MY DEAR L-, We have met again, after an interval long enough to have made both of us graver than we were wont to be. A few of my rarely granted hours of leisure have lately been occupied in examining a question on which your taste and knowledge equally incline and qualify you to enter. Allow me to address to you the result of my inquiry, as a pledge of the gratification which has been afforded me by the renewal of our early intercourse. Proud as SHAKSPEARE's countrymen are of his name, it is singular, though not unaccountable, that at this day our common list of his works should remain open to correction. Every one knows that some plays printed in his volumes have weak claims to that distinction; but, while the exclusion even of works certainly not his would now be a rash exercise of prerogative in any editor, it is a question of more interest, whether there may not be dramas not yet admitted among his collected works, which have a right to be there, and might be inserted without the danger attending the dismissal of any already put upon the list. A claim for admission has been set up in favour of Malone's six plays,* without any ground as to five of them, and Locrine-Sir John Oldcastle-Lord Cromwell-The London Prodigal-The Puritan-The Yorkshire Tragedy. B |