Note 187 — Front matter (continued 2)

I find even Mr. Appleton Morgan creating a needless difficulty on this head. In his Shakspere in Fact and Criticism, already cited, he writes (p. 316): "I find him ... living and dying so utterly unsuspicious that he had done anything of which his children might care to hear, that he never even troubled himself to preserve the manuscript of or the literary property in a single one of the plays which had raised him to affluence." As I have already pointed out, there is no reason to suppose that Shakspere could retain the ownership of his plays any more than did the other writers who supplied his theatre. They belonged to the partnership. Besides, he could not possibly have published as his the existing mass, so largely made up of other men's work. His fellow-players did so without scruple after his death, being simply bent on making money.