Many a time during the past century has that worthy's exploit been repeated. Even so acute a scholar as Alexander Dyce thought it worth while to reprint the letter in 1829 in the first edition of his collected works of George Peele (Vol. I., page 111), although he declined to pledge himself to its authenticity. The latest historian of Dulwich College[40] has admitted it to his text with too mildly worded a caveat. Often, too, has "G. Peel" emerged more recently from a long-forgotten book or periodical to darken the page of a modern popular magazine. I have met him unabashed during the present century in two literary periodicals of repute--in the _Academy_ (of London), in the issue of 18th January 1902, and in the _Poet Lore_ (of Boston) in the following April number. Future disinterments may safely be prophesied. In the jungle of the _Annual Register_ or the _Gentleman's Magazine_ the forgery lurks unchallenged, and there will always be inexperienced explorers, who from time to time will run the unhallowed thing to earth there, and bring it forth as a new and unsuspected truth. [Footnote 40: William Young's _History of Dulwich College_, 1889, II., 41-2.] Perhaps forgery is too big a word to apply to Steevens's concoction. Others worked at later periods on lines of mystification similar to his; but, unlike his disciples, he did not seek from his misdirected ingenuity pecuniary gain or even notoriety. He never set his name to this invention of "Peel" and "Marle," and their insipid chatter about _Hamlet_ at the "Globe." Steevens's sole aim was to delude the unwary. It is difficult to detect humour in the endeavour. But the perversity of the human intellect has no limits. This ungainly example of it is only worth attention because it has sailed under its false colours without very serious molestation for one hundred and forty-three years. X SHAKESPEARE IN FRANCE[41] [Footnote 41: This paper was first printed in _The Nineteenth Century_, June 1899.] I