circumstances of the case, "Shake-scene" is meant by Greene for a pun
on "Shake-speare," or not. If he had some other rising player-
author, the Factotum of a cry of players, in his mind, Baconians may
search for that personage in the records of the stage. That other
player-author may have died young, or faded into obscurity. The term
"the only Shake-scene" may be one of those curious coincidences which
do occur. The presumption lies rather on the other side. I demur,
when Mr. Greenwood courageously struggling for his case says that,
even assuming the validity of the surmise that there is an allusion
to Shakspere, {143a} "the utmost that we should be entitled to say is
that Greene here accuses Player Shakspere of putting forward, as his
own, some work, or perhaps some parts of a work, for which he was
really indebted to another" (the Great Unknown?). I do more than
demur, I defy any man to exhibit that sense in Greene's words.

"The utmost that we should be entitled to say," is, in my opinion,
what we have no shadow of a title to say. Look at the poor
hackneyed, tortured words of Greene again. "Yes, trust them not; for
there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his
TYGER'S HEART WRAPPED IN A PLAYER'S HIDE, supposes he is as well able
to bumbast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an
absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-
scene in a country."

How can mortal man squeeze from these words the charge that "Player
Shakspere" is "putting forward, as his own, some work, or perhaps
some parts of a work, for which he was really indebted to another"?
It is as an actor, with other actors, that the player is "beautified
with OUR feathers,"--not with the feathers of some one NOT ourselves,
Bacon or Mr. Greenwood's Unknown. Mr. Greenwood even says that