For instance, the gentlemen of the "New Shakespeare Society" (whom Mr. Swinburne rather mercilessly burlesques in his recent "_Studies of Shakespeare_") submit these dramas to a quantitative analysis; and, by deliberately counting the "male," "female," "weak," and "stopped" endings, and the Alexandrines and catalectics (just as a mineralogist counts the degrees and minutes in the angles of his crystals), insist on their ability to pronounce didatically and infallibly what was written by William Shakespeare, and at what age; what was composed by Dekker, Fletcher, Marlowe, or anybody else; what was originally theirs, touched up by William Shakespeare or _vice versa_, etc. It is curious to observe how this process invariably gives all the admirable sentiments to William Shakespeare, and all the questionable ones to somebody else; but at least these New Shakespearean gentlemen have surrendered somewhat of the "cast-iron" theory of our childhood--that every page, line, and word of the immortal Shakespearean Drama was written by William Shakespeare demi-god, and by none other--perhaps, even opened a path through which the unbelievers may become, in due time, orthodox. There are still, however, a great many persons who are disposed to wave the whole question behind them, much as Mr. Podsnap disposed of the social evil or a famine in India. It is only a "Historic Doubt," they say, and "Historic Doubts" are not rare, are mainly contrived to exhibit syllogistic ingenuity in the teeth of facts, etc., etc. The French, they say, have the same set of problems about Molière. Was he a lawyer? was he a doctor? etc.--and they all find their material in internal evidence--e. g., an accurate handling of the technique of this or that profession or science: parallelism, practical coincidence, or something of that sort. The present work is an attempt to examine, for the benefit of these latter, from purely external evidence, a question which, dating only within the current quarter century, is constantly recurring to confront investigation, and, like Banquo's troublesome shade, seems altogether indisposed to "down." I have to add my acknowledgments to Mr. Julian Norris, for his careful preparation of the Index to these pages. Grandview-on-Hudson, October 2, 1881. {009} THE SHAKESPEAREAN MYTH. PART I. THE MYSTERY. [Illustration: 9015]