of other plays” (than Titus Andronicus and Henry vi)?  “I think the answer is simple enough.” (So do I.) “Neither Shakspere nor ‘Shakespeare’ ever wrote for Henslowe!” The obvious is perceived at last; and the reason given is “that he was above Henslowe’s ‘skyline,’” “he” being the Author.  We only differ as to why the author was above Henslowe’s “sky-line.”  I say, because good Will had a better market, that of his Company.  I understand Mr. Greenwood to think,—­because the Great Unknown was too great a man to deal with Henslowe.  If to write for the stage were discreditable, to deal (unknown) with Henslowe was no more disgraceful than to deal with “a cry of players”; and as (unknown) Will did the bargaining, the Great Unknown was as safe with Will in one case as in the other.  If Will did not receive anything for the plays from his own company (who firmly believed in his authorship), they must have said, “Will! dost thou serve the Muses and thy obliged fellows for naught?  Dost thou give us two popular plays yearly,—­gratis?”

Do you not see that, in the interests of the Great Secret itself, Will had to take the pay for the plays (pretended his) from somebody.  Will Shakspere making his dear fellows and friends a present of two masterpieces yearly was too incredible.  So I suppose he did have royalties on the receipts, or otherwise got his money; and, as he certainly did not get them from Henslowe, Henslowe had no conceivable reason for entering Will’s name in his accounts.

Such are the reflections of a plain man, but to an imaginative soul there seems to be a brooding mist, with a heart of fire, which half conceals and half reveals the darkened chamber wherein abides “The Silence of Philip Henslowe.”  “The Silence of Philip Henslowe,” Mr. Greenwood writes, “is a very remarkable phenomenon . . . " It is a phenomenon precisely as remarkable as the absence of Mr. Greenwood’s name from the accounts of a boot-maker with whom he has never had any dealings.

“If, however, there was a man in high position, ‘a concealed poet,’” who “took the works of others and rewrote and transformed them, besides bringing out original plays of his own . . . then it is natural enough that his name should not appear among those [of the] for the most part impecunious dramatists to whom Henslowe paid money for playwriting.” {163a} Nothing can be more natural, and, in fact, the name of Bacon, or Southampton, or James vi, or Sir John Ramsay, or Sir Walter Raleigh, or Sir Fulke Greville, or any other “man in high position,” does not appear in Henslowe’s accounts.  Nor does the name of William Shak(&c.).  But why should it not appear if Will sold either his own plays, or those of the noble friend to whom he lent his name and personality—­to Henslowe?  Why not?

Then consider the figure, to my mind impossible, of the great “concealed poet” “of high position,” who can “bring out original plays of his own,” and yet “takes the works of others,” say of “sporting Kyd,” or of Dekker and Chettle, and such poor devils,—­ takes them as a Yankee pirate-publisher takes my rhymes,—­and “rewrites and transforms them.”