We know only of _The Complaint ... of Mistress Arden of Feversham_, preserved among the _Roxburghe Ballads_, and reprinted by Evans and in Miss De Vaynes’ _Kentish Garland_. But this is dated by Mr. Bullen about 1633, when the third Quarto of the play appeared, and was probably occasioned by that re-issue. The important point to bear in mind is the excellence of Holinshed’s narrative. To praise it adequately we must say that it is worthy of the fine play founded upon it, which probably had no other source. The play agrees always with Holinshed when Holinshed differs from the _Wardmote Book_. When the play differs from Holinshed it differs also from the _Wardmote Book_. To the dramatic instinct of the poet we must ascribe his suppression of the fact that Arden winked at his wife’s infidelity. Holinshed and the _Wardmote Book_ both explicitly assert this. Franklin, Arden’s friend, is also an invention of the dramatist. ~Author of the Play.~ The three Quartos are all anonymous. We know of no other edition till 1770, when Edward Jacob, a Faversham antiquary, edited the first Quarto, and boldly claimed the play for Shakespeare. Ludwig Tieck published in 1823 an excellent German translation, accompanied by a discriminating statement of the case for the Shakesperean authorship. Delius, editing the play in 1855, agreed with Tieck, and was followed by the French translator, François Victor Hugo, and more recently by Professor Mézières. Owing to the supposed Shakespearean authorship there have been at least three translations into German, one into French, and one into Dutch. In England opinion has been more divided. Henry Tyrrell,[B] Charles Knight, and Mr. Swinburne[C] have supported the Shakespearean authorship. Professor Ward[D] and J. A. Symonds incline to reject it. Professor Saintsbury considers that ‘the only possible hypothesis on which it could be admitted as Shakespeare’s would be that of an early experiment thrown off while he was seeking his way in a direction where he found no thoroughfare.’[E] Mr. Bullen, who edited a careful reprint of the first Quarto in 1887, suspects ‘that _Arden_ in its present state has been retouched here and there by the master’s hand.’ The latest German editors, Warnke and Proescholt (1888), ‘are of opinion that Shakespeare had nothing to do with _Arden of Faversham_.’ [Footnote B: _Doubtful Plays of Shakespeare._] [Footnote C: _Study of Shakespeare._] [Footnote D: _History of English Dramatic Literature._] [Footnote E: _History of Elizabethan Literature._]