had been far better than it is. [Sidenote: This Daughter is an utter failure.] But the inferiority is decided; the imitation produces neither vigour of style nor depth of feeling; in short, Shakspeare, if he had made the attempt, could not have failed so utterly. [Sidenote: The Schoolmaster is not Shakspere's.] The comic parts are only subservient to the serious portion of this story; and if Shakspeare did not write the leading part, he was still less likely to have written the accessory; but, besides, the imitation is equally unsuccessful; and the original of the schoolmaster is said to have been a personal portrait, which was very unlikely to have been repeated by the first painter after the freshness of the jest was gone. I have been the more anxious to place in its true light the question as to this part of the drama, because, on its seeming likeness to Shakspeare, Steevens founds an ingenious hypothesis, by which he endeavours to account for the origin of the tradition as to Shakspeare's concern in the play. That this is a designed imitation of Shakspeare is abundantly clear; and it is not difficult to see why it is an unsuccessful one. [Sidenote: Fletcher's designd imitation of Shakspere.] Fletcher possesses much humour, but it is of a cast very unlike Shakspeare's, and very unfit to harmonise with it, or to qualify him for the imitation which he has here attempted. Why he made the attempt, we shall be able to discover only when the freaks of caprice, and of poetical caprice, [62:1]the wildest of all, shall be fully analyzed and fully accounted for. [Sidenote: The underplot not Shakspere's.] All that I have to prove is, that this portion of the work is not, and could not have been, Shakspeare's. * * * * * [Sidenote: Shakspere's choice of subjects for his Plays.]