eying the assurance that "Philaster" was the
original "type" of the "romance," Professor Thorndike says in so many
words, which for accuracy we quote: "Some such statement of the
influence of 'Philaster' on 'Cymbeline' could be adopted if we were
certain of our chronology. But the evidence for the priority of
'Philaster' is not conclusive, and its support cannot be confidently
relied upon. Leaving aside, then, the question of exact date, and only
premising the fact that both plays were written at about the same time,
we must face the questions,--which is more plausible, that Shakspere
influenced Beaumont and Fletcher or that they influenced him? Which on
its face is more likely to be the original, 'Cymbeline' or 'Philaster'?"

If "Cymbeline" was first written, then "Philaster" becomes not an
original but a copy, adaptation, imitation, plagiarism, if you will. The
similarities remain the same, the argument is reversed. We have shown
that the evidence is conclusive, in the opinion of the best critics,
that "Cymbeline" preceded "Philaster." Coleridge, Ulrici, Tieck and
Knight think that "this varied-woven romantic history had inspired the
poet in his youth" to attempt its adaptation to the stage; that having
had but a temporary appearance, Shakspere long afterwards, near the end
of his career, may have remodelled it, and Malone, Chalmers, and Drake
assign "Cymbeline" with "Macbeth" to 1605 or 1606. Our argument might be
safely put upon this point alone. Professor Thorndike's is placed solely
upon "plausibility" and "likelihood." To support it, he assumes again
the certainty of "the priority of Philaster"--which he had just admitted
to be uncertain--in order to show "the nature of Shakspere's
indebtedness," and then concludes from "the nature of the indebtedness,"
and from the fact that "Philaster" "was followed immediately by five
romances of the same style in plot and characters" "which mark
Fletcher's work for the next twenty years," that "these facts create a
strong presumption that 'Philaster' was the original," "a strong
presumption that 'Cymbeline' was the copy," and finally ends the
argument as it began, with these flattering words: "We may, indeed,
safely assert that Shakspere almost never invented dramatic types." And
this is the argument which Professor Wendell thinks "virtually proves
that several of their plays (Beaumont and Fletcher's romances) must have
been in existence decidedly before 'Cymbeline,' 'The Temp