could any member suppose that in the subsequent remark of the same
military confidant, "I smell a rat, sir," there was merely a fortuitous
coincidence with Hamlet's reflection as he "whips out his rapier"--in
itself a martial proceeding--under similar circumstances to the same
effect?

In the very next scene a captain observes of his own troops

Methinks such tattered rogues should never conquer:

a touch that could only be due to the pencil which had drawn Falstaff's
ragged regiment. In both cases, moreover, it was to be noted that the
tattered rogues proved ultimately victorious. But he had--they might
hardly believe it, but so it was--even yet stronger and more convincing
evidence to offer. It would be remembered that a play called _The Double
Falsehood_, formerly attributed to Shakespeare on the authority of
Theobald, was now generally supposed to have been in its original form
the work of Shirley. What, then, he would ask, could be more natural or
more probable than that a play formerly ascribed to Shirley should prove
to be the genuine work of Shakespeare? Common sense, common reason,
common logic, all alike and all equally combined to enforce upon every
candid judgment this inevitable conclusion. This, however, was nothing
in comparison to the final proof which he had yet to lay before them. He
need not remind them that in the opinion of their illustrious German
teachers, the first men to discover and reveal to his unworthy countrymen
the very existence of the new Shakespeare, the authenticity of any play
ascribed to the possibly too prolific pen of that poet was invariably to
be determined in the last resort by consideration of its demerits. No
English critic, therefore, who felt himself worthy to have been born a
German, would venture to question the postulate on which all sound
principles of criticism with regard to this subject must infallibly be
founded: that, given any play of unknown or doubtful authorship, the
worse it was, the likelier was it to be Shakespeare's. (This proposition
was received with every sign of unanimous assent.) Now, on this ground
he was prepared to maintain that the claims of _Andromana_ to their most
respectful, their most cordial, their most unhesitating acceptance were
absolutely beyond all possibility of parallel. Not _Mucedorus_ or _Fair
Em_, not _The Birth of Merlin_ or _Thomas Lord Cromwell_, could
reasonably or fairly be regarded as on the same level of worthl