some time ago, showing the doubts entertained by previous writers on the
subject:--

"Though it is very difficult to decide whether short pieces be genuine
or spurious, yet I cannot restrain myself from expressing my suspicion
that neither the prologue nor epilogue to this play is the work of
Shakspeare. It appears to me very likely that they were supplied by the
friendship or officiousness of Jonson, whose manner they will be
_perhaps found exactly_ to resemble."--_Johnson._

"Play revived in 1613." "Prologue and epilogue added by Jonson or some
other person."--_Malone._

"I entirely agree with Dr. Johnson, that Ben Jonson wrote the prologue
and epilogue to this play. Shakspeare had a little before assisted him
in his _Sejanus_.... I think I now and then perceive his hand in the
dialogue."--_Farmer._

"That Jonson was the author of the prologue and epilogue to this play
has been controverted by Mr. Gifford. That they were not the
composition of Shakspeare himself is, I think, clear from internal
evidence."--_Boswell._

"I entirely agree with Dr. Johnson with respect to the time when these
additional lines were inserted.... I suspect they were added in 1613,
after Shakspeare had quitted the stage, by that hand which tampered
with the other parts of the play so much as to have rendered the
versification of it of a different colour from all the other plays of
Shakspeare."--_Malone._