"Soldiers shall never spende their idle howres more profitablie then with his studious and industrious perusell; in whose honors his deserts are infinite. Counsellors have never better oracles then his lines; fathers have no morales so profitable for their children as his counsailes; nor shal they ever give them more honord injunctions then to learne Homer without book, that being continually conversant in him his height may descend to their capacities, and his substance prove their worthiest riches. Husbands, wives, lovers, friends, and allies, having in him mirrors for all their duties; all sortes of which concourse and societie, in other more happy ages, have in steed of sonnets and lascivious ballades, sung his Iliades." Now, Mr. Acheson may be right as to the date in which "Troilus and Cressida" was written, because neither in its dramatic construction nor in its verse and characterization can the play consistently be called a later composition, so that it is possible to contend that the whole of the play, with the exception, perhaps, of the prologue, was written before "Henry IV., Part Two." It can be urged, also, that Ben Jonson's "Poetaster," which was acted in 1601, contains allusions to Shakespeare's play, and to its having been unfavourably received; then that certain incidents in the life of Essex come into the play, and that these would not have been mentioned had the play been written later than the spring of 1599, when Essex had left for Ireland.