accompanied them
and worked for Henslowe both as a writer and an actor. They suppose that
Edward Alleyn became the manager of a combination of the Admiral's
company and Strange's men for a "short period," but that the companies
"soon parted," "Strange's men continuing with Henslowe for a prolonged
period."[3] It is also asserted that "the Rose Theatre was the first
scene of Shakespeare's successes alike as an actor and a dramatist," and
that he "helped in the authorship of _The First Part of Henry VI._,
with which Lord Strange's company scored a triumphant success in
1592."[4]

These assumptions, which were advanced tentatively by former scholars
and merely as working hypotheses, have now, by repetition and the
dogmatic dicta of biographical compilers, come to be accepted by the
uncritical as ascertained facts.

While it is now generally accepted that Greene's "Shake-scene" alludes
to Shakespeare, and that his parody of a line from _The True Tragedie_:

"O Tyger's heart wrapt in a Player's hide"

denotes some connection of Shakespeare's with either _The True Tragedie
of the Duke of York_, or with _The Third Part of Henry VI._ before
September 1592, when Greene died, and while the title-page of the first
issue of _The True Tragedie of the Duke of York_ informs us that this
play was acted by the Earl of Pembroke's company, and no mention of the
play appears in the records of Henslowe, under whose financial
management Shakespeare is supposed to have been working with Strange's
company in 1592, _nothing has ever been done to elucidate Shakespeare's
evident connection with this play or with the Earl of Pembroke's company
at this period_.

In the same year--1592--Nashe refers to the performance by Lord
Strange's company under Henslowe of _The First Part of Henry VI._, and
praises the work of the dramatist who had recently incorporated the
Talbot scenes, which are plainly the work of a different hand from the
bulk of the remainder of the play. This also is generally accepted as a
reference to Shakespeare and as indicating his connection with Henslowe
as a writer for the stage. It is erroneously inferred from this supposed
evidence, and from the fact that Richard Burbage was with Strange's
company in 1592, that Shakespeare also acted with and wrote for this
company under Henslowe.

No explanation has ever been given for the palpable fact that not one of
the plays written by Shakespeare--the composition of which all