* This play is put in between the Histories and Tragedies, as if received "too late for classification," as the newspapers say. Its pages are not numbered, and so it does not disturb the pagination of the folio. PART VI.--THE NEW THEORY, {290}A play called "Duke Humphrey," attributed to Shakespeare, was amongst the dramatic manuscripts destroyed by the carelessness of Warburton's servant, in the early part of the last century, as appears by the list preserved in the British Museum--MS. Lans-downe, 849. Leaving out these plays mentioned by Meres, we then have twenty-one entirely new plays, which never appeared in William Shakespeare's life, first appearing in Heminges and Condell's edition. It appearing, then, that, of some forty-two plays credited to William Shakespeare during his lifetime, Heminges and Condell selected only twenty-five, and printed and hound up with those twenty-five nine plays which nobody had ever heard of in print or on the stage or anywhere else, until William Shakespeare had been dead and in his grave seven years, besides the "Othello," which was first heard of five years after his death: it follows either that Heminges and Condell knew that William Shakespeare was in the habit of allowing plays to be called by his name which he never wrote, or that Heminges and Condell's collection of "Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, published according to the true original copies," is nothing more or less than a collection of plays written prior to the year 1623, and not earlier than the reign of Elizabeth. The Shakes-peareans may take either horn of the dilemma they please. "Pericles," one of the plays rejected by Heminges and Condell has since been restored to favor, and no editor now omits it. Surely, under the circumstances, we are justified in asking the question: "If William Shakespeare ever wrote any plays or {291}poems, which of the above did he write, and which are 'doubtful?5"