you are not surpris'd to find that in 1840,[vii:1] seven years
after the date of his _Letter_, Professor Spalding had concluded, that
on Shakspere's having taken part in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, his
"opinion is not now so decided as it once was," and that by 1847 he was
still less decided, and declared the question "really insoluble." Here
is the full passage from his article on Dyce's "Beaumont and Fletcher,"
in the _Edinb. Review_, July 1847, p. 57:--

      "In measuring the height of Beaumont and Fletcher, we cannot
      take a better scale than to put them alongside Shakespeare,
      and compare them with him. In this manner, an imaginary
      supposition may assist us in determining the nature of their
      excellence, and almost enable us to fix its degree. Suppose
      there were to be discovered, in the library of the Earl of
      Ellesmere, or in that of the Duke of Devonshire, two dramas
      not known before, and of doubtful authorship, the one being
      'Hamlet,' and the other 'The Winter's Tale.' We should be at
      no loss, we think, to assign the former to Shakespeare: the
      judgment would be warranted alike by the consideration of the
      whole, and by a scrutiny of particular parts. But with
      regard to the other play, hesitation would not be at all
      unreasonable. Beaumont and Fletcher (as an eminent living
      critic has remarked to us) might be believed to have written
      all its serious parts, more especially the scenes of the
      jealousy of Leontes, and those beautiful ones which describe
      the rustic festival[vii:2]. Strange to say, a case of this
      kind has actually arisen. And the uncertainty which still
      hangs over it, agrees entirely with the hesitation which we
      have ventured to imagine as arising in the case we have
      supposed.

      "In 1634, eighteen years after Beaumont's death, and nine
      after Fletcher's, there was printed, for the first time, the
      play called 'The Two Noble Kinsmen.' The bookseller in
      his ti