every critic thinks were intended
for Shakspeare: 'Yes, trust them not; for there is an upstart crow
beautified with our feathers, that, with his tiger's heart wrapt in a
player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank
verse as the best of you; and, being an absolute _Johannes Factotum_,
is in his own conceit the only _Shake-scene_ in a country.' Again:
with this view, the disputed passages--those in which critics have
agreed that the genius is found wanting--the meretricious ornaments
sometimes crowded in--the occasional bad taste displayed--in short,
all the imperfections discernible and disputable in these mighty
dramas, are reconcilable with their being the interpolations of
Shakspeare himself on his poet's works.

The dedication of the _Venus_ and the _Lucrece_ to Lord Southampton
is, we confess, somewhat against us, for we cannot but think these
poems came from the pen that wrote _Romeo_; but, after all,
Southampton was so generous a patron, that Shakspeare might be excused
in assuming the authorship, in order to make the books (as his poems)
a better return for the thousand pounds bestowed. But if Southampton
really knew him to be the author of the dramas, how comes it that
Raleigh, Spenser, and even Bacon--all with genius so thoroughly
kindred to the author of _Hamlet_--have all ignored his acquaintance?
Raleigh and Bacon seem not to have known of his existence; while
Spenser, if he alludes to the works, takes care to avoid the name. In
short, Heywood, Suckling, Hales, and all the others who are recorded
to have spoken of Shakspeare 'with great admiration,' confine
themselves to the works, and seem personally to avoid the man--always
excepting '_Rare Ben Jonson_;' and we confess, if Ben is to be
entirely believed, Shakspeare wrote Shakspeare. But Ben, if
unsupported, is somewhat disqualified from being what the Scotch would
call a 'famous witness'--he was under the deepest pecuniary
obligations to Shakspeare, and was through life, despite the
nonsensical tradition of their quarrel, his hearty friend and
boon-companion, with 'blind affection,' as he phrases it, as seen
above, literally 'unto death,' and therefore bound by the strongest
ties to keep his secret, if secret there were. Besides, Ben can be
convicted of at least one unqualified fib on the subject. Hear how he
describes Droeshout's print of Shakspeare, prefixed to the first folio
edition of 1623:

This figure that thou here see'