same result; which has lately been confirmed by Messrs. Fleay, Furnivall, and Ingram (see N. S. S. Trans., 1874). The metrical investigations have strikingly brought out the fact that Shakespeare's part of the play is late work; this is proved by the flowing style, "the close-packing, the quickturn, the weak-ending, the run-on-line, &c." (see Mr. Furnivall, Academy, Jan. 29th, 1876, against Mr. Swinburne, in the same journal, Jan. 22nd, 1876, and in The Fortnightly; but the modern poet is perhaps speaking of "a spiritual, not a literal, chronology" when he claims an early date for Henry VIII.) The late date has also been supported by various æsthetic reasons, as, for example, Mr. Furnivall's reconciliation theory (see Introduction, &c., pp. xli. xlii.) With regard to the special date of Shakespeare's work, there is nothing by which it can be decided, whether Shakespeare wrote an unfinished play a year or two earlier, or whether he worked with Fletcher in 1613. |