How small a fraction of Heywood's actual work is comprised in these
twenty-six plays we cannot even conjecturally compute; we only know that
they amount to less than an eighth part of the plays written wholly or
mainly by his indefatigable hand, and that they are altogether
outweighed in volume, though decidedly not in value, by the existing
mass of his undramatic work. We know also, if we have eyes to see, that
the very hastiest and slightest of them does credit to the author, and
that the best of them are to be counted among the genuine and
imperishable treasures of English literature. Such amazing fecundity and
such astonishing industry would be memorable even in a far inferior
writer; but, though I certainly cannot pretend to anything like an
exhaustive or even an adequate acquaintance with all or any of his
folios, I can at least affirm that they contain enough delightfully
readable matter to establish a more than creditable reputation. His
prose, if never to be called masterly, may generally be called good and
pure: its occasional pedantries and pretentions are rather signs of the
century than faults of the author; and he can tell a story, especially a
short story, as well as if not better than many a better-known writer.
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