SOURCE: “Chettle's Forgery of the Groatsworth of Wit and the ‘Shake-scene’ Passage.” Shakespeare Newsletter 20, no. 6 (December 1970): 42.

In the following essay, the anonymous critic analyzes the evidence that Greene's Groatsworth of Wit is a forgery perpetrated by Chettle.

Last April 1969 what may turn out to be one of the three most significant contributions to Shakespearean scholarship in this century was published as Final Report: Project No. 7-0-036: Grant No. OEG-1-7-070036-4593 (U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education, Bureau of Research, April, 1969) A Computer-Aided Technique for Stylistic Discrimination—The Authorship of Greene's Groatsworth of Wit.

In 1909 Dr. Charles William Wallace and his wife discovered the Bellot-Mountjoy papers, 26 depositions including one from Shakespeare containing his signature. This was accomplished by personal examination, eventually, of over 5,000,000 documents in the Public Record Office in London. In the next year, Wm. J. Neidig proved conclusively that...