_The Spanish Tragedy_, a play by Thomas Kyd, published in 1592 and reprinted with many additions ten years later, contains in the additions several magnificent scenes of the passion of grief raised to madness. Some think that Ben Jonson wrote these scenes; others, that they are too good to be by any one but Shakespeare. They are not like Shakespeare's work. _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, a romantic tragedy on the subject of Chaucer's _Knight's Tale_, was first published in 1634. It was described on the title-page as the joint work of Fletcher and Shakespeare. Shakespeare's hand is plainly marked upon the play; but it seems likely that most of the scenes usually credited to him are by Massinger. Few can have ears dull enough to credit Shakespeare with all the scenes that are plainly not by Fletcher. About a dozen other plays and parts of plays have been attributed to Shakespeare, either by lying publishers, anxious to make money, or by foolish critics eager to make a noise. "Evil men understand not judgment: and he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent." There is not a glimmer of evidence in any line or scene to show that Shakespeare had a hand in any of them. THE POEMS _Venus and Adonis._--This poem was published in 1593 with a dedication to the Earl of Southampton, then a youth. In the dedication Shakespeare speaks of the poem as "the first heire of my invention," from which some conclude that it was the first poem ever made public by him. Though it may be his earliest poem, the thought expressed by it is the thought expressed in the greatest of the plays, that evil comes of obsession. Venus, a lustful woman, pursuing her opposite, a chaste youth, comes to misery. Adonis, a chaste youth, fleeing from her, comes to death. The poem is beautiful and wild blooded. It is fierce with the excelling animal zest of something young and untainted. "The sun ariseth in his majesty Who doth the world so gloriously behold, That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold." It is full of the images of delicate quick-blooded things going swiftly and lustily from the boiling of the April in them. * * * * * _The Rape of Lucrece._--This poem was published in 1594, with a dedication to the Earl of Southampton. Like so many of the works of Shakespeare, it describes at length the prompting, acting, and results of a treachery inspired by an obsession. Tarquin, hearing of Lucrece's chastity, longs to attempt her. Coming stealthily to her home, in her lord's absence, he foully ravishes her. She kills herself and he is banished from Rome. The subject is not unlike that of _Venus and Adonis_, with the sexes reversed. In both poems the subject is sexual obsession and its results.