An Early Seventeenth-Century Reader of Samuel Daniel’s <i>Philotas</i>

in Table 1 occurring by chance are less than one in a thousand; the comedies and tragedies are by contrast statistically indistinguishable. 1 The letters which most affect the differentiation of history plays from the others in Table 1 are in descending order of magnitude: G, F, V, D, M, N, C, R, K, T, and Y. Supplementary Appendix Table A.1, with its simple numerical data, is without reference to the identity of any Shakespeare play.Whatever the causation, the Folio history plays, as seen by the unconscious pattern of alphabetical consonants, are generically distinguished from the comedies and tragedies.There is obvious room for further exploration.