plays which, by common consent, the latest editors have rejected as being at least doubtful, ‘‘Locrine,” “Thomas, Lord Cromwell,” “The London Prodigal,” “The Puritan,” and “The Yorkshire Tragedy,” scarcely present the slightest indications of having been retouched by any hand superior to that of their original author. “Sir John Oldcastle,” which is more interesting, and composed with greater good sense than any of the foregoing, is animated in some scenes by a comic humor akin to that of Shakspeare. But if it be true that genius, even in its lowest abasement, gives forth some luminous rays to betray its presence; if Shakspeare, in particular, bore that distinctive mark which, in one of his sonnets, makes him say, in reference to his writings,
assuredly he had not to reproach himself with the production of that execrable accumulation of horrors which, under the name of “Titus Andronicus,” has been foisted upon the English people as a dramatic work, and in which, Heaven be thanked! there is not a single spark of truth, or scintillation of genius, which can give evidence against him.
Of the doubtful plays, “Pericles” is, in my opinion, the only one to which the name of Shakspeare can be attached with any degree of certainty; or at least, it is the only one in which we find evident traces of his co-operation, especially in the scene in which Pericles meets and recognizes his daughter Marina, whom he believed dead. If, during Shakspeare’s lifetime, any other man could have combined power and truth in so high a degree in the delineation of the natural feelings, England would then have
