Had Shakespeare wanted money it would perhaps be difficult to deny that he would have adapted his work to the requirement of the times. But by 1610 he was very well able to live in retirement upon a competent income, and it is difficult to believe that one who had attained his wonderful balance of intellect and heart, of reason and imagination, would have condescended to elaborate the details of baptismal and coronation festivities. And now in conclusion, what is there to be said for or against the genuineness of the play? The supporters of the Shakespearian authorship dwell upon the beauty of particular passages, and on the general similarity, in many scenes, to Shakespeare's verse in his later plays; the sceptics contend that it is a mistake to leave entirely out of view the most important part of every drama--viz., its action and its characterization; and unreasonable, moreover, to suppose that Shakespeare had no imitators at the close of his successful career. But, say the admirers, this kind of reasoning is no evidence that Shakespeare was not the author of all that is most liked in the play. Here, however, we are met with the argument that the popular scenes of all others in the play, are those the most easily to be identified with the metre peculiar to Fletcher. Then, again, it is hardly possible to accept the opinion of Charles Knight, Professor Delius, and Dr. Elze that all the shortcomings of the play, both in the structure and versification, are due to the fact that the poet was hampered by a "difficulty inherent in the subject." Is genius ever hampered by its subject? Does not history prove the contrary? Have not the shackles put upon musicians, poets, painters, and sculptors by their patrons, instead of checking their genius, elicited the most exquisite products of their imagination? The conscientious inquirer, therefore, who wades through a mass of literary criticism in the hope of obtaining some elucidation of the question, seems only doomed to experience disappointment. Nothing is gained but an unsettling of all preconceived ideas. If expectations of a possible solution are aroused they are not fulfilled because the unprejudiced mind refuses to accept conjectural criticism and to believe more than it is possible to know. Still, it must be admitted that in re-reading the play in the light of all the more modern criticism upon it, the dissatisfaction with the inferior portions becomes more acute, while the finer scenes shine with a lessened glory. It is not only dramatic perception in the development of character that is wanting, but the power which gives words form and meaning is also lacking; the closely packed expression, the lifelike reality and freshness, the rapid and abrupt turnings of thought, so quick that language can hardly follow fast enough; the impatient audacity of intellect and fancy with which we are familiar in Shakespeare's later plays are not to be found in "Henry VIII." We miss even the objections