves would be of little weight, I may add another, of which the same may be said.  Marston’s reminiscences of Shakespeare are only too obvious.  In his Dutch Courtezan, 1605, I have noticed passages which recall Othello and King Lear, but nothing that even faintly recalls Macbeth.  But in reading Sophonisba, 1606, I was several times reminded of Macbeth (as well as, more decidedly, of Othello).  I note the parallels for what they are worth.

With Sophonisba, Act I. Sc. ii.: 

     Upon whose tops the Roman eagles stretch’d
     Their large spread wings, which fann’d the evening aire
     To us cold breath,

cf. Macbeth I. ii. 49: 

     Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky
     And fan our people cold.

Cf. Sophonisba, a page later:  ‘yet doubtful stood the fight,’ with Macbeth, I. ii. 7, ‘Doubtful it stood’ [’Doubtful long it stood’?] In the same scene of Macbeth the hero in fight is compared to an eagle, and his foes to sparrows; and in Soph. III. ii.  Massinissa in fight is compared to a falcon, and his foes to fowls and lesser birds.  I should not note this were it not that all these reminiscences (if they are such) recall one and the same scene.  In Sophonisba also there is a tremendous description of the witch Erictho (IV. i.), who says to the person consulting her, ‘I know thy thoughts,’ as the Witch says to Macbeth, of the Armed Head, ‘He knows thy thought.’

(5) The resemblances between Othello and King Lear pointed out on pp. 244-5 and in Note R. form, when taken in conjunction with other indications, an argument of some strength in favour of the idea that King Lear followed directly on Othello.

(6) There remains the evidence of style and especially of metre.  I will not add to what has been said in the text concerning the former; but I wish to refer more fully to the latter, in so far as it can be represented by the application of metrical tests.  It is impossible to argue here the whole question of these tests.  I will only say that, while I am aware, and quite admit the force, of what can be said against the independent, rash, or incompetent use of them, I am fully convinced of their value when they are properly used.