SOURCE: "Why the Sweets Melted: A Study in Shakespeare's Imagery," in Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. XVI, No. 4, Autumn, 1965, pp. 3-12.

In this essay, Hobday examines Shakespeore's use of flattery-images and concludes that Shakespeare is part-author of both Edward III and The Two Noble Kinsmen.

The association of ideas in the most famous of all Shakespeare's image-clusters—that which links flattery with fawning dogs and melting sweets—presents a problem. It is natural enough that he should think of flattery as sweet and of flatteres as fawning dogs, but why should the sweets melt? Dr. Caroline Spurgeon wrote: "The explanation of this curious and repeated sequence of ideas is, I think, very simple. It was the habit in Elizabethen times to have dogs, which were chiefly of the spaniel and greyhound type, at table, licking the hands of the guests, fawning and begging for sweetmeats with which they were fed...