This statement is made {229c} about “these plays,” including Titus Andronicus and Henry vi, while {229d} “Titus and the Trilogy of Henry vi are not the work of Shakespeare . . . his hand is probably not to be found at all in Titus, and only once or twice in Henry vi, Part I,” though he probably made Parts ii and iii out of older plays.

I do not know where to have the critic.  If Henry vi, Part I, and Titus are in no sense by “Shakespeare,” then neither “Shakespeare nor Ben for him edited or had anything to do with the editing of the Folio.  If either or both had to do with the editing, as the critic suggests, then he is wrong in denying Shakespearean origin to Titus and Henry vi, Part I.

Of course one sees a way out of the dilemma for the great auto-Shakespeare himself, who, by one hypothesis, handed over the editing of his plays to Ben (he, by Mr. Greenwood’s “supposing,” was deviling at literary jobs for Bacon).  The auto-Shakespeare merely tells Ben to edit his plays, and never even gives him a list of them.  Then Ben brings him the Folio, and the author looks at the list of Plays.

“Mr. Jonson,” he says, “I have hitherto held thee for an honest scholar and a deserving man in the quality thou dost profess.  But thou hast brought me a maimed and deformed printed copy of that which I did write for my own recreation, not wishful to be known for so light a thing as a poet.  Moreover, thou hast placed among these my trifles, four plays to which I never put a finger, and others in which I had no more than a thumb.  The Seneschal, Mr. Jonson, will pay thee what is due to thee; thy fardels shall be sent whithersoever thou wilt, and, Mary!  Mr. Jonson, I bid thee never more be officer of mine.”

This painful discourse must have been held at Gorhambury,—­if Ben edited the Folio—­for Francis.

It is manifest, I hope, that about the Folio Mr. Greenwood speaks with two voices, and these very discordant.  It is also manifest that, whoever wrote the plays left his materials in deep neglect, and that, when they were collected, some one gathered them up in extreme disorder.  It is extraordinary that the Baconians and Mr. Greenwood do not see the fallacy of their own reasoning in this matter of the Folio.  They constantly ridicule the old view that the actor, Will Shakspere (if, by miracle, he were the author of the plays), could have left them to take their fortunes.  They are asked, what did other playwrights do in that age?  They often parted with their whole copyright to the actors of this or that company, or to Henslowe.  The new owners could alter the plays at will, and were notoriously anxious to keep them out of print, lest other companies should act them.  As Mr. Greenwood writes, {231a} “Such, we are told, was the universal custom with dramatists of the day; they ‘kept no copies’ of their plays, and thought no more about them.  It will, I suppose, be set down to fanaticism that I should doubt the truth of this proposition, that I doubt if it be consonant with the known facts of human nature.”  But whom, except Jonson, does Mr. Greenwood find editing and publishing his plays?  Beaumont, Fletcher, Heywood?  No!