Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my name, Showing their birth and where they did proceed? And so it does, when we look behind the scenes. They were written in the hope that some one like myself would arise, a light in a dark place, to give honour to whom honour was due, and pluck the jay’s false feathers from off the crow. The instant you begin to look for it, you will observe how strangely any-how and oft, in all times and places, in season and out of season, this word “_one_” is wrought into the text of the plays, sometimes in connection with “_all’s one_”; (he would not write “only one” straight off, else it would have led, as I said before, to detection, and so he uses the plural “all” instead of singular “only,” see Sonnet lxxvi.), and in a much more important position boldly puts it forward (in Quarto 1608, with the name of Shakespeare) “_All’s one_ or _one_ of the four plaies in _one_,” called “A Yorkshire Tragedy.” Now this play with Anthony Sherley’s motto is nothing more nor less than the story of the ruin of his house; it is hardly disguised under the flimsy title of “A Yorkshire Tragedy.” It is important to note that of all the plays this has no _stage names_ to it, simply “Husband and wife.” Strange! passing strange! Why should Shakespeare care to represent on the stage the history of the Sherley family and ruin? This same company, mark, had played it under the name openly of “The Three English Brothers,” prologue, “Clothing our truth within an argument, fitting the stage and your attention, yet not so hid but that she may appear to be herself, even Truth.” This would also fit the “Yorkshire Tragedy.” What is the substance of the play? It tells the story in blank verse, which we have almost word for word in prose in “The Sherley Brothers,” viz. that of Sir Thomas Sherley the elder gambling away his extensive property. “Elizabeth had seized and sold everything belonging to him except (Wiston), his wife’s dowry.” “_Wife_: If you suspect a plot in me to keep my dowry . . . you are a gentleman of many bloods; think on the state of these _three_ lovely boys (the leash of brothers old Fuller calls them) . . . Your lands mortgaged, yourself wound into debts.”—“_Wife_: I see how ruin with a palsy hand begins to shake this ancient seat to dust . . . beggary of the soul and of the body, as if some vexed spirit had got his form upon him.” His wife had interest enough to get him the offer of a place at Court, etc. But the writer of Shakespeare’s plays was not content with this, an exact account, even to _minute_ particulars, of the history of the three Sherley brothers; just compare that history and this “Yorkshire Tragedy” play, and then read the same story (Richard II. Act 2, scene 3). KING RICHARD II. ACT 2, SCENE 3.