Unfortunately, this investigation is beset with great difficulties;
and thus considerable discrepancy of opinion prevails even on
some of the most important points.

All detailed criticism, as well as a full statement of authorities
--I have only room here to mention my especial indebtedness
to Sarrazin's book, Thomas Kyd und sein Kreis, and Mr.
Sidney Lee's article in the Dictionary of National Biography--
must be reserved for my forthcoming larger edition, of which
the preface and notes in this little volume form merely a
short extract.

Known facts of Kyd's life. Materials for a biography of
Thomas Kyd are still but scanty. Yet we are now fortunate
enough to possess as a starting-point the fact that Thomas
Kyd was baptized Nov. 6, 1558, in the Church of St. Mary
Woolnoth, in the City--a discovery which we owe to Mr.
Gordon Goodwin; see Notes and Queries, 8th series, vol. v.
pp. 305-6 ( 21st April 1894).

Thus we know now for certain that Kyd was older by
a good lustrum than Marlowe or Shakspere. This seems
to me a very important consideration, in view of the
astounding youthfulness of the creators of the English drama
--some, after a glorious record, being carried off in early
youth, and the greatest of them storming the very heights of
Parnassus before he could be called a man. In such circum-
stances, five or six years more or less means much; and in
the scarcity of known dates we may emphasise that it is thus
à priori very probable that Kyd began his work before Mar-
lowe or Shakspere, that his earliest works, among them pro-
bably Hamlet and The Spanish Tragedy, were written before

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