marks, less vivaciously, that "He was not careful and prudent, or he
would not have attached the name of Shakespeare to a volume which was
only partly by the bard--that was his crime. Had Jaggard foreseen the
tantrums and contradictions he caused some commentators--Mr. Payne
Collier, for instance--he would doubtless have substituted 'By William
Shakespeare _and others_' for 'By William Shakespeare.' Thus he might
have saved his reputation, and this hornets' nest which now and then
rouses itself afresh around his aged ghost of three centuries ago."

That a ghost can suffer no inconvenience from hornets I take to be
indisputable: but as a defence of Jaggard the above hardly seems
convincing. One might as plausibly justify a forger on the ground
that, had he foreseen the indignation of the prosecuting counsel, he
would doubtless have saved his reputation by forbearing to forge. But
before constructing a better defence, let us hear the whole tale of
the alleged misdeeds. Of the second edition of _The Passionate
Pilgrim_ no copy exists. Nothing whatever is known of it, and the
whole edition may have been but an ideal construction of Jaggard's
sportive fancy. But in 1612 appeared _The Passionate Pilgrime, or
certaine amorous Sonnets between Venus and Adonis, newly corrected and
augmented. By W. Shakespeare. The third edition. Whereunto is newly
added two Love Epistles, the first from Paris to Hellen, and Hellen's
answere back again to Paris. Printed by W. Jaggard._ (These "two Love
Epistles" were really by Thomas Heywood.) This title-page was very
quickly cancelled, and Shakespeare's name omitted.

Mr. Humphrey's Hypothesis.

These are the bare facts. Now observe how they appear when set forth
by Mr. Humphreys:--

"Shakespeare, who, when the first edition was issued, was aged
thirty-five, acted his part as a great man very well, for he with
dignity took no notice of the error on the title-page of the
first edition, attributing to him poems which he had never
written. But when Jaggard went on sinning, and the third edition
appeared under Shakespeare's name _solely_, though it had poems
by Thomas Heywood, and others as well, Jaggard was promptly
pulled up by both Shakespeare and Heywood. Upon this the
publisher appears very properly to have printed a new title-page,
omitting the name of Shakespeare."

Upon this I beg leave to observe--(1) That although it may very likely