From the success of such a play Kyd may very naturally have turned to the similar story of revenge embodied in Belleforest's "Historie of Hamblet." From contemporary references we infer that the old "Hamlet" was a tragedy of blood, written under Senecan influence, and containing a ghost that cried "revenge." If, as seems undoubted, it was used by Shakespeare, traces of it must be found in the German version of Hamlet, in the corrupt first quarto, and even in Shakespeare's final version; but there is as yet no agreement among scholars as to what can be attributed to Shakespeare's borrowing rather than to his invention and transformation. It seems entirely probable, however, that the early play was a companion-piece to "The Spanish Tragedy," containing the motives of revenge, hesitation, insanity, intrigue, and slaughter, with the addition of the murderer's passion for the wife of the murdered. On the now established theory that the play was by Kyd, we may infer a protagonist like Hieronimo, much meditating and soliloquizing, a dramatic structure like that of "The Spanish Tragedy," a play within a play, a mad Ophelia, and an intrigue culminating in slaughter. There are evidences in Marston and later contributors to the revenge type that the original "Hamlet," fully as much as "The Spanish Tragedy," served as their model; while doubtless like "The Spanish Tragedy," Kyd's "Hamlet" must have borne a much closer resemblance than even that play to Shakespeare's masterpiece. "Soliman and Perseda," if not by Kyd, at least shows many evidences of his influence and is itself an interesting combination of the tragedy of revenge and romantic comedy. Love, Fortune, and Death make up a Kydian chorus and debate for supremacy until the close, when Death, like the Ghost, exults in an enumeration of the dead. The love story furnishes a clearly defined plot. The course of true love, despite the heroine's jealousy, an unintended murder by the hero, his banishment, the sack of Rhodes by the Turks, and the Sultan's passion for the heroine, ascends through the first four acts to the reunion and prospective happiness of the lovers. The fifth act proceeds to their separation and death through the Sultan's wickedness. Some of the incidents are those of romantic comedy, such as the use of the chain as a symbol of loyal love, its loss, the resulting jealousy, and the donning of boy's clothes by the heroine in order to receive death from the sword of the hated suitor. The fun of the piece is furnished by a _miles gloriosus_, Basilisco, and the extraordinary merit of his characterization furnishes the chief reason for doubting Kyd's authorship. Over lyric love, fortune, and fun, however, Death reigns supreme. This is his favorite tragedy, for eighteen persons are actually killed on the stage, and at the close not one of the _dramatis personae_ is left to bear off the bodies of the slain.