# The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778)/Volume 1/An Attempt to ascertain the Order in which the Plays attributed to Shakespeare were written

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AN A T T E M P T TO ASCERTAIN THE O R D E R IN WHICH THE P L A Y S attributed to S H A K S P E A R E were Written.
———Primusque per avia campi Usque procul, (necdum totas lux moverat umbras) Nescio quid visu dubium, incertumque moveri, Corporaque ire videt.Statius.
Trattando l’ombre come cosa salda.Dante.
EVERY circumstance that relates to those persons whose writings we admire, interests our curiosity. The time and place of their birth, their education and gradual attainments, the dates of their productions and the reception they severally met with, their habits of life, their private friendships, and even their external form, are all points, which, how little soever they may have been adverted to by their contemporaries, strongly engage the attention of posterity. Not satisfied with receiving the aggregated wisdom of ages as a free gift, we visit the mansions where our instructors are said to have resided, we contemplate with pleasure the trees under whose shade they once reposed, and wish to see and to converse with those sages, whose labours have added strength to virtue, and efficacy to truth.
Shakspeare above all writers, since the days of Homer has excited this curiosity in the highest degree; as perhaps no poet of any nation was ever more idolized by his countrymen. An ardent desire to understand and explain his works, has, to the honour of the present age, so much encreased within these last thirty years, that more has been ​done towards their elucidation, during that period, than perhaps in a century before. All the ancient copies of his plays, hitherto discovered, have been collated with the most scrupulous accuracy. The meanest books have been carefully examined, only because they were of the age in which he lived, and might happily throw a light on some forgotten custom, or obsolete phraseology: and, this object being still kept in view, the toil of wading through all such reading as was never read, has been chearfully endured, because no labour was thought too great, that might enable us to add one new laurel to the father of our drama. Almost every circumstance that tradition or history has preserved relative to him or his works, has been investigated, and laid before the publick; and the avidity with which all communications of this kind have been received, sufficiently proves that the time expended in the pursuit has not been wholly misemployed.
However, after the most diligent enquiries, very few particulars have been recovered, respecting his private life, or literary history: and while it has been the endeavour of all his editors and commentators, to illustrate his obscurities, and to regulate and correct his text, no attempt has been made to trace the progress and order of his plays. Yet surely it is no incurious speculation, to mark the gradations ​by which he rose from mediocrity to the summit of excellence; from artless and uninteresting dialogues, to those unparalleled compositions, which have rendered him the delight and wonder of succeſſive ages.
The materials for ascertaining the order in which his plays were written, are indeed so few, that, it is to be feared, nothing very decisive can be produced on this subject. ​In the following attempt to trace the progress of his dramatick art, probability alone is pretended to. The silence and inaccuracy of those persons, who, after his death had the revisal of his papers, will perhaps for ever prevent our attaining to any thing like proof on this head. Little then remains, but to collect into one view, from his several dramas, and from the ancient tracts in which they are mentioned, or alluded to, all the circumstances that can throw any light on this new and curious enquiry. From these circumstances, and from the entries in the books of the Stationers’ company, extracted and now first published by Mr. Steevens, (to whom every admirer of Shakspeare has the highest obligations), it is probable, that the plays attributed to our author were written nearly in the following succeſſion; which, though it cannot at this day be ascertained to be their true order, may yet be considered as approaching nearer to it, than any which has been observed in the various editions of his works. The rejected pieces are here enumerated with the rest; but no opinion is thereby meant to be given concerning their authenticity.
Of the nineteen genuine plays which were not printed in our author's life-time, the majority were, I believe, late compositions. The following arrangement is in some ​measure formed on this idea. Two reasons may be aſſigned why Shakspeare’s late performances were not published till after his death. 1. If we suppose him to have written for the stage during a period of twenty years, those pieces which were produced in the latter part of that period, were less likely to pass through the press in his life-time, as the curiosity of the publick had not been so long engaged by them, as by his early compositions. 2. From the time that Shakspeare had the superintendance of a playhouse, that is, from the year 1603, when he and several others obtained a licence from King James to exhibit comedies, tragedies, histories, &c. at the Globe Theatre, and elsewhere, it became strongly his interest to preserve those pieces unpublished, which were composed between that year and the time of his retiring to the country; manuscript plays being then the great support of every theatre. Nor were the plays which he wrote after he became a manager, so likely to get abroad, being confined to his own theatre, as his former productions, which probably had been acted on many different stages, and of consequence afforded the players at the several houses where they were exhibited, an easy opportunity of making out copies from the separate parts transcribed for their use, and of selling such copies to printers; by which means, there is great reason to believe, that they ​were submitted to the press, without the consent of the author.
| 1. | Titus Andronicus, | 1589. |
| 2. | Love's Labour Lost, | 1591. |
| 3. | First Part of King Henry VI. | 1591. |
| 4. | Second Part of King Henry VI. | 1592. |
| 5. | Third Part of King Henry VI. | 1592. |
| 6. | Pericles, | 1592. |
| 7. | Locrine, | 1593. |
| 8. | The Two Gentlemen of Verona, | 1593. |
| 9. | The Winter’s Tale, | 1594. |
| 10. | A Midsummer Night's Dream, | 1595. |
| 11. | Romeo and Juliet, | 1595. |
| 12. | The Comedy of Errors, | 1596. |
| 13. | Hamlet, | 1596. |
| 14. | King John, | 1596. |
| 15. | King Richard II. | 1597. |
| 16. | King Richard III. | 1597. |
| 17. | First Part of King Henry IV. | 1597. |
| 18. | The Merchant of Venice, | 1598. |
| 19. | All's Well that End’s Well, | 1598. |
| 20. | Sir John Oldcastle, | 1598. |
| 21. | Second Part of King Henry IV. | 1598. |
| 22. | King Henry V. | 1599. |
| 23. | The Puritan, | 1600. |
| 24. | Much Ado about Nothing, | 1600. |
| 25. | As You Like It. | 1600. |
| 26. | Merry Wives of Windsor, | 1601. |
| 27. | King Henry VIII. | 1601. |
| 28. | Life and Death of Lord Cromwell, | 1602. |
| 29. | Troilus and Cressida, | 1602. |
| 30. | Measure for Measure, | 1603. |
| 31. | Cymbeline, | 1604. |
| 32. | The London Prodigal, | 1605. |
| 33. | King Lear, | 1605. |
| 34. | Macbeth, | 1606. |
| 35. | The Taming of the Shrew, | 1606. |
| 36. | Julius Cæsar, | 1607. |
| 37. | A Yorkshire Tragedy, | 1608. |
| 38. | Antony and Cleopatra, | 1608. |
| 39. | Coriolanus, | 1609. |
| 40. | Timon of Athens, | 1610. ​ |
| 41. | Othello, | 1611. |
| 42. | The Tempest, | 1612. |
| 43. | Twelfth Night, | 1614. |
1. Titus Andronicus, 1589.
In what year our author began to write for the stage, or which was his first performance, has not been hitherto ascertained. And indeed we have so few lights to direct our enquiries, that any speculation on this subject may appear an idle expence of time. But the method which has been already marked out, requires that such facts should be mentioned, as may serve in any manner to elucidate these points.
Shakspeare was born on the 23d of April, 1564, and was probably married in, or before, September 1582, his eldest daughter, Susanna, having been baptized on the 26th of May, 1583. At what time he left Warwickshire, or was first employed in the playhouse, tradition does not inform us. However, as his son Samuel and his daughter Judith were baptized at Stratford Feb. 2, 1584—5, we may presume that he had not left the country at that time.
He could not have wanted an easy introduction to the theatre; for Thomas Green, a celebrated comedian, was ​his townsman, perhaps his relation, and Michael Drayton was likewise born in Warwickshire; the latter was nearly of his own age, and both were in some degree of reputation soon after the year 1590. If I were to indulge a conjecture, I should name the middle of the year 1591, as the era when our author commenced a writer for the stage; at which time he was somewhat more than twenty-seven years old. The reasons that induce me to fix on that period are these. In Webbe's Discourse of English Poetry, published in 1586, we meet with the names of most of the celebrated poets of that time; particularly those of George Whetstone and Antony Munday, who were dramatick writers; but we ​find no trace of our author, or of any of his works. Three years afterwards, Puttenham printed his Art of English Poesy; and in that work also we look in vain for the name of Shakspeare. Sir John Harrington in his Apologie for Poetry, prefixed to the Translation of Arioste, (which was entered in the Stationers’ books Feb. 26, 1590—1, in which year, it was printed) takes occasion to speak of the theatre, and mentions some of the celebrated dramas of that time; but says not a word of Shakspeare, or of any of his plays. If even Love’s Labour Lost had then appeared, which was probably his first dramatick composition, is it imaginable, that Harrington should have mentioned the Cambridge Pedantius, and The Play of the Cards, (which last, he tells us was a London comedy) and have paſſed by, unnoticed, the new prodigy of the dramatick world? That Shakspeare had commenced a writer for the stage, and had even excited the jealousy of his contemporaries, before September 1592, is now decisively proved by a paſſage ​extracted by Mr. Tyrwhitt from Robert Greene’s Groatsworth of Witte bought with a Million of Repentance, in which there is an evident allusion to our author’s name, as well as to one of his plays.
At what time soever he became acquainted with the theatre, we may presume that he had not composed his first play long before it was acted; for being early incumbered with a young family, and not in very affluent circumstances, it is improbable that he should have suffered it to lie in his closet, without endeavouring to derive some profit from it; and in the miserable state of the drama in those days, the meanest of his genuine plays must have been a valuable acquisition, and would hardly have been refused by any of the managers of our ancient theatres.
Titus Andronicus appears to have been acted before any other play attributed to Shakspeare; and therefore, as it has been admitted into all the editions of his works, whoever might have been the writer of it, it is entitled to the first place in this general list of his dramas. From Ben Jonson’s induction to Bartholomew Fair, 1614, we learn that Andronicus had been exhibited twenty-five or thirty years before, that is, at the lowest computation, in 1580; or, taking a middle period, (which is perhaps more just) in 1587. In our author's dedication of his Venus and Adonis to lord Southampton, in 1593, he tells us, as Mr. Steevens has observed, that that poem was “ the first heir of his invention:” and if we were sure that it was published immediately, or soon, after it was written, it would at once prove Titus Andronicus not to be the production of Shakspeare, and nearly ascertain the time when he commenced a dramatick writer. But we ​do not know what interval might have elapsed between the composition and the publication of that poem. There is indeed a pasage in the dedication already mentioned, which, if there were not such decisive evidence on the other side, might induce us to think that he had not written, in 1593, any piece of more dignity than a love-poem, or at least any on which he himself set a value. “ If (says he to his noble patron) your honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour.” “ A booke, entitled a Noble Roman History of Titus Andronicus,” (without any author's name) was entered at Stationers' hall, Feb. 6, 1593—4. This I suppose to have been the play, as it was printed in that year, and acted (according to Langbaine, who alone appears to have seen the first edition) by the servants of the earls of Pembroke, Derby, and Eſſex. Mr. Pope thought, that Titus Andronicus was not written by Shakspeare, because Ben Jonson spoke slightingly of it, while Shakspeare was yet living, This argument will not, perhaps, bear a very strict examination. If it were allowed to have any validity, many of our author's genuine productions must be excluded from his works; for Ben Jonson has ridiculed several of his dramas, in the same piece in which he has mentioned Andronicus with contempt. It has been said that Francis Meres, who in 1598 enumerated this among our author’s plays, might have been misled by a title-page; but we may presume that he was informed or deceived by some other means; for Shakspeare’s name is not in the title-page of the edition printed in 1611, and therefore, we may conclude, was not in the title page of that in 1594, of which the other was probably a re-impreſſion. However, (notwithstanding the authority of Meres) the high antiquity of the piece, its entry on the Stationers’ books without the name of the writer, the regularity of the versification, the diſſimilitude of the style from that of those plays which are undoubtedly composed by our author, and the tradition mentioned by Ravenscroft, at a period when ​some of his contemporaries had not been long dead, render it highly improbable that this play should have been the composition of Shakspeare.
2. Love’s Labour Lost, 1591.
Shakspeare’s natural disposition leading him, as Dr. Johnson has observed, to comedy, it is highly probable that his first dramatick production was of the comick kind: and of his comedies none appears to me to bear stronger marks of a first eſſay than Love’s Labour Lost.. The frequent rhymes with which it abounds, of which, in his early perform​ances he seems to have been extremely fond, its imperfect versification, its artless and desultory dialogue, and the irregularity of the composition, may be all urged in support of this conjecture. Love’s Labour Lost was not entered at Stationers’ hall till the 23d of January 1606, but is mentioned by Francis Meres in his Wit’s Treasury, or the Second Part of Wit’s Commonwealth, in 1598, and was printed in that year. In the title page of this edition, (the oldest hitherto discovered) this piece is said to have been presented before her highness [Queen Elizabeth] the last Christmas [1597], and to be newly corrected and augmented: from which it should seem, that there had been a former impreſſion. Mr. Gildon, in his observations on Love’s Labour Lost says, “ he cannot see why the author gave it this name.”—The following lines exhibit the train of thoughts, which probably suggested to Shakspeare this title, as well as that which anciently was affixed to another of his comedies—Love’s Labour Won. “ To be in love where scorn is bought with groans, Coy looks with heart-sore sighs; one fading moment’s mirth With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights: If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain; If lost, why then a grievous labour won.”
Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act. I. sc. i.
3. The First Part of King Henry VI. 1591.
The regular First Part of K. Henry VI. was not published till 1623, at which time it was entered at Stationers’ hall by the printers of the earliest folio, under the name of the Third Part of K. Henry VI. In one sense it might be called so for two parts had appeared before. But considering the history of that reign, and the period of time it comprehends, it ought to have been called, what in fact it is, the First Part of K. Henry VI. Why this First Part was not entered on the Stationers’ books with the other two, it is impoſſible now to determine. That it was written before the Second and Third Parts, Dr. Johnson thinks, appears indubitably from the series of events. “ It is apparent,” he says, “ that the Second Part begins where the former ends, and continues the series of transactions of which it pre-supposes the first part already known. This is a sufficient proof that the Second and Third Parts were not written without dependence on the First, though they were printed as containing a complete period of history.” I once thought differently from the learned commentator; imagining that the First Part of King Henry VI. was not written till after the two other parts. But on an attentive examination of these three plays, I have found sufficient reason to subscribe to Dr. Johnson’s opinion. This piece is suppofed to have been produced in the year 1591, on the authority of Thomas Nashe, who in a tract entitled Pierce Pennyless his Supplication to the Devil, which was published in 1592, expresly mentions one of the characters in it, who does not appear in the second or third Part of K. Henry VI. nor, I believe, in any other play of that time. “ How (says he) would it have joyed brave Talbot, the terror of the French, to think that after he had lain two hundred years in his tomb, he should triumph again on the ​stage, and have his bones new embalmed with the tears of ten thousand spectators at least (at several times), who, in the tragedian that represents his person, imagine they behold him fresh bleeding.”
| 4. | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI. |
| 5. | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | 1592. |
In a tract already mentioned, entitled Greene’s Groatsworth of Witte, &c. which was written before the end of the year 1592, there is, as Mr. Tyrwhitt has observed, a parody on a line in the Third Part of K. Henry VI. and an allusion to the name of Shakspeare. These two historical dramas were entered on the books of the Stationers’ company, March 12, 1593—4, but were not printed till the year 1600. In their second titles they are called—The First and Second Parts of the Contention of the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster; but in reality they are the Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI. In the last chorus of King Henry V. Shakspeare alludes to the Second Part, perhaps to all the parts of K. Henry VI. as popular performances, that had frequently been exhibited on the stage; and expreſſes a hope, that K. Henry V. may, for their sake, meet with a favourable reception: a plea, which he scarcely would have urged, if he had not been their author.
6. Pericles, Prince of Tyre, 1592.
There is reason to believe that Pericles, whoever was the writer of it, was composed about this time. The poet introduces John Gower by way of chorus to it, as Middleton introduces Rainulph, the monk of Chester, in his Mayor of Quinborough, and as Thomas Heywood does Skelton and Fryar Tuck, in his Robert of Huntingdon: performances nearly of this date. Ben Johnson, in his ode on the ill reception of his New Inn, speaks of Pericles as a play of great antiquity, calling it a mouldy tale. It was not entered on the books of the Stationers’ company till May 2, 1608, nor printed till 1609; but the following stanza, in a metrical ​pamphlet, entitled Pymlico or Run away Redcap, published in 1596, ascertains it to have been written and exhibited on the stage, prior to that year:
“ Amaz’d I stood, to see a crowd “ Of civil throats stretch’d out so lowd: “ As at a new play, all the rooms “ Did swarm with gentles mix’d with grooms, “ So that I truly thought, all these “ Came to see Shore, or Pericles.”
In this piece are introduced many dumb shews, which were much admired at this time; and they afford one argument against its being the produdcton of Shakspeare; he having never admitted serious dumb shew in any play unqestionably his: and having in Hamlet, four years after the date here aſſigned to Pericles, expressly marked his disapprobation of them, by calling them inexplicable. Dryden, however, seems to have thought Pericles genuine, and our author’s first composition:
“ Shakespeare’s own muse his Pericles first bore, “ The Prince of Tyre was elder than the Moor,”
7. Locrine, 1593.
Entered on the Stationers’ books July 20, 1594. Printed in 1595, without any author’s name. In the title-page this piece is said to be newly set fourth, overseene and corrected by W.S.
8. The Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1593.
This comedy was not entered on the books of the Stationers’ company till 1623, at which time it was first printed; but is mentioned by Meres in 1598, and bears strong internal marks of an early composition.
9. The Winter’s Tale, 1594.
The Winter’s Tale was, perhaps, entered on the Stationers’ books, May 22, 1594, under the name of A Wynter Nyght’s Pastime which might have been the same play. It is observable that Shakspeare has two other similar titles;— Twelfth Night, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream: and it appears that the titles of his plays were sometimes changed; thus, All’s Well that Ends Well, we have reason to think, was called Love’s Labour Won; and Hamlet was sometimes called Hamlet’s Revenge, sometimes The History of Hamlet. However, it must not be concealed, that The Winter’s Tale is not enumerated among our author’s plays, by Meres, in 1598: a circumstance which, yet, is not decisive to shew that it was not then written; for neither is Hamlet nor King Henry VI mentioned by him. Greene’s Dorastus and Fawnia, from which the plot of this play is borrowed, was published in 1588. The Winter’s Tale was acted at court in the beginning of the year 1613. It was not printed till 1623. Mr. Walpole thinks, that this play was intended by Shakspeare as an indirect apology for Anne Boleyn; and considers it as a Second Part to K. Henry VIII. My respect for that very judicious and ingenious writer, the silence of Meres, and the circumstance of there not being one rhyming couplet throughout this piece, except in the chorus, make me doubt whether it ought not to be ascribed to the year 1601, or 1602, rather than that in which it is here placed.
10. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1595.
The poetry of this piece, glowing with all the warmth ​of a youthful and lively imagination, the many scenes that it contains of almost continual rhyme, the poverty of the fale, and want of discrimination among the higher personages, dispose me to believe that it was one of our author’s earliest attempts in comedy. It seems to have been written, while the ridiculous competitions, prevalent among the histrionick tribe, were strongly impreſſed by novelty on his mind. He would naturally copy those manners first, with which he was first acquainted. The ambition of a theatrical candidate for applause he has happily ridiculed in Bottom the weaver. But among the more dignified persons of the drama we look in vain for any traits of character. The manners of Hippolita, the Amazon, are undistinguished from those of other females. Theseus, the aſſociate of Hercules, is not engaged in any adventure, worthy of his rank or reputation, nor is he in reality an agent throughout the play. Like K. Henry VIII. he goes out a Maying. He meets the lovers in perplexity, and makes no effort to promote their happiness; but when supernatural accidents have reconciled them, he joins their company, and concludes his day’s entertainment by uttering some miserable puns at an interlude represented by a troop of clowns. Over the fairy part of the drama he cannot be supposed to have any influence. This part of the fable, indeed, (at least as much of it as relates to the quarrels of Oberon and Titania) was not of our author’s invention.—Through the ​whole piece, the more exalted characters are subsenrvient to the interests of those beneath them. We laugh with Bottom and his fellows, but is a single paſſion agitated by the faint and childish sollicitudes of Hermia and Demetrius, of Helena and Lysander, those shadows of each other?—That a drama, of which the principal personages are thus insignificant, and the fable thus meagre and uninteresting, was one of our author’s earliest compositions, does not, therefore, seem a very improbable conjecture; nor are the beauties with which it is embellished, inconsistent with this supposition; for the genius of Shakspeare, even in its minority, could embroider the coarsest materials with the brightest and most lasting colours. A Midsummer Night’s Dream was not entered at Stationers’ hall till Oct. 8, 1600, in which year it was printed; but is mentioned by Meres in 1598. From the comedy of Dr. Dodipoll Mr. Steevens has quoted a line, which the author seems to have borrowed from Shakspeare: “ ’Twas I that led you through the painted meads, “ Where the light fairies danc’d upon the flowers, “ Hanging in ev’ry leaf an orient pear.” So, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “ And hang a pearl in ev’ry cowflip’s ear.” Again, “ And that same dew, which sometimes on the buds “ Was wont to swell, like round and orient pearls, “ Stood now within the pretty flouret’s eyes, “ Like tears,” &c.— There is no earlier edition of the anonymous play in which the foregoing lines are found, than that in 1600; but Dr. Dodipowle is mentioned by Nashe, in his preface to Gabriel Harvey’s Hunt is up, printed in 1596. This, therefore, is another circumstance, that in some measure authorises the date here aſſigned to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The paſſage in the fifth act, which, with some probabili​ty, has been thought to allude to the death of Spenser, is not inconsistent with the early appearance of this comedy; for it might have been inserted between the time of the poet’s death, and the year 1600, when the play was published. And indeed, if the allusion was intended, the paſſage must have been added in that interval; for A Midsummer Night’s Dream was certainly written in, or before, 1598, and Spenser, we are told by Sir James Ware, (whose testimony with respect to this controverted point must have great weight) did not die till 1599: “ others, (he adds) have it wrongly, 1598.” So careful a searcher into antiquity, who lived so near the time, is not likely to have been mistaken in a fact, concerning which he appears to have made particular enquiries.
11. Romeo and Juliet, 1595.
It has been already observed, that our author, in his early plays appears to have been much addicted to rhyming; a practice from which he gradually departed, though he never wholly deserted it. In this piece more rhymes, I believe, are found, than in any other of his plays. Love’s Labour Lost and A Midsummer Night’s Dream only excepted. This circumstance, the story on which it is founded, so likely to captivate a young poet, the imperfect form in which it ori​ginally appeared, and its very early publication, all incline me to believe that this Was Shakspeare’s first tragedy; for the three parts of K. Henry VI. do not pretend to that title. “ A new ballad of Romeo and Juliet,” (perhaps our author’s play) was entered on the Stationers’ books August 5, 1596; and the first sketch of the play was printed in 1597; but it did not appear in its present form till two years afterwards. Few of his plays appear to have been entered at Stationers’ hall, till they had been some time in poſſeſſion of the stage; on which account it may be conjectured that this tragedy was written in 1595. If the following paſſage in an old comedy already mentioned, entitled Dr. Dodipoll, which had appeared before 1596, be considered as an imitation, it may add some weight to the suppositton that Romeo and Juliet had been exhibited before that year: “ The glorious parts of fair Lucilia, “ Take them and join them in the heavenly spheres, “ And fix them there as an eternal light “ For lovers to adore and wonder at.”
Dr. Dodipoll.
“ And he will make the face of heaven so fine, “ That all the world shall be in love with night, “ And pay no worship to the garish sun.”
Romeo and Juliet.
Mr. Steevens in his observations on Romeo and Juliet has quoted these lines from Daniel’s Complaint of Rosamond: “ And nought-respecting death (the last of paines) “ Plac'd his pale colours (th’ ensign of his might) “ Upon his new-got spoil, &c.” So in Romeo and Juliet, Act V. Sc. iii. ——————“ Beauty’s ensign yet “ Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks, “ And death’s pale flag is not advanced there.” That Shakespeare imitated Daniel, or was imitated by him, there can, I think, be little doubt. The early appearance of The Complaint of Rosamond, (which is commended by Nashe, in a tract entitled Pierce Pennileſſe his Supplication, &c. 1592,) seems to authorize the former opinion. From a speech of the Nurse in this play, which contains these words–“ It is now since the earthquake eleven years, &c.” Mr. Tyrwhitt conjectures, that Romeo and Juliet, or at least part ot it, was written in 1591; the novels from which Shakspeare may be supposed to have drawn his story, not mentioning any such circumstance; while, on the other hand, there actually was an earthquake in England on the 6th of April, 1580, which he might here have had in view.—It is not without great distrust of my own opinion that I express my diſſent from a gentleman, to whose judgment the highest respect is due; but, I own, this argument does not appear to me conclusive. It seems extremely improbable, that Shakspeare, when he was writing this tragedy, should have adverted, with such precision, to the date of an earthquake that had been felt in his youth; unless we suppose him to have entertained so strange and incongruous a thought, as to wish to persuade his audience, that the events which ​are the subject of his play, happened at Verona in 1591, at the very moment that a dramatick representation of them was exhibiting in London: (for if Romeo and Juliet was written in 1591, it probably was then also represented.) The paſſage quoted strikes me, as only displaying one of those characteristical traits, which distinguish old people of the lower class; who delight in enumerating a multitude of minute circumstances that have no relation to the business immediately under their consideration, and are particularly fond of computing time from extraordinary events, such as battles, comets, plagues, and earthquakes. This feature of their character our author has in various places, strongly marked. Thus (to mention one of many instances) the Grave-digger in Hamlet says, that he came to his employment, “ of all the days i'th'year, that day that the last king o’ercame Fortinbras—that very day that young Hamlet was born.”—Shakspeare probably remembered the earth-quake in 1580, and thought he might introduce one, for the nonce, at Mantua. Why he has placed this earthquake at the distance of eleven years, it is not very easy to determine. However, it may be observed, that having supposed it to have happened on the day on which Juliet was weaned, he could not well have made it more distant than thirteen years; which, indeed, from the context, should seem to be the true reading. Supposing the author to have used figures, the mistake might easily have happened.—At present there is a manifest contradiction in the Nurse’s account; for she expressly says that Juliet was within a fortnight and odd days of completing fourteenth year; and yet, according to the computation here made, she could not well be much more than twelve years old. Perhaps Shakspeare was more careful to mark the garrulity, than the precision, of the old woman—or perhaps, he meant this very incorrectness as a trait of her character:—or, without having recourse to either of these suppositions, shall we say, that our author was here, as in some other places, hasty and inattentive? It is certain ​that there is nothing in which he is less accurate, than the computation of time. Of his negligence in this respect, As you Like It, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Measure for Measure, and Othello, furnish remarkable instances..
12. Comedy of Errors, 1596.
In a tract written br Thomas Decker, entitled Newes from Hell brought by the Devil’s Carrier, 1606, there seems to be an allusion to this comedy: “ —————— his ignorance (arising from his blindness) is the only cause of this Comedie of Errors.” This play was neither entered on the Stationers’ books, nor printed, till l623, but is mentioned by Meres in 1598; and exhibits internal proofs of having been an early production. It could not, however, have been written before 1596; for the translation of the Menæchmi of Plautus, from which the plot was taken, was not published till 1595.
13. Hamlet, 1596.
The tragedy of Hamlet was not registered in the books of the Stationers’ company till the 26th of July 1602, nor printed till 1604. This circumstance, and indeed the general air of the play itself, which has not, it must he owned, the appearance of an early composition, might induce us to class it five or six years later than 1596, were we not overpowered by the proof adduced by Dr. Farmer, and by other circumstances, from which it appears to have been acted in, or before, that year. The piece, however, which was then exhibited, was probablv but a rude sketch of that which we now poſſess; for from the title page of the first edition, in 1604, we learn, that (like Romeo and Juliet, and the ​Merry Wives of Windsor) it had been enlarged to almost twice its original size.
The Case is altered, a comedy, attributed to Ben Jonson, and written before the end of the year 1599, contains a paſſage, which seems to me to have a reference to this play:
Angelo. “ But first I’ll play the ghost; I’ll call him out.” In the second act of Hamlet, a contest between the children of the queen’s chapel, and the actors of the established theatres, is alluded to. At what time that contest began, is uncertain. But, should it appear not to have commenced till some years after the date here aſſigned, it would not, I apprehend, be a sufficient reason for ascribing this play to a later period; for, as we are certain that considerable additions were made to it after its first production, and have some authority for attributing the first sketch of it to 1596, till that authority is shaken, we may presume, that any paſſage which is inconsistent with that date, was not in the play originally, but a subsequent insertion.
With respect to the allusion in question, it probably was an addition; for it is not found in the quarto of 1604, (which has not the appearance of a mutilated or imperfect copy,) nor did it appear in print till the publication of the folio in 1623.
The same observation may be made on the paſſage produced by Mr. Holt, to prove that this play was not written till after 1597. “ Their inhibition comes by means of the late innovation.” This, indeed, does appear in the quarto of 1604, but, we may presume, was added in the interval be​tween 1597, (when the statute alluded to,—39 Eliz. ch. 4—was enacted) and that year. Hamlet Sadler was one of the witneſſes to Shakspeare’s Will. He was probably born soon after the first exhibition of this play; and, according to this date, was twenty years old at the time of his attestation. If this tragedy had not appeared till some years after the date here aſſigned, he would not have been at the time of Shakspeare’s death above sixteen or seventeen years old; at which age he scarcely would have been chosen as a witness to so solemn an act. The following paſſage, in An Epistle to the Gentlemen Students of the Two Universities by Thomas Nashe, prefixed to Greene’s Arcadia, (which has no date) has been thought to allude to this play.—“ I will turn back to my first text of studies of delight, and talk a little in friendship with a few of our trivial translators. It is a common practice now adays, among a sort of shifting companions, that runne through every art, and thrive by none, to leave the trade of Noverint, whereto they were born, and busie themselves with the endevors of art, that could scarcely latinize their neckverse if they should have neede; yet English Seneca, read by candle light, yeelds many good sentences, as Bloud is a beggar, and so forth: and if you intreat him faire in a frosty morning he will affoord you whole hamlets, I should say, handfuls of tragical speeches. But O grief! Tempus edax rerum—what is that will last always? The sea exhaled by drops will in continuance be drie; and Seneca, let bloud line by line and page by page, at length must needes die to our stage.” This paſſage does not, in my apprehension, decisively prove that our author’s Hamlet was written so early as 1591; (in which year Dr. Farmer, on good grounds, conjectures ​that Greene’s Arcadia was published:) for supposing this to have been a sneer at Shakspeare, it might have been inserted in some new edition of this tract after 1596; it being a frequent practice of Nashe and Greene, to make additions to their pamphlets at every re-impreſſion.
But it is by no means clear, that Shakspeare was the person whom Nashe had here in contemplation. He seems to point at some dramatick writer of that time, who had been originally a scrivener or attorney:
“ A clerk foredoom’d his father’s soul to cross, Who pen’d a stanza when he should engross”—
who, instead of transcribing deeds and pleadings, chose to imitate Seneca’s plays, of which a translation had been published not many years before.—“ The trade of Noverint” is the trade of an attorney or notary. Shakspeare was not bred to the law, at least we have no such tradition; nor, however freely he may have borrowed from North’s Plutarch and Holinshed’s Chronicle, does he appear to be at all indebted to the translation of Seneca.
Of all the writers of the age of queen Elizabeth, Nashe is the most licentious in his language; perpetually distorting words from their primitive signification, in a manner often puerile and ridiculous, but more frequently incomprehensible and absurd. His prose works, it they were collected together, would perhaps exhibit a greater farrago of unintelligible jargon, than is to be found in the productions of any author ancient or modern. An argument that rests on a term used by such a writer, has but a weak foundation.
The phrase—“ whole hamlets of tragical speeches”—is certainly intelligible, without supposing an allusion to the play; and might have only meant a large quantity.—We meet a similar expreſſion in our author’s Cymbeline.
“ I’d let a parish of such Clotens blood.”—
​It should also be observed, that “ hamlets,” in the foregoing paſſage, is not printed in Italicks, though the word Seneca, in the same sentence, is; and all the quotations, authors’ names, and books mentioned in this epistle, are distinguished by that character.
14. King John, 1596.
This is the only one of the uncontested plays of Shakspeare, that is not entered in the book’s of the Stationers’ company. It was not printed till 1623, but is mentioned by Meres in 1598, unless he mistook the old play in two parts, printed in 1591, for the composition of Shakspeare.
In the first act of King John, an ancient tragedy, entitled Salyman and Perseda, is alluded to. The earliest edition of that play, now extant, is that of 1599, but it was written, and probably acted, many years before; for it was entered on the Stationers’ books, by Edward Whyte, Nov. 20, 1592.
Marston’s Insatiate Countess, printed in 1603, contains a paſſage, which, if it should be consdered as an imitation of a similar one in King John, will ascertain this historical drama to have been written at least before that year:
“ Then how much more in me, whose youthful veins, “ Like a proud river, overflow their bounds.” So in King John: “ Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum, Like a proud river peering o’er his bounds.”
15. Richard II. 1597.
King Richard II. was entered on the Stationers’ books, August, 29, 1597, and printed in that year.
Dr. Farmer supposes that there was a former play on this subject, because when Sir Gilly Merricke, one of the fol​lowers of the Earl of Esex, on the 7th of February 1600—1, desired a company of actors to perform King Richard II. they alleged “ that the play was old, and that they should have a loss in playing it.” Our author’s performance, however, might have been intended; and the players, perhaps, considered a play as old, that had been three or four years in poſſeſſion of the stage. They might have only meant, that it was not of that season. Indeed, I the rather think that this was their meaning, because there is no trace in the Stationers’ books, nor in any ancient catalogue that I have seen, of any play on this subject, except that of Shakspeare. In further support of his hypothesis, Dr. Farmer relies on the doctrines of indefeasable right contained in this play, which, he thinks, could not have been agreeable to the insurgents abovementioned. But they do not appear to have been so much concerned about the sentiments of the piece, (with which, perhaps, they were unacquainted) as desirous to behold the catastrophe that it exhibits.—This, I conceive, may be collected from the paragraph subjoined to that which Dr. Farmer has quoted—“ So earnest hee (Merricke) was, to satisfy his eyes with a fight of that tragedie, which he thought soone after his Lord should bring from the stage to the state.”
16. Richard III. 1597.
Entered at the Stationers’ hall, Oct. 20, 1597. Printed in that year.
17. First Part of K. Henry IV. 1597.
Entered Feb. 25, 1597, according to our present reckoning, 1598. Written therefore probably in 1597. Printed in 1598.
18. The Merchant of Venice, 1598.
Entered July 22, 1598; and mentioned by Meres in that year. Published in 1600.
19. All’s Well that Ends Well, 1598.
All’s Well that Ends Well was not registered at Stationers’ ​hall, not printed, till 1613; but probably is the play mentioned by Meres, in 1598, under the title of Love’s Labour Won. This comedy was, I believe, also sometimes called A Bad Beginning makes a Good Ending; for I find that a play with that title, together with Hotspur, Benedict and Beatrix, and several others, was acted at court, by John Heminge’s company in the year 1613: and no such piece is to be found, in any collection however complete or extensive, nor is such a title preserved in any list or catalogue whatsoever. As the titles of Hotspur, and Benedict and Beatrix, were substituted in the place of the first part of K. Henry IV. and Much Ado about Nothing, it is probable that the other was only a new name for All’s Well that Ends Well. By an entry in the hand writing of king Charles I. in a copy of the second edition of our author’s plays in folio, which formerly belonged to that monarch, and is now in the poſſeſſion of Mr. Steevens, it appears, that this play was also sometimes called Mr. Parolles.
20. Sir John Oldcastle, 1598,
This play was entered at Stationers’ hall, August 4, 1600, and printed in the same year. It was acted very early in that year, by the Lord Chamberlain’s servants, before Mons. Vereiken, ambaſſador to Queen Elizabeth from the Archduke and the Infanta. The prologue to this piece furnishes a {(ls}}trong argument to shew that it was not written by Shakspeare. The following lines particularly deserve our attention:
“ The doubtfull title, (gentlemen) prefixt “ Upon the argument we have in hand “ May breed suspence ——— “ To stop which scruple let this breese suffice: “ It is no pampered glutton we present, “ Nor aged councellour to youthfull sinne; “ But one whose vertue shone above the rest, “ A valiant martyr, and a vertuous peere— “ —————— Let fair truth be grac’d, “ Since forg’d invention former time defac’d.”
​The character here alluded to, which the author was apprehensive the audience might confound with his virtuous peer appears to have been one that had been exhibited in the old play of King Henry V. ( prior to Shakspeare’s) under the name of Sir John Oldcastle. This exhibition was the forg’d invention that had defaced former time. In this old play are found the outlines of some of the characters which Shakspeare has introduced in the two parts of King Henry IV. and King Henry V. The Sir John Oldcastle of the old play was probably the prototype of Sir John Falstaff. It is not neceſſary here to enter into the question, whether Fallstaff was originally called by the name of Oldcastle. Whether he was or not, these lines could not, I apprehend, have come from the pen of Shakspeare. If Falstaff originally went by the name of Oldcastle, Shakspeare was then as guilty as the author of the old Henry V. and he never would have arraigned himself for exhibiting the pampered glutton and aged debauchee, under the name of Sir John Oldcastle, the good lord Cobham. Though this were not the case, and the fat knight bore originally the name of Fallstaff Shakspeare would hardly have touched upon this string; for the representing of Sir John Fastolfe, a celebrated general, and a knight of the garter, under the character of a debauchee and a counsellor to youthful sin, was no less a forgery, and a departure from the truth of history, than the other.
Our author himself too seems to ridicule this very prologue, in his epilogue to the Second Part of King Henry IV. “ For Oldcastle dyed a martyr, and this is not the man.”—This surely ought to decide the question.
This reference induces me to think that Sir John Oldcastle was written before the Second Part of King Henry IV.
21. Second Part of K. Henry IV. 1598.
The Second Part of K. Henry IV. was entered on the Sta​tioners’ books, August 23, 1600, and was printed in that year. It was probably written in the latter end of the year 1598, for from the epilogue it appears to have been composed before K. Henry V. which itself must have been written in, or before, 1599. It is observable that the First Part of K. Henry IV. was entered at Stationers’ hall, in the beginning of the year 1598, by the name of “ A Booke entitled thee Historie of Henry the Fourth, &c.” At that time, it is probable, the author had not conceived the idea of exhibiting Fallstaff in a second drama, and therefore that play was not then distinguished by the title of The First Part. When the same piece was entered about a year afterwards, on the 9th of Jan. 1598—9, it was entitled, “ A book called The First Part of the Life and Reign of K. Henry IV. extending to the end of the first year of his reign. The poet having now composed two plays on this subject distinction became neceſſary. The Second Part of K. Henry IV. we may, therefore, conclude with certainty, was written in the interval between these two entries, that is, some time in the year 1598, probably in the latter part of it; for Meres, who in his Wit’s Treasury, (which was not published before September in that year) has enumerated Henry IV. among our author’s plays, does not speak of it as a first part, nor does he mention it as a play in two parts. His words are these: “ As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy, among the Latines, so Shakespeare, among the English, is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage: for comedy, witness his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Love’s Labour Lost, his Love’s Labour Wonne, his Midsummer Night’s Dream, and his Merchant of Venice; for tragedy, his Richard II. Richard III. Henry IV. K. John, Titus Andronicus, and his Romeo and Juliet.” The following allusion to one of the characters in this play, which is found in Ben Jonson’s Every Man out of his Humour, Act V. Sc. ii. first acted in 1599, is an additional ​authority for supposing the Second Part of K. Henry IV. to have been written in 1598.
“ Savi. What’s he, gentle Mons. Brisk? Not that gentleman? “ Fast. No, Lady; this is a kinsman to Justice Silence.”
22. K. Henry V. 1599.
Mr. Pope thought that this historical drama was one of our author’s latest compositions; but he was evidently mistaken; King Henry V. was entered on the Stationers’ books, August 14, 1600, and printed in the same year. It was written after the Second Part of K. Henry IV. being promised in the epilogue of that play; and while the Earl of Eſſex was in Ireland. Lord Eſſex went to Ireland April 15, 1599, and returned to London on the 28th of September in the same year. So that this play (unless the paſſage relative to him was inferted after the piece was finished) must have been composed between April and September, 1599. Supposing that paſſage a subsequent insertion, the play was probably not written long before; for it is not mentioned by Meres in 1598. The prologue to Ben Jonson’s Every Man in his Humour seems clearly to allude to this play; and, if we were sure that it was written at the same time with the piece itself, might induce us, notwithstanding she silence of Meres, to place King Henry V. a year or two earlier; for Every Man in his Humour is said to have been acted in 1598. But I suspect that the prologue which now appears before it was not writ ​ till 1601, when the play was printed. It appears to have been Jonson's first performance; and we may presume that it was the very play, which, we are told, was brought on the stage by the good offices of Shakspeare, who himself acted in it. Malignant and envious as Jonson appears to have been, he hardly would have ridiculed his benefactor at the very time he was so essentially obliged to him. In two or three years afterwards, his jealousy probably broke out, and vented itself in this prologue. It is certain that, not long after the year 1600, a coolness arose between ​Shakspeare and him, which, however, he may talk of his almost idolatrous affection, produced on his part, from that time to the death of our author, and for many years afterwards, much clumsy sarcasm and many malevolent reflections.
​On this play Mr. Pope has the following note, Act I. Sc. i.
“ This first scene was added since the edition of 1608, which is much short of the present editions, wherein the speeches are generally enlarged, and raised; several whole scenes besides, and the choruses also, were since added by Shakespeare.”———
Dr. Warburton also positively aſſerts that this first scene was written after the acceſſion of K. James I. and the subsequent editors agree, that several additions were made by the author to King Henry V. after it was originally composed. But there is, I believe, no good ground for these aſſertions. It is true that no perfect edition of this play was published ​before that in folio, in 1623; but it does not follow from thence, that the scenes which then first appeared in print, and all the choruses were added by Shaksspeare, as Mr. Pope supposes, after 1608. We know indeed the contrary to be true; for the chorus to the fifth act must have been written in 1599. The fair inference to be drawn from the imperfect and mutilated copies of this play, published in 1600, 1602, and 1608, is, not that the whole play, as we now have it, did not then exist, but that those copies were surreptidous, (probably taken down in short hand, during the representation;) and that the editor in 1600, not being able to publish the whole, published what he could. I have not indeed met with any evidence (except in three plays) that the several scenes which are found in the folio of 1623, and are not in the preceding quartos, were added by the second labour of the author.—The last chorus of K. Henry V. already mentioned, affords a striking proof that this was not always the case. The two copies of the Second Part of K. Henry IV. printed in the same year (1600) furnish another. In one of these, the whole first scene of Act III. is wanting; not because it was then unwritten, (for it is found in the other copy published in that year) but because the editor was not poſſeſſed of it. That what have been called additions by the author, were not really such, may be also collected from another circumstance; that in some of the quartos where these supposed additions are wanting, references and replies are found to the paſſages omitted. I do not however mean to say, that Shakspeare never made any alterations in his plays. We have reason to believe that Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and The Merry Wives of Windsor, were entirely new written; and a second revisal or temporary topicks might have suggested, in a course of years, some additions and alterations in all his pieces. But with respect to the entire scenes that are wanting in some of the ​early editions, (particularly those of K. Henry V. the Second and Third Part of King Henry VI. and the Second Part of King Henry IV.) I suppose the omiſſons to have arisen from the imperfection of the copies; and instead of saying that “the first scene of K. Henry V. was added by the author after the publication of the quarto in 1600,” all that we can pronounce with certainty is, that this scene is not found in the quarto of 1600.
23. The Puritan, 1600.
Printed in 1600, without the name of Shakspeare. In the title page are the letters W. S.
24. Much Ado about Nothing, 1600.
Much Ado about Nothing, was written, we may presume, early in the year 1600; for it was entered at Stationers’ hall, August 23, 1600, and printed in that year.
It is not mentioned by Meres in his list of our author’s plays, published in the latter end of the year 1598.
25. As You Like It, 1600.
This comedy was not printed till 1623, and the caveat or memorandum in the second volume of the books of the Stationers’ company, relative to the three plays of As You Like It, Henry V. and Much Ado about Nothing, has no date except Aug. 4. But immediately above that caveat there is an entry, dated May 27, 1600,—and the entry, immediately following it, is dated Jan. 23, 1603. We may therefore presume that this caveat was entered between those two periods: more especially, as the dates scattered over the pages where this entry is found, are, except in one instance, in a regular series from 1596 to 1615. This will appear more clearly by exhibiting the entry exactly as stands in the book:
27 May 1600.
To Mr. Roberts.] Allarum to London.
4 Aug.
| As You Like It, a book. | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | to be staied. |
| Henry the Fift, a book. | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | to be staied. |
| Every Man in his Humour, a book. | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | to be staied. |
| Comedy of Much Ado about Nothing. | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | to be staied. |
23 Jan. 1603.
| To Thomas Thorpe, | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | This to be their copy, &c. |
| and William Aspley | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | This to be their copy, &c. |
It is extremely probable that this 4th of August was of the year 1600; which standing a little higher on the paper, the clerk of the Stationers’ company might have thought unneceſſary to be repeated. All the plays which were entered with As You Like It, and are here said to be staied, were printed in the year 1600 or 1601. The stay or injunction against the printing appears to have been very speedily taken off; for in ten days afterwards, on the 14th of August 1600, King Henry V. was entered, and published in the same year. So, Much Ado about Nothing, was entered August 23, 1600, and printed also in that year: and Every Man in his Humour was published in 1601. Shakspeare, it is said, played the part of Adam in As You Like It. As he was not eminent on the stage, it is probable that he ceased to act some years before he retired to the country. His appearance, however, in this comedy, is not inconsistent with the date here aſſigned; for we know that he performed a part in Jonson’s Sejanus in 1603.
26. Merry Wives of Windsor, 1601
The first sketch of this comedy was printed in 1602. It was entered in the books of the Stationers’ company, on the 18th of January 1601—2, and was therefore probably written in 1601, alter the two parts of K Henry IV. being, it is said, composed at the desire of queen Elizabeth, in order to exhibit Falstaff in love, when all the pleasantry which he could afford in any other situation was exhausted. But it may not be thought so clear, that it was written after K. ​Henry V. Nym and Bardolph are both hanged in K. Henry V. yet appear in Tht Merry Wives of Windsor. Fallstaff is disgraced in the Second Part of K. Henry IV. and dies in K. Henry V. But in the Merry Wives of Windsor he talks as if he were yet in favour at court; “ If it should come to the ear of the court how I have been transformed, &c.:” and Mr. Page discountenances Fenton’s addreſſes to his daughter, because he kept company with the wild Prince and with Pointz. These circumstances seem to favour the supposition that this play was written between the First and Second Parts of K. Henry IV. But that it was not written then, may be collected from the tradition above mentioned. If it should be placed (as Dr. Johnson observes it should be read) between the Second Part of K. Henry IV and Henry V. it must be remembered, that Mrs. Quickly, who is half-bawd half-hostess in K. Henry IV. is,in the Merry Wives of Windsor, Dr. Caius’s housekeeper, and makes a decent appearance; and in K. Henry V. is Pistol’s wife, and dies in an hospital; a progreſſion that is not very natural. Besides on Mrs. Quickly’s first appearance in the Merry Wives of Windsor, Fallstaff does not know her, nor does she know Pistol nor Bardolph. The truth, I believe, is, that it was written after K. Henry V. and after Shakspeare had killed Falstaff. In obedience to the royal commands, having revived him, he found it neceſſary at the same time to revive all those persons with whom he was wont to be exhibited; Nym, Pistol, Bardolph and the Page: and disposed of them as he found it convenient, without a strict regard to their situations or catastrophes in former plays.
There is reason to believe that The Merry Wives of Windsor was revised and considerably enlarged by the author, after its first production. The old edition in 1602, like that of Romeo and Juliet, is apparently a rough draught, and not a mutilated or imperfect copy. At what time the alterations and additions were made, is uncertain. Mr. Warton supposes them to have been made in 1607. Dr. Farmer concurs with him in that opinion, though he does not think the argument on which it is founded, conclusive. I have not met with any information on this head.
This comedy was not printed in its present state, till 1623, when it was published with the rest of our author’s plays in folio.
27. K. Henry VIII. 1601.
This play seems to have been entered on the Stationers’ books, February 12, 1604, under the title of the Enterlude of K. Henry VIII. It was probably written, as Dr. John{ls}}on and Mr. Steevens observe, before the death of queen Elizabeth, which happened on the 24th of March 1603. The elogium on king James, which is blended with the panegyrick on Elizabeth, in the last scene, was evidently a subsequent insertion, after the acceſſion of the Scotish monarch to the throne: for Shakspeare was too well acquainted with courts, to compliment in the life-time of queen Elizabeth, her presumptive succeſſor, of whom history informs us she was not a little jealous. That the prediction concerning king James was added after the death of the queen, is still more clearly evinced, as Dr. Johnson has remarked, by the aukward manner in which it is connected with the foregoing and subsequent lines. It may be objected, that if this play was written after the acceſſion of king James, the author could not introduce a panegyrick on him, without making queen Elizabeth the vehicle of it, she being the object immediately presented to the audience in the last act of K. Henry VIII. and that, therefore, the praises so profusely lavished on her, do not prove this play to have been written in her life-time; on the contrary, that the concluding lines of her character seem to imply that she was dead, when it was composed. The objection certainly has weight; but, I apprehend, the following observations afford a sufficient answer to it. 1. It is more likely that Shakspeare should have written a play, the chief subject of which is, the disgrace of queen Catharine, the aggrandizement of Anne Boleyn, and the birth of her daughter, in the life-time of that daughter, than after her death: at a time when the subject must have been ​highly pleasing at court, rather than at a period when it must have been less interesting.
Queen Catherine, it is true, is represented as an amiable character, but still she is eclipsed; and the greater her merit, the higher was the compliment to the mother of Elizabeth, to whose superior beauty she was obliged to give way.
2. Had K Henry VIII. been written in the time of king James I. the author, instead of expatiating so largely in the last scene, in praise of the queen, which he could not think would be very acceptable to her succeſſor, would probably have made him the principal figure in the prophecy, and thrown her into the back-ground as much as poſſible.
3. Were James I. Shakspeare’s chief object in the original construction of the last act of this play, he would probably have given a very short character of Elizabeth, and have dwelt on that of James, with whose praise he would have concluded, in order to make the stronger impreſſion on the audience, inftead of returning again to queen Elizabeth, in a very aukward and abrupt manner, after her character seemed to be quite finished: an aukwardness that can only be accounted for, by supposing the panegyrick on king James an after-production.
​4. If the queen had been dead when our author wrote this play, he would have been acquainted with the particular circumstances attending her death, the situation of the kingdom at that time, and of foreign states, &c. and as archbishop Cranmer is supposed to have had the gift of prophecy, Shakspeare, probably, would have made him mention some of those circumstances. Whereas the prediction as it stands at present, is quite general, and such as might, without any hazard of error, have been pronounced in the life-time of her majesty; for the principal fads that it foretells, are, that she should die aged, and a virgin. Of the former, supposing this piece to have been written in 1601, the author was sufficiently secure; for she was then near seventy years old. The latter may perhaps be thought too delicate a subject, to have been mentioned while she was yet living. But, we may presume, it was far from being an ungrateful topick; for very early after her acceſſion to the throne, she appears to have been proud of her maiden character; declaring that she was wedded to her people, and that she desired no other inscription on her tomb, than—Here lyeth Elizabeth, who reigned and died a virgin. Besides, if Shakespeare knew, as probably most people at that time did, that she became very solicitous about the reputation of virginity, when her title to it was at least equivocal, this would be an additional inducement to him to compliment her on that head.
5. Granting that the latter part of the panegyrick on Elizabeth implies that she was dead when it was composed, it would not prove that this play was written in the time of king James; for these latter lines in praise of the queen, as well as the whole of the compliment to the king, might have been added after his acceſſion to the throne, in order to bring the speaker back to the object immediately before him, the infant Elizabeth. And this Mr. Theobald conjectured to have been the case. I do not, however, see any neceſſity for this supposition; as there is nothing, in my apprehen​sion, contained in any of the lines in praise of the queen, inconsistent with the idea of the whole of the panegyrick on hcr having been composed in her life-time.
In further confirmation of what has been here advanced to shew that this play was probably written while queen Elizabeth was yet alive, it may be observed, (to use the words of an anonymous writer,) that “ Shakspeare has cast the disagreeable parts of her father’s character as much into shade as poſſible; that he has represented him as greatly displeased with the grievances of his subjefts, and ordering them to be relieved; tender and obliging [in the early part of the play] to his queen, grateful to the cardinal, and in the case of Cranmer, capable of distinguishing and rewarding true merit.” “ He has exerted (adds the same author) an equal degree of complaisance, by the amiable lights in which he has shewn the mother of Elizabeth. Anne Bullen is represented as affected with the most tender concern for the sufferings of her mistress, queen Catherine; receiving the honour the king confers on her, by making her marchioness of Pembroke, with a graceful humility; and more anxious to conceal her advancement from the queen, lest it should aggravate her sorrows, than sollicitous to penetrate into the meaning of so extraordinary a favour, or of indulging herself in the flattering prospect of future royalty.”
It is unneceſſary to quote particular paſſages in support of these aſſertions; but the following lines which are spoken of Anne Boleyn by the Lord Chamberlain, appear to me so evidently calculated for the ear of Elizabeth, (to whom such incense was by no means displeasing) that I cannot forbear to transcribe them:— ———“ I have perused her well; “ Beauty and honour are in her so mingled, “ That they have caught the king: and who knows yet, “ But from this Lady may proceed a gem, “ To lighten all this isle.”
The Globe play-house, we are told by the continuator of Stowe’s Chronicle, was burnt down, on St. Peter’s day. In the year 1613, while the play of K. Henry VIII. was exhibiting. Sir Henry Wotton, (as Mr. Tyrwhitt has observed) says in one of his letters, that this accident happen​ed during the exhibition of a new play, called All is True; which, however, appears both from Sir Henry’s minute description of the piece, and from the account given by Stowe’s continuator, to have been our author’s play of K. Henry VIII. If indeed Sir H. Wotton was accurate in calling it a new play, all the foregoing reasoning on this subject would be at once overthrown; and this piece, instead of being ascribed to 1601, should have been placed twelve years later. But I strongly suspect that the only novelty attending this play, in the year 1613, was its title, decorations, and perhaps the prologue and epilogue. The Elector Palatine was in London in that year; and it appears from the Ms. register of lord Harrington, treasurer of the chambers to K. James I. that many of our author’s plays were then exhibited for the entertainment of him and the princess Elizabeth. By the same register we learn, that the titles of many of them were changed in that year. Princes are fond of opportunities to display their magnificence before strangers of distinction; and James, who on his arrival here, must have been dazzled by a splendour foreign to the poverty of his native kingdom, might have been peculiarly ambitious to exhibit before his son-in-law the mimick pomp of an English coronation. King Henry VIII. therefore, after having lain by for some years unacted, on account of the costliness of the exhibition, might have been revived in 1613, under the title of All is True, with new decorations and a new prologue and epilogue. Mr. Tyrwhitt observes, that the prologue has two or three direct references to this title; a circumstance which authorizes us to conclude, almost with certainty, that it was an occasional producton, written some years after the composition of the play.
​Dr. Johnson long since suspected, from the contemptoous manner in which “ the noise of targets, and the fellow in a long motley coat,” or, in other words, most of our author’s plays, are spoken of, in this prologue, that it was not the composition of Shakspeare, but written after his departure from the stage, on some accidental revisal of K. Henry VIII. by B. Jonson, whose style, it seemed to him to resemble. ​Dr. Farmer is of the same opinion, and thinks he sees something of Jonson’s hand, here and there, in the dialogue also. After our author’s retirement to the country, Jonson was perhaps employed to give a novelty to the piece by a new title and prologue, and to furnish the managers of the Globe with a description of the coronation ceremony, and of those other decorations, with which, from his connection with Inigo Jones, and his attendance at court, he was peculiarly conversant.
The piece appears to have been revived with some degree of splendour; for Sir Henry Wotton gives a very pompous account of the representation. The unlucky accident that happened to the house during the exhibition, was occasioned by discharging some small pieces, called chambers, on K. Henry’s arrival at cardinal Wolsey’s gate at Whitehall, one of which, being injudiciously managed, set fire to the thatched roof of the theatre.
​The play, thus revived and new-named, was probaly called, in the bills of that time, a new play; which might have led Sir Henry Wotton to describe it as such. And thus his account may be reconciled with that of the other contemporary writers, as well as with those arguments which have been here urged in support of the early date of K. Henry VIII. Every thing has been fully stated on each side of the question. The reader must judge.
Mr. Roderick in his notes on our author, (appended to Mr. Edwards’s Canons of Criticism) takes notice or some peculiarities in the metre of the play before us; viz. “ that there are many more verses in it than in any other, which end with a redundant syllable”—“ very near two to one”—and that “ the cæsuræ or pauses of the verse are full as remarkable.”—The re​dundancy, &c. observed by this critick, Mr. Steevens thinks (a remark, which, having omitted to introduce in its proper place, he desires me to insert here) “ was rather the effect of chance, than of design in the author; and might have arisen either from the negligence of Shakspeare, who in this play has borrowed whole scenes and speeches from Holinshed, whose words he was probably in too much haste to compress into versification strictly regular and harmonious; or from the interpolations of Ben Jonson, whose hand Dr. Farmer thinks he occasionally perceives in the dialogue.” Whether Mr. Roderick’s position be well founded, is hardly worth a contest; but the peculiarities which he has animadverted on, (if such there be) add probability to the conjecture that the piece underwent some alterations, after it had paſſed out of the hands of Shakspeare. Our author had produced so many plays in the proceding years, that it is not likely that K. Henry VIII. was written before 1601. It might perhaps with equal propriety be ascribed to 1602, and it is not easy to determine in which of those years it was composed; but it is extremely probable that it was written in one of them. K. Henry VIII. was not printed till 1623. “ A book or poem, called the Life and Death of Thomas Woolsey Cardinall,” which was entered on the books of the Stationers’ oompany, in the year 1599, perhaps suggested this subject to Shakspeare.
28. The Life and Death of Lord Cromwell, 1602.
Entered at Stationers’ hall, August, 1602. Printed in 1613, with the letters W. S. only, in the title page.
29. Troilus and Cressida, 1602.
Troilus and Cressida was entered at Stationers’ hall Feb. 7. 1602—3, by J. Roberts, the printer of Hamlet, the Merchant of Venice, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was therefore, probably, written in 1602. It was printed in 1609, with a preface by the editor, who speaks of it as if it had not been then acted. But it is entered in 1602—3, “ as acted by my Lord Chamberlain’s men.” The players at the Globe theatre, to which Shakspeare belonged, were called the Lord Chamberlain’s servants, till the year 1603. In that ​year they obtained a licence for their exhibitions from king James; and from that time they bore the more honourable appellation of his majesty’s servants. There can, therefore, be little doubt, that the Troilus and Creſſida which is here entered, as acted at Shakspeare’s theatre, was his play, and was, if not represented, intended to have been represented there.
Perhaps the two discordant accounts, relative to this piece, may be thus reconciled. It might have been performed in 1602 at court, by the lord chamberlain’s servants, (as many plays at that time were) and yet not have been exhibited on the publick stage till some years afterwards. The editor in 1609 only says, “ it had never been staled with the stage, never clapperclaw’d with the palms of the vulgar.”
As a further proof: of the early appearance of Troilus and Creſſida it may be observed, that an incident in it seems to be burlesqued in a comedy entitled Histriomastix, which, though not printed till 1610, must have been written before the death of queen Elizabeth, who, in the last act of the piece, is shadowed under the character of Astræa, and is spoken of as then living.
In our author’s play, when Troilus and Creſſida part, he gives her his sleeve, and she, in return, presents, him with her glove.
To this circumstance these lines in Histriomastix seem to refer. They are spoken by Troilus and Creſſida, who are introduced in an interlude:
Troi. “ Come Creſſida, my creſſet light, Thy face doth shine both day and night. Behold, behold, thy garter blue Thy knight his valiant elbow weares, That, when he shakes his furious speare, The foe in shivering fearful fort May lay him down in death to snort. Creſſ., O knight, with valour in thy face, Here take my skreene, weare it for grace; Within thy helmet put the same, Therewith to make thy enemies lame.”
​Dryden supposed Troilus and Creſſida to have been one of Shakspeare’s earliest performances; but has not mentioned on what principles he founded his judgment. Pope, on the other hand, thought it one of his last; grounding his opinion not only on the preface by the editor in 1609, but on “the great number of observations both moral and political with which this piece is crowded, more than any other of our author’s.” For my own part, were it not for the entry in the Stationers’ books, I should have been led, both by the colour of the writing and by the abovementioned preface, to class it (though not one of our author’s happiest effusions) in 1608, rather than in that year in which it is here placed.
30. Measure for Measure, 1603.
This play was not registered at Stationers’ hall, nor printed, till 1623. But from two paſſages in it, which seem intended as a courtly apology for the stately and ungracious demeanour of K. James I. on his entry into England, it appears probable that it was written soon after his acceſſion to the throne:
“ I’ll privily away. I love the people. But do not like to stage me to their eyes. Though it do well, I do not relish well Their loud applause, and aves vehement; Nor do I think the man of safe discretion That does affect it.”
Meas. for Meas. Act I. sc. i.
Again, Act II. sc iv.
————————— “ So The general, subject to a well-wish’d king. Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness Croud to his presence, where their untaught love Must needs appear offence.”
​King James was so much offended by the untaught, and, we may add, undeserved, gratulations of his subjects, on his entry into England, that he iſſued a proclamation, forbidding the people to resort to him.—“ Afterwards,” says the historian of his reign, “ in his publick appearances, especially in his sports, the acceſſes of the people made him so impatient, that he often dispersed them with frowns, that we may not say with curses.”
That Measure for Measurewas written before 1607, may be fairly concluded from the following paſſage in a poem published in that year, which we have good ground to believe was copied from a similar thought in this play, as the author, at the end of his piece, profeſſes a personal regard for Shakspeare, and highly praises his Venus and Adonis:
“ So play the foolish throngs with one swoons; Come all to help him, and so stop the air By which he would revive.”
Meas. for Meas. Act. II. Sc. ii.
“ And like as when some sudden axtasie Seizeth the nature of a sicklie man; When he’s discern’d to swoune, straite by and by Folke to his helpe confusedly have ran, And seeking with their art to fetch him backe, So many throng that he the ayre doth lacke.”
Myrrha the Mother of Adonis, or Luste’s Prodigies, by William Barksted, a poem, 1607.
31. Cymbeline, 1604.
Cymbeline was not entered on the Stationers’ books, nor printed, till 1623. It stands the last in the earliest folio edition; but nothing can be collected from thence, for the folio editors manifestly paid no attention to chronological arrangement. Not containing any intrinsick evidence by which its date might be ascertained, it is attributed to this year, chiefly because there is no proof that any other play was written by Shakspeare in 1604. And as in the course of somewhat more than twenty years, he produced, according to some, forty-three, in the opinion of others, thirty-five ​dramas, we may presume that he was not idle during any one year of that time.
This play was perhaps alluded to, in an old comedy called The Return from Parnaſſus:
“ Frame as well we might, with easy strain, “ With far more praise, and with as little pain, “ Stories of love, where ’fore the wond’ring bench “ The lisping gallant might enjoy his wench; “ Or make some fire acknowledge his lost son, “ Found, when the weary act is almost done.”
If the author of this piece had Cymbeline in contemplation, it must have been more ancient than it is here supposed; for from several paſſages in the Return from Parnaſſus, that comedy appears to have been written before the death of queen Elizabeth, which happened on the 24th of March 1603.
Mr. Steevens has observed, that there is a paſſage in B. and Fletcher’s Philaster which bears a strong resemblance to a speech of Jachimo in Cymbeline:
“ I hear the tread of people: I am hurt; “ The Gods take part against me: could this boar “ Have held me thus, else?”
Philaster, Act IV. Sc. i.
——————————“ I have bely’d a lady “ The princess of this country; and the air of’t “ Revengingly enfeebles me; or could this carle, “ A very drudge of nature, have subdu’d me, “ In my profeſſion?”
Cymbeline, Act V. Sc. ii.
Philaster is supposed to have appeared on the stage about 1609; being mentioned by John Davies of Hereford, in his Epigrams, which have no date, but were printed, according to Oldys, in or about that year.
One edition of the tract called Westward for Smelts, from which part of the fable of Cymbeline is borrowed, was published in 1603.
32. The London Prodigal, 1605.
There is good ground for thinking that The London Prodigal was written long before 1605; but not affording any marks to ascertain the precise time of its composition, an, not deserving any very minute inquiry, it is here ascribed to that year, in which it was published.
Shakspeare’s name is printed in the title page of this play, as well as in three other contested pieces;—Pericles, Sir John Oldcastle, and A Yorkshire Tragedy. But how little the booksellers of that time scrupled to avail themselves of his name, in order to procure a sale for their publications, appears from its being prefixed to two of Ovid’s Epistles, (which have ever since been published among his poems) though they were translated by Thomas Heywood; and printed (as Dr. Farmer has observed) in a work of his entitled Brytaine’s Troy, fol. 1609, before they were ascribed to Shakspeare.
33. King Lear, 1605.
The tragedy of King Lear was entered on the books of the Stationers’ company Nov. 26, 1607, and is there mentioned to have been played the preceding Christmas, before his majesty at Whitehall. But this, I conjecture, was not its first exhibition. It seems extremely probable that its first appearance was in 1605; in which year the old play if K. Leir, that had been entered at Stationers’ hall in 1594, was printed by Simon Stafford, for John Wright, who, we may presume, finding Shakspeare’s play successful, hoped to palm the spurious one on the publick for his.
Our author’s King Lear was not published till 1608. Harsnet’s Declaration of Popish Imposures, from which Shakspeare borrowed some fantastick names of spirits, mentioned in this play, was printed in 1603.
34. Macbeth, 1606.
From a book entided Rex Platonicus, cited by Dr. Farmer, we learn that king James, when he visited Oxford in 1605, was addreſſed by three students of St. John’s college, who personated the three weird sisters, and recited a short dramatick poem, founded on the prediction of those sybils, (as the author calls them) relative to Banquo and Macbeth.
Dr. Farmer is of opinion, that this little piece preceded Shakspeare’s play; a supposition which is strengthened by the silence of the author of Rex Platonicus, who, if Macbeth had then appeared on the stage, would probably have mentioned something of it. It should be likewise remembered, that there subsisted at that time a spirit of opposition and rivalship between the regular players and the academicks of the two universities; the latter of whom frequently acted plays both in Latin and English, and seem to have piqued themselves on the superiority of their exhibitions to those of the established theatres. Wishing probably to manifest this superiority to the royal pedant, it is not likely that they would chuse for a collegiate interlude, a subject, which had already appeared on the public stage, with all the embellishments that the magick hand of Shakspeare could bestow.
This tragedy contains an allusion to the union of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, under one sovereign, and also to the cure of the king’s-evil by the royal touch; but in what year that pretended power was ​aſſumed by king James I. is uncertain. Macbeth was not entered in the Stationers’ books, nor printed, till 1623.
In The Tragidy of Cæsar and Pompey, or Cæsar’s Revenge, are these lines:
“ Why think you, lords, that ’tis ambition’s spur “ That pricketh Cæsar to these high attempts?”
If the author of that play, which was published in 1607, should be thought to have had Macbeth’s soliloquy in view, (which is not unlikely) this circumstance may add some degree of probability to the supposition that this tragedy had appeared before that year:
————————— “ I have no spur “ To prick the sides of my intent, but only “ Vaulting ambition, which o’er-leaps itself “ And falls at the other”———
At the time when Macbeth is supposed to have been written, the subject, it is probable, was considered as a topick the most likely to conciliate the favour of the court. In the additions to Warner’s Albion’s England, which were first printed in 1606, the story of “the Three Fairies or Weird Elves,” as he calls them, is shortly told, and king James’s descent from Banquo carefully deduced.
Ben Jonson, a few years afterwards, paid his court to his majesty by his Masque of Queens, presented at Whitehall, Feb. 12, 1609; in which he has given a minute detail of all the magick rites that are recorded by king James in his book of Dæmonologie, or by any other author ancient or modern.
Mr. Steevens has lately discovered a Ms. play, entitled The Witch, written by Thomas Middleton, which ren​ders it questionable, whether Shakspeare was not indebted to that author for the first hint of the magick introduced in this tragedy. The reader will find an account of this singular curiosity in the note.—To the observations of Mr. ​Steevens I have only to add, that the songs, beginning, Come away, &c. and Black spirits, &c. being found at full ​ length in The Witch, while only the two first words of them are printed in Macbeth, favour the supposition that Middle​ ton’s piece preceded that of Shakspeare; the latter, it should seem, thinking it unneceſſary to set down verses which were ​probably well known, and perhaps then in the poſſeſſion of the managers of the Globe theatre. The high reputation ​of Shakspeare’s performances (to mention a circumstance which in the course of these observations will be more than once insisted upon) likewise strengthens this conjecture; for it is very improbable, that Middleton, or any other poet of that time, should have ventured into those regions of fiction, in which our author had already expatiated: —“ Shakespeare’s magick could not copy’d be, Within that circle none durst walk but he.” Other pieces of equal antiquity may, perhaps, be hereafter discovered; for the names of several ancient plays are preserved, which are not known to have been ever printed. Thus we hear of Valentine and Orson, plaied by her Majestie’s players—The tragedy of Ninus and Scmiramis—Titirus and Galathea—Godfrey of Bulloigne—The Cradle of Securitie—Hit ​the Naile o’the Head—The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom—Sir Thomas More—{Harl. Ms. 7368) The Isle of Dogs, by Thomas Nashe—The comedy of Fidele and Fortunatus—The famous tragedy of The Destruction of Jerusalem, by Dr. Legge—The Freeman’s Honour, by William Smith—Mahomet and Irene the Faire Greek—The Play of the Cards—Cardenio—The Knaves—The Knot of Fools—Raymond Duke of Lyons—The Nobleman, by Cyril Tourneur—[the five last, acted in the year 1613] The honoured Loves—The Parliament of Love—and Nonsuch, a comedy; all by William Rowley—The Pilgrimage to Parnaſſus, by the author of the Return from Parnaſſus—Believe as you Lis, by Maſſinger—The Pirate, by Davenport—Rosania or Love’s Victory, a comedy by Shirley, (some of whose plays were extant in Ms. in Langbaine’s time)—The Twins, a tragedy, acted in 1613—Tancredo, a tragedy, by Sir Henry Wotton—Demetrius and Marsina, or the imperial Impostor and unhappy Heroine, a tragedy—The Tyrant, a tragedy—The Queen of Corsica—The Bugbears—The Second Maid’s Tragedy—Timon, a comedy, &c. &c. Soon after the Restoration, one Kirkman a bookseller, printed many dramatick pieces that had remained unpublished for more than sixty years; and in an advertisement subjoined to “ A true, perfect, and exact catalogue of all the comedies, tragedies, &c. that were ever yet printed and published, till this present year 1671,” he says, that although there were, at that time, but eight hundred and six plays in print, yet many more had been written and acted, and that “ he himself had some quantity in manuscript.”—The resemblance between Macbeth and this newly discovered piece by Middleton, naturally suggests a wish, that if any of the unpublished plays, above enumerated, be yet in being, (besides Timon and Sir Thomas More, which are known to be extant) their poſſeſſors would condescend to examine them with attention; as hence, perhaps, new lights might be thrown on others of our author’s plays.
35. The Taming of the Shrew, 1606.
The Taming of the Shrew, which, together with Romeo and Juliet, and Love’s Labour Lost was entered at Stationers’ hall by Nich. Ling, Jan. 22, 1606—7, was not, I believe, Shakspeare’s play, but the old comedy of the same name, on which our author’s piece was manifestly formed. Nich. Ling never printed either Romeo and Juliet, or Love’s Labour Lost; though in the books of the Stationers’ company they were entered by him. The old Taming of the Shrew, which ​had been originally entered in 1594, and perhaps soon afterwards printed, was republished in 1607 by Nich. Ling. As it bore the same title with Shakspeare’s play, (which was not printed till 1623) the hope of getting a sale for it, under the shelter of a celebrated name, was probably the inducement to iſſue it out at that time: and its publication then gives weight to the supposition that Shakspeare’s play was written and first acted in the latter end of the year 1606. It was entered by John Smythwick, Nov. 19, 1607; from which circumstance, we may conclude, that he had procured a copy of it, and had then thoughts of publishing it. It was not, however, printed by him till 1631, eight years after it had appeared in the edition of the players in folio. In this play there seems to be an allusion to a comedy of Thomas Heywood’s, entitled a Woman Killed with Kindness, which, though not printed till 1617, must have been acted before 1604, being mentioned in an old tract called the Black Book, published in that year.
36. Julius Cæsar, 1607.
A tragedy on the subject, and with the title, of Julius Cæsar, written by Mr. William Alexander, who was afterwards Earl of Sterline, was printed in the year 1607. This, I imagine, was prior to our author’s performance. Shakspeare, we know, formed seven or eight plays on fables that had been unsuccessfully managed by other poets; but no contemporary writer was daring enough to enter the lists with him, in his life-time, or to model into a drama a subject that had alrieady employed his pen: and it is not likely that Lord Sterline, who was then a very young man, and ​had scarcely unlearned the Scottish idiom, should have been more hardy than any other poet of that age.
I am aware, it may be objected, that this writer might have formed a drama on this story, not knowing that Shakspeare had previously composed the tragedy of Julius Cæsar; and that, therefore, the publication of Mr. Alexander's play in 1607, is no proof that our author's performance did not then exist.—In answer to this objection, it may, perhaps, be sufficient to observe, that Mr. Alexander had, before that year, very wisely left the bleak fields of Menstrie in Clackmananshire, for a warmer and more courtly residence in London, having been appointed gentleman of the privy chamber to prince Henry; in which situation his literary curiosity must have been gratified by the earliest notice of the productions of his brother dramatists.
Lord Sterline's Julius Cæsar, though not printed till 1607, might have been written a year or two before; and perhaps its publication in that year was in consequence of our author's play on the same subject being then first exhibited. The same observation may be made with respect to an anonymous performance, called The Tragedie of Cæsar and Pompey or Cæsar's Revenge, which was likewise printed in 1607. The subject of that piece is the defeat of Pompey at Pharsalia, the death of Julius, and the final overthrow of Brutus and Cassius at Philippi. The attention of the town being, perhaps, drawn to the history of the hook-nosed fellow of Rome, by the exhibition of our author's Julius Cæsar, the booksellers, who printed these two plays, might have flattered themselves with the hope of an expeditious sale for them at that time, especially as Shakspeare's play was not then published.
We have certain proof that Antony and Cleopatra was composed before the middle of the year 1608. An attentive review of that play and Julius Cæsar, will, I think, lead us to conclude that this latter was first written. Not to insist ​on the chronology of the story, which would naturally suggest this subject to our author before the other, in Julius Cæsar, Shakspeare does not seem to have been thoroughly possessed of Antony's character. He has indeed marked one or two of the striking features of it, but Antony is not fully delineated till he appears in that play which takes its name from him and Cleopatra. The rough sketch would naturally precede the finished picture.
From a paſſage in the comedy of Every Woman in her Humour, which was printed in 1609, we learn, that a droll on the subject of Julius Cæsar, had been exhibited before that year. “I have seen, (says one of the personages in that comedy) the City of Nineveh, and Julius Cæsar, acted by mammets.” Most of our ancient drolls and puppet-shews are known to have been regular abridgments of celebrated plays, or particular scenes of them, only. It does not appear that lord Sterline’s Julius Cæsar was ever celebrated, or even acted; neither that nor his other plays being at all calculated for dramatick representation. On the other hand, we know that Shakspeare’s Julius Cæsar was a very popular piece; Digges, a contemporary writer, having, in his com​mendatory verses on our author’s works, particularly alluded to it, as one of his most applauded performances. The droll here mentioned, was therefore, probably formed out of Shakspeare’s play: and we may presume that it had been in possession of the stage at least a year or two, before it was exhibited in this degraded form. Though the term ‘‘mammets’’, in the paſſage above quoted, should be considered as contemptuously applied to the children of Paul’s or those of the Chapel, (an interpretation which it will commodiously enough admit) the argument with respect to the date of ‘‘Julius Cæsar’’ will still remain in its full force. In the prologue to The False One, by Beaumont and Fletcher, this play is alluded to; but in what year that tragedy was written, is unknown. If the date of The Maid’s Tragedy by the same authors, were ascertained, it might throw some light on the present enquiry; the quarreling scene between Melantius and his friend, being manifestly copied from a similar scene in Julius Cæsar. Dryden mentions a tradition (which he might have received from Sir William D’Avenant) that Philaster ​was the first play that brought Beaumont and Fletcher into reputation. That play, as has been already mentioned, was acted about the year 1609. We may therefore presume that the Maid’s Tragedy did not appear before that year; for we cannot suppose it to have been one of the unsuccessful pieces that preceded Philaster. That the ‘‘Maid’s Tragedy’’ was written before 1611, is ascertained by a Ms. play, now extant, entitled The Second Maid’s Tragedy which was licensed by Sir George Buck, on the 31st of Oct. 1611. I believe it never was printed. If, therefore, we fix the date of the original Maid’s Tragedy in 1610, it agrees sufficiently well with that here assigned to Julius Cæsar. It appears by the papers of the late Mr. George Vertue, that a play called Cæsar’s Tragedy was acted at court before the 10th of April, in the year 1613. This was probably Shakspeare’s ‘‘Julius Cæsar’’, it being much the fashion at that time to alter the titles of his plays.
37. A Yorkshire Tragedy, 1608.
A Yorkshire Tragedy, (whoever was the author of it) could not have been written before August 1604, when the murder, on which it was founded, was committed. It was entered at Stationers’ hall May 2, 1608, and printed in that year. It is observable, that, in the title-page of this play, the name of Shakspeare is spelt in the same manner as he has himself subscribed it to his Will; and the piece is said to have been acted by his majestie’s players at the Globe; the theatre in which almost all our author’s plays were originally performed. The very name, however, of the publisher of this piece, (independent of other circumstances) is sufficient to create a doubt concerning its authenticity; for it is printed for Thomas Pavier, who appears, from the Stationers’ books, to ​have had an interest also in Titus Andronicus, in Pericles, The Puritan, and Sir John Oldcastle; and whose name is not prefixed to any one of Shakspeare’s undisputed performances, except K. Henry V. and two parts of K. Henry VI. of which plays he printed copies manifestly spurious and imperfect.
38. Antony and Cleopatra, 1608.
Antony and Cleopatra was entered on the Stationers’ books, May 2, 1608; but was not printed till 1623.
In Ben Jonson’s Silent Woman, Act IV. Sc. iv, 1609, this play seems to be alluded to:
“Morose. Nay, I would fit out a play that were nothing but fights at sea, drum, trumpet and target.”
39. Coriolanus, 1609.
40. Timon of Athens, 1610.
These two plays, which were neither entered in the books of the Stationers’ company, nor printed, till 1623, are classed here only on the principle mentioned in a preceding article. Shakspeare, in the course of about twenty years, produced, if the rejected plays and Titus Andronicus were his, forty-three dramas; if they were spurious, thirty-five. Most of his other plays have been attributed, on plausible grounds at lead, to former years. As we have no proof to ascertain when these were written, it seems reasonable to ascribe them to that period, to which we are not led by any particular circumstance to attribute any other of his works; at which, it is supposed, he had not ceased to write; which yet, unless these pieces were then composed, must, for aught that now appears, have been unemployed. When once he had availed himself of North’s Plutarch, and had thrown any one of the lives into a dramatick form, he probably found it so easy as to induce him to proceed, till he had exhausted all the subjects which he imagined that book would afford. Hence the four plays of Julius Cæsar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Timon, are supposed to have been written in succession.
​Cominius, in the panegyrick which he pronounces on Coriolanus, says,
———“In the brunt of seventeen battles since “He lurch’d all swords of the garland.”
In Ben Jonson’s Silent Woman, Act V. Sc. last, we meet (as Mr. Steevens has observed) the same uncommon phraseology: “You have lurch’d your friends of the better half of the garland.”
Whether this was a sneer at Shakspeare, or a new phrase of that day, it adds some degree of probability to the date here assigned to Coriolanus; for The Silent Woman also made its first appearance in 1609.
There is a Ms. comedy now extant, on the subject of Timon, which, from the hand-writing and the style, appears to be of the age of Shakspeare. In this piece a steward is introduced, under the name of Laches, who, like Flavius in that of our author, endeavours to restrain his master’s profusion, and faithfully attends him when he is forsaken by all his other followers.—Here too a mock-banquet is given by Timon to his false friends; but, instead of warm water, stones painted like artichokes are served up, which he throws at his guests.——From a line in Shakspeare’s play, one might be tempted to think that something of this sort was introduced by him; though, through the omission of a marginal direction in the only ancient copy of this piece, it has not been customary to exhibit it:
“Second Senator. Lord Timon’s mad. “3d Sen. I feel it on my bones. “4th Sen. One day he gives us diamonds, next day stones.”
This comedy, (which is evidently the production of a scholar, many lines of Greek being introduced into it,) appears to have been written after Ben Jonson’s Every Man out of his Humour, (1599) to which it contains a reference; but I have not discovered the precise time when it was composed. If it were ascertained, it might besome guide to us in fixing the date of our author’s Timon, which, on the grounds that have been already stated, I suppose to have been posterior to this anonymous play.
41. Othello, 1611:
Dr. Warburton thinks that there is in this tragedy a satirical allusion to the institution of the order of Baronets, which dignity was created by king James I. in the year 1611:
——"The Hearts of old gave hands, "But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts.”
Othello, Act III. Sc. iv.
"Amongst their other prerogatives of honour," (says that commentator) "they [the new-created baronets] had an addition to their paternal arms, of an hand gules in an escutcheon argent. And we are not to doubt but that this was the new heraldry alluded to by our author; by which he insinuates, that some then created had hands indeed, but not hearts; that is, money to pay for the creation, but no virtue to purchase the honour."
Such is the observation of this critick. But by what chymistry can the sense which he has affixed to this paſſage, be extracted from it? Or is it probable, that Shakspeare, who has more than once condescended to be the encomiast of the unworthy founder of the order of Baronets, who had been personally honoured by a letter from his majesty, and substantially benefited by the royal licence granted to him and his fellow-comedians, should have been so impolitick, as to satirize the king, or to depretiate his new-created dignity?
These lines appear to me to afford an obvious meaning, without supposing them to contain such a multitude of allusions:
Of old, (says Othello) in matrimonial alliances, the heart dictated the union of bands; but our modern junctions are those of bands, not of hearts.
On every marriage the arms of the wife are united to those of the husband. This circumstance, I believe, it was, that suggested heraldry, in this place, to our author. I know not whether a heart was ever used as an armorial ensign, nor is it, I conceive, necessary to enquire. It was the office of the herald to join, or, to speak technically, to quarter the arms of the new-married pair. Hence, with his usual ​license. Shakspeare uses heraldry for junction, or union in general.—Thus, in his Rape of Lucrece, the same term is employed to denote that union of colours which constitutes a beautiful complexion:
“This heraldry in Lucrece’ face was seen, “Argued by beauty’s red, and virtue’s white.”
This passage not affording us any assistance, we are next to consider one in The Alchemist, by Ben Jonson, which, if it alluded to an incident in Othello, (as Mr. Steevens seems to think it does) would ascertain this play to have appeared before 1610, in which year The Alchemist was first acted:
“Lovewit. Didst thou hear a cry, say’st thou? “Neighb. Yes, Sir, like unto a man that had been strangled an hour, and could not speak.”
But I doubt whether Othello was herein Jonson’s contemplation. Old Ben generally spoke out; and if he had intended to sneer at the manner of Desdemona’s death, I think, he would have taken care that his meaning should not be miss’d, and would have written—“like unto a woman,” &c.
This tragedy was not entered on the books of the Stationers’ company, till Oct. 6, 1621, nor printed till the following year; but it was acted at court early in the year 1613. How long before that time it had appeared, I have not been able to ascertain, either from the play itself, or from any contemporary production. I have, however, persuaded myself that it was one of Shakspeare’s latest performances: a supposition, to which the acknowledged excellence of the piece gives some degree of probability. It is here attributed to the year 1611 because Dr. Warburton’s comment on the passage above-cited, may convince others, though, I confess it does not satisfy me.
Emilia and Lodovico, two of the characters in this play, are likewise two of the persons represented in May-day, a comedy by Chapman, first printed in 1611.
42. The Tempest, 1612.
Though some account of the Bermuda Islands, which are mentioned in this play, had been published in 1600, (as Dr. Farmer has observed) yet as they were not generally known till Sir George Somers arrived there in 1609, The Tempest may be fairly attributed to a period subsequent to that year; especially as it exhibits such strong internal marks of having been a late production. The entry at Stationers’ hall does not contribute to ascertain the time of its composition; for it appears not on the Stationers’ books, nor was it printed, till 1623, when it was published with the rest of our author’s plays in folio: in which edition, having, I suppose by mere accident, obtained the first place, it has ever since preserved a station to which it indubitably is not entitled. As the circumstance from which this piece receives its name, is at an end in the very first scene, and as many other titles, all equally proper, might have occurred to Shakfpeare, (such as The Enchanted Island—The Banished Duke—Ferdinand and Miranda, &c.) it is possible, that some particular and recent event determined him to call it The Tempest. It appears from Stowe’s Chronicle, p. 913, that in the October, November, and December of the year 1612, a dreadful tempest happened in England, “which did exceeding great damage, with extreme shipwrack throughout the ocean.” “There perished” (says the historian) above an hundred ships in the space of two houres.”—Several pamphlets were published on this occasion, decorated with prints of sinking vessels, castles topling on their warders’ heads, the devil overturning steeples, &c. In one of them, the author describing the appearance of the waves at Dover, says, “the whole seas appeared like a fiery world, all sparkling red.” Another of these narratives recounts the escape of Edmond Pet, a sailor; whose preservation appears to have been no less marvellous than that of Trinculo or Stephano: and so great a terror did this tempest create in the minds of the people, that a form of prayer was ordered on the occasion, which is annexed to one of the publications above mentioned. There is reason to believe that some of our author’s dramas obtained their names from the seasons at which they were produced. It is not very easy to account for the title of Twelfth Night, but by supposing it to have been first exhibited in the Christmas holydays. Neither the title of ​A Midsummer Night’s Dream, nor that of The Winter’s s Tale, denotes the season of the action; the events which are the subject of the latter, occurring at the time of sheep-shearing, and the dream, from which the former receives its name, happening on the night preceding May-day.——These titles, therefore, were probably suggested by the season at which the plays were exhibited, to which they belong; A Midsummer Night’s Dream having, we may presume, been first represented in June, and The Winter’s Tale in December. Perhaps, then, it may not be thought a very improbable conjecture, that this comedy was written in the summer of 1612, and produced on the stage in the latter end of that year; and that the author availed himself of a circumstance then fresh in the minds of his audience, by affixing a title to it, which was more likely to excite curiosity than any other that he could have chosen, while at the same time it was sufficiently justified by the subject of the drama. Mr. Steevens, in his observations on this play, has quoted from the tragedy of Darius by the earl of Sterline, first printed in 1603, some lines so strongly resembling a ​celebrated passage in the Tempest that one author must, I apprehend, have been indebted to the other. Shakspeare, I imagine, borrowed from lord Sterline. Mr. Holt conjectured, that the masque in the fifth actof this comedy was intended by the poet as a compliment to the earl ot Essex, on his being united in wedlock, in 1611, to lady Frances Howard, to whom he had been contracted some years before. However this might have been, the date which that commentator has assigned to this play (1614) is certainly too late; for it appears from the Mss. of Mr. Vertue, that the Tempest was acted by John Heminge and the rest of the King’s Company, before prince Charles, the lady Elizabeth, and the prince Palatine elector, in the beginning of the year 1613. The names of Trinculo and Antonio, two of the characters in this comedy, are likewise found in that of Albumazar; which was first printed in 1614, but is supposed by Dryden to have appeared some years before.
43. Twelfth Night, 1614.
It has been generally believed, that Shakspeare retired from the theatre, and ceased to write, about three years ​before he died. The latter supposition must now be considered as extremely doubtful; for Mr. Tyrwhitt, with great probability, conjectures, that Twelfth Night was written in 1614: grounding his opinion on an allusion, which it seems to contain, to those parliamentary undertakers, of whom frequent mention is made in the Journals of the House of Commons for that year; who were stigmatized with this invidious name, on account of their having undertaken to manage the elections of knights and burgesses in such a manner as to secure a majority in parliament for the court. If this allusion was intended, Twelfth Night, was probably our author’s last production; and, we may presume, was written after he had retired to Stratford. It is observable that Mr. Ashley, a member of the House of Commons, in one of the debates on this subject, says, “that the rumour concerning these undertakers had spread into the country.” When Shakspeare quitted London and his profession, for the tranquillity of a rural retirement, it is improbable that such an excursive genius should have been immediately reconciled to a state of mental inactivity. It is more natural to conceive, that he should have occasionally bent his thoughts towards the theatre, which his muse had supported, and the interest of his associates whom he had left behind him to struggle with the capricious vicissitudes of publick taste, and whom, his last Will shews us, he had not forgotten. To the necessity, therefore, of literary amusement to every cultivated mind, or to the dictates of friendship, or to both these incentives, we are perhaps indebted for the comedy of Twelfth Night; which bears evident marks of having been composed at leisure, as most of the characters that it contains, are finished to a higher degree of dramatick perfection, than is discoverable in some of our author’s earlier comick performances. In the third act of this comedy, Decker’s Westward Hoe seems to be alluded to. Westward Hoe was printed in 1607, ​and from the prologue to Eastward Hoe appears to have been acted in 1604, or before. Maria, in Twelfth Night, speaking of Malvolio, says, “he does smile his face into more lines than the new map with the augmentation of the Indies.” I have not been able to learn the date of the map here alluded to; but, as it is spoken of as a recent publication, it may, when discovered, serve to ascertain the date of this play more exactly. The comedy of What you Will, (the second title of the play now before us) which was entered at Stationers’ hall, Aug. 9, 1607, was probably Marston’s play, as it was printed in that year; and it appears to have been the general practice of the booksellers at that time, recently before publication, to enter those plays of which they had procured copies. Twelfth Night was not registered on the Stationers’ books, nor printed, till 1623. It has been thought, that Ben Jonson intended to ridicule the conduct of this play, in his Every Man out of his Humour, at the end of Act III. Sc. vi. where he makes Mitis say,—“That the argument of his comedy might have been of some other nature, as of a duke to be in love with a countess, and that countess to be in love with the duke’s son, and the son in love with the lady’s waiting maid: some such cross wooing, with a clown to their serving man, better than be thus near and familiarly allied to the time. I doubt, however, whether Jonson had here Twelfth Night in contemplation. If an allusion to this comedy were intended, it would ascertain it to have been written before 1599, when Every Man out of his Humour was first acted. But Meres does not mention Twelfth Night in 1598, nor is there any reason to believe that it then existed. I know not whether this passage is found in the quarto copy of Every Man out of his Humour, published in 1600. Perhaps it first appeared in the folio edition of Jonson’s ​works, printed in 1616; in which case, though it should be admitted to have been a sneer at Shakspeare, it would not affect the date now attributed to Twelfth Night. It is certain that Jonson made alterations in some of his pieces, when he collected and reprinted them. Every Man in his Humour, in particular, underwent an entire reform; all the persons of the drama, to whom English names were given on its republication, having in the former edition appeared as natives of Italy, in which country the scene originally was bid.
If the dates here assigned to our author’s plays should not, in every instance, bring with them conviction of their propriety, let it be remembered, that this is a subject on which conviction cannot at this day be obtained: and that the observations now submitted to the publick, do not pretend to any higher title than that of “An Attempt to ascertain the chronology of the dramas of Shakspeare.” Should the errors and deficiencies of this essay invite others to deeper and more successful researches, the end proposed by it will be attained: and he who offers the present arrangement of Shakspeare’s dramas, will be happy to transfer the slender portion of credit that may result from the novelty of his undertaking, to some future claimant, who may be supplied with ampler materials, and endued with a superior degree of antiquarian sagacity. To some, he is not unapprized, this enquiry will appear a tedious and barren speculation. But there are many, it is hoped, who think nothing that relates to the brightest ornament of the English nation, wholly uninteresting; who will be gratified by observing, how the genius of our great poet gradually expanded itself, till, like his own Ariel, it flamed amazement in every quarter, blazing forth with a lustre, that has not hitherto been equalled, and perhaps will never be surpassed.
Malone.
* ↑ Within the period here mentioned, the commentaries of Warburton, Edwards, Heath, Johnson, Tyrwhitt, Farmer, and Steevens, have been published.
* ↑ It is not pretended that a regular scale of gradual improvement is here presented to the publick; or that, if even Shakspeare himself had left us a chronological list of his dramas, it would exhibit such a scale. All that is meant, is, that, as his knowledge increased, and as he became more conversant with the stage and with life, his performances in general were written more happily and with greater art; or (to use the words of Dr. Johnson) “that however favoured by nature, he could only impart what he had learned, and as he must encrease his ideas, like other mortals, by gradual acquisition, he, like them, grew wiser as he grew older, could display life better as he knew it more, and instruct with more efficacy, as he was himself more amply instructed.” Of this opinion also was Mr. Pope. “It must be observed, (says he) that when his performances had merited the protection of his prince, and when the encouragement of the court had succeeded to that of the town, the works of his riper years are manifestly raised above those of his former.—And I make no doubt that this observation would be found true in every instance, were but editions extant from which we might learn the exact time when every piece was composed, and whether writ for the town or the court.”—From the following lines it appears, that Dryden also thought that our author's most imperfect plays were his earliest dramatick compositions: “ Your Ben and Fletcher in their first young flight, “ Did no Volpone, no Arbaces write; “ But hopp’d about, and short cxcursions made “ From bough to bough, as if they were afraid; “ And each were guilty of some Slighted Maid. “ Shakspeare’s own muse his Pericles first bore, “ The Prince of Tyre was elder than the Moor: “ ’Tis miracle to see a first good play; “ All hawthorns do not bloom on Christmas-day, “ A slender poet must have time to grow, “ And spread and burnish as his brothers do: “ Who still looks lean, sure with some p— is curst, “ But no man can be Falsaff at first.” Prologue to the tragedy of Circe. The plays which Shakspeare produced before the year 1600, are known, and are about eighteen in number. The rest of his dramas, we may conclude, were composed between that year and the time of his retiring to the country. It is incumbent on those, who differ in opinion from the great authorities abovementioned, who think with Rowe, that “we are not to look for his beginning in his least perfect works,” it is incumbent, I say, on those persons, to enumerate in the former class, that is, among the plays produced before 1600, compositions of equal merit with Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, the Tempest and Twelfth Night, which we have reason to believe were all written in the latter period; and among his late performances, that is, among the plays which are supposed to have appeared after the year 1600, to point out five pieces, as hasty, indigested, and uninteresting, as the first and third parts of K. Henry VI, Love's Labour Lost, the Comedy of Errors, and the Two Gentlemen of Verona, which, we know, were among his earlier works.
* ↑ They are, King Henry VI. P. I. The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Winter’s Tale, The Comedy of Errors, King John, All’s Well that Ends Well, As you like it, King Henry VIII, Measure for Measure, Cymbeline, Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, Julius Cæsar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, Othello, The Tempest, and Twelfth Night. Of these nineteen plays, four, viz. The first part of K. Henry VI. King John, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and The Comedy of Errors, were certainly early compositions, and are an exception to the general truth of this observation. Perhaps, the ill success of the two latter, was the occasion that they were not printed so soon as his other early performances. Two others, viz. The Winter’s Tale, and All’s well that ends well, though supposed to have been early productions, were, it must be acknowledged, not published in Shakspeare’s life-time; but for the dates of these we rely only on conjecture.
* ↑ This supposition is strongly confirmed by Meres’s list of our author's plays, in 1598. From that list, and from other circumstances, we learn, that of the sixteen genuine plays which were printed in Shakspeare’s life-time, thirteen were written before the end of the year 1600.—The sixteen plays published in our author's life-time, are—Love’s Labour Lost, The Second and Third Parts of K. Henry VI. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, K. Richard II. K. Richard III. The First Part of K. Henry IV. The Merchant of Venice, The Second Part of K. Henry IV. K. Henry V. Much Ado about Nothing, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Troilus and Creſſida, and K. Lear.
* ↑ None of the plays which in the ensuing list are supposed to have been written subsequently to this year, were printed till after the author’s death, except K. Lear, the publication of which was probably hastened by that of the old play with the same title, in 1605.—The copy of Troilus and Creſſida, which seems to have been composed the year before K. James granted a licence to the company at the Globe Theatre, appears to have been obtained by some uncommon artifice. “Thank fortune (says the Editor) for the scape it hath made amongst you; since, by the grand poſſeſſors’ wills, I believe, you should have pray'd for them, rather than been pray’d.”—By the grand poſſeſſors, Shakspeare and the other managers of the Globe Theatre, were clearly intended.
* ↑ “There was not (says Heywood in his preface to Greene’s Tu quoque, a comedy,) an actor of his nature in his time, of better ability in the performance of what he undertook, more applauded by the audience, of greater grace at the court, or of more general love in the city.” The birth-place of Thomas Greene is ascertained by the following lines, which he speaks in one of the old comedies, in the character of a clown: “ I pratled poesie in my nurse’s arms, And, born where late our swan of Avon sung, In Avon’s streams we both of us have lav’d, And both came out together.” Chetwood quotes this paſſage, in his British Theatre, from the comedy of the Two Maids of Moreclack; but no such paſſage is there to be found. He deserves but little credit; having certainly forged many of his dates; however, he probably met these lines in some ancient play, though he forgot the name of the piece from which he transcribed them. Greene was a writer as well as an actor. There are some verses of his prefixed to a collection of Drayton’s poems, published in the year 1613. He was perhaps a kinsman or Shakspeare’s. In the register of the parish of Stratford, Thomas Greene, alias Shakspere, is said to have been buried March 6, 1689. He might have been the actor’s father.
* ↑ The author of Promos and Caſſandra, a play which furnished Shakspeare with the fable of Measure for Measure.
* ↑ This poet is mentioned by Meres, in his Wits Treasury, as an eminent comick writer, and the best plotter of his time. He seems to have been introduced under the name of Don Antonio Balladino, in a comedy that has been attributed to Ben Jonson, called The Case is Altered, and from the following paſſages in that piece appears to have been city-poet; whose business it was to compose an annual panegyrick on the Lord Mayor, and to write verses for the pageants: an office which has been discontinued since the death of Elkanah Settle in 1722: Onion. “ Shall I request your name? Ant. My name is Antonio Balladino. Oni. Balladino! You are not pageant poet to the city of Milan, Sir, are you? Ant. I supply the place, Sir, when a worse cannot be had, Sir.—Did you see the last pageant I set forth?” Afterwards Antonio, speaking of the plays he had written, says, “ Let me have good ground—no matter for the pen; the plot shall carry it. Oni. Indeed that's right; you are in print, already, for the best plotter. Ant. Ay; I might as well have been put in for a dumb-shew too.” It is evident, that this poet is here intended to be ridiculed by Ben Jonson: but he might, notwithstanding, have been deservedly eminent. That malignity which endeavoured to tear a wreath from the brow of Shakspeare, would, certainly, not spare inferior writers.
* ↑ The thirty-first chapter of the first book of Puttenham’s Art of English Poesy is thus entitled: “ Who in any age have bene the most commended writers in our English Poesie, and the author’s censure given upon them.” After having enumerated several authors who were then celebrated for various kinds of composition, he gives this succinct account of those who had written for the stage: “ Of the later sort I thinke thus;—that for tragedie, the Lord Buckhurst and Maister Edward Ferrys, for such doings as I have sene of theirs, do deserve the hyest price; the Earl of Oxford and Maister Edwardes of her Majestie’s Chappell, for comedie and enterlude.”
* ↑ See vol. VI. p. ult. where the paſſage is given at large. The paragraph which immediately follows that quoted by Mr. Tyrwhitt, though obscure, is worth transcribing, as it seems to allude to Shakspeare’s country education, and to intimate, that he had not removed to London long before the year 1592.—After having mentioned a person who had newly appeared in the double capacity of actor and author, one, “ who is in his owne conceit the only Shake-scene in a country,” and exhorted his brother poets to seek better masters than the players, Greene proceeds thus: “ In this I might insert two more, that both have written against these buckram gentlemen [the players:] but let their owne worke serve to witneſſe against their own wickedneſſe, if they persever to maintaine any more such peasants. For other new-commers, I leave them to the mercie of these painted monsters, who, I doubt not, will drive the best minded to despise them, &c.” Greene’s Groatsworth of Witte, &c. Sig. E. 4.
* ↑ This tract has no date, but was published after the author’s death, agreeably to his dying request. It appears to have been written not long before his death; for near the conclu{(ls}}ion he says, “ Albeit weakness will scarce suffer me to write, yet to my fellow schollers about this citie will I direct these few insuing lines.” He died, according to Dr. Gabriel Harvey's account, on the third of September 1592. Additions by Oldys to Winstanley’s Lives of the Poets, Ms.
* ↑ I have been told, by some anciently conversant with the stage, that it [Titus Andronicus] was not originally his, but brought by a private author to be acted, and he only gave some master touches to one or two of the principal parts or characters.” Ravenscroft’s preface to Titus Andronicus, altered by him.
* ↑ John Lowin, and Joseph Taylor, two of the actors in Shakspeare’s plays, were alive a few years before the Restoration of K. Charles II; and Sir William D'Avenant, who had himself written for the stage in 1629, (thirteen years after the death of our author) did not die till April 1668. Ravenscroft’s alteration of Titus Andronicus was published in 1687.
* ↑ As this circumstance is more than once mentioned, in the course of these observations, it may not be improper to add a few words on the subject of our author’s metre. A mixture of rhymes with blank verse, in the same play, and sometimes in the same scene, is found in almost all his pieces, and is not peculiar to Shakspeare, being also found in the works of Jonson, and almost all our ancient dramatick writers. It is not, therefore, merely the use of rhymes, mingled with blank verse, but their frequency, that is here urged, as a circumstance which seems to characterize and distinguish our poet’s earliest performances. In the whole number of pieces which were written antecedent to the year 1600, and which, for the sake of perspicuity, have been called his early compositions, more rhyming couplets are found, than in all the plays composed subsequently to that year; which have been named his late productions. Whether in process of time, Shakspeare grew weary of the bondage of rhyme, or whether he became convinced of its impropriety in a dramatick dialogue, his neglect of rhyming (for he never wholly disused it) seems to have been gradual. As, therefore, most of his early productions are characterized by the multitude of similar terminations which they exhibit, whenever, of two early pieces it is doubtful which preceded the other, I am disposed to believe, (other proofs being wanting) that play in which the greater number of rhymes is found, to have been first composed. This, however, must be acknowledged to be but a fallible criterion; for the Three Parts of K. Henry VI. which appear to have been among our author’s earliest compositions, do not abound in rhymes.
* ↑ This writer, to whose list of our author’s plays we are so much indebted, appears, from the following paſſage of the work here mentioned, to have been personally acquainted with Shakspeare: “ As the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare. Witness his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred Sonnets among his private friends, &c.” Wit’s Treafury, p. 282. There is no edition of Shakspeare’s Sonnets now extant, of so early a date as 1598, when Meres’s book was printed; so that we may conclude, he was one of those friends to whom they were privately recited, before their publication.
* ↑ This book was probably published in the latter end of the year 1598; for it was not entered at Stationers’ hall till September in that year.
* ↑ This was the first edition, for it was not entered on the Stationers’ books before that year.
* ↑ Thus Talbot is described in the first part of K. Henry VI. Act I. sc. iii. “ Here, said they, is the terror of the French.” Again in Act V. sc. i. Is Talbot slain, the Frenchmens’ only scourge, “ Your kingdom’s terror?”—
* ↑ See vol. VI. p. ult.
* ↑ See the entry on the books of the Stationers’ company, June 19, 1594, where the lamentable End of Shore’s Wife is mentioned as a part of Richard III. This piece in which Shore's wife was introduced was, probably, in poſſeſſion of the stage a year or two before this entry; and from the manner in which these plays are mentioned in the verses above quoted, we may conclude that Pericles was equally ancient, and equally well known.
* ↑ Prologue to the tragedy of Circe, by Charles Davenant, 1677.—Mr. Rowe, in his Life of Shakespeare, (first edition) says, “ There is good reason to believe that the greatest part of Pericles was not written by him, though it is owned some part of it certainly was, particularly the last act.” I have not been able to learn on what authority this latter aſſertion was grounded.— Rowe, in his second edition, omitted the paſſage.
* ↑ Ms. of the late Mr. Vertue.
* ↑ Historick Doubts.
* ↑ Ante p. 282.
* ↑ The learned editor of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, printed in 1775, observes in his introductory discourse (vol. IV. p. 161.) that Pluto and Proserpine in the Merchant’s Tale, appear to have been “ the true progenitors of Shakspeare’s Oberon and Titania.” In a tract already quoted, Greene’s Groatsworth of Witte, 1592, a player is introduced, who boasts of having performed the part of the King of Fairies with applause. Greene himself wrote a play, entitled The Scottishe Story of James the Fourthe, saine at Floddon, intermixed with a pleasant Comedie presented by Oberon King of the Fairies; which was entered at Stationers’ hall in 1S94, and printed in 1599. Shakspeare, however, does not appear to have been indebted to this piece. The plan of it is shortly this. Bohan, a Scot, in consequence of being disgusted with the world, having retired to a tomb where he has fixed his dwelling, is met by Aster Oberon, king of the fairies, who entertains him with an antick or dance by his subjects. These two personages, after some conversation, determine to listen to a tragedy, which is acted before them, and to which they make a kind of chorus, by moralizing at the end of each act.
* ↑ “The thrice three muses mourning for the death Of learning, late deceas’d in beggary.
* ↑ Preface to Spenser’s View of the State of Ireland. Dublin, fol. 1633. This treatise was written, according to Sir James Ware, in 1596. The testiony of that historian, relative to the time of Spenser’s death, is confirmed by a dact related by Ben Jonson to Mr. Drummond of Hawthornden, and recorded by that writer. When Spenser and his wife were forced in great distress to fly from their house, which was burnt in the Irish Rebellion, the Earl of Eſſex sent him twenty pieces; but he refused them; telling the person that brought them, he was sure he had no time to spend them. He died soon after, according to Ben Jonson’s account, in King Street [Dublin.] Lord Eſſex was not in Ireland in 1598, and was there from April to September in the following year.—If Spenser had died in London, as Camden says he did, his death would probably have been mentioned by Rowland Whyte, in his letters to Sir Robert Sydney, (brother to the poet’s great patron) which are still extant, and contain a minute detail of most of the memorable occurrences of that time.
* ↑ There is no edition of any of our author’s genuine plays extant, prior to 1597, when Romeo and Juliet was published.
* ↑ There is no entry in the Stationers’ books relative to the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, antecedent to its publication in 1597, if this does not relate to it. This entry was made by Edward Whyte, and therefore is not likely to have related to the poem called Romeo and Julietta, which was entered in 1582, by Richard Tottel. How vague the description of plays was at this time, may appear from the following entry, which is found in the Stationers’ books an. 1599, and seems to relate to Marlowe’s tragedy of Tamburlaine, published in that year, by Richard Jones. {gap}}“To Richard Jones] Twoe Commical Discourses of Tamburlein, the Cythian Shepparde.” In Marlowe’s Tamburlaine, as originally performed, several comick enterludes were introduced; whence perhaps, the epithet comical was added to the title.—As tragedies were sometimes entitled discourses, so a grave poem or sad discourse in verse, (to use the language of the times) was frequently denominated a tragedy. All the poems inserted in the Mirrour for Magistrates, and some of Drayton’s pieces, are called tragedies, by Meres and other ancient writers. Some of Sir David Lindsay’s poems, though not in a dramatick form, are also by their author entitled tragedies.
* ↑ “ A booke called Delia containynge diverse sonates, with the Camplainte of Rosamonde,” was entered at Stationers’ hall by Simon Waterson in Feb. 1591—2.
* ↑ See Romeo and Juliet, Act I. Sc. iii.
* ↑ Thus Mrs. Quickly in K. Henry IV. reminds Falstaff, that he “ swore on a parcel-gilt goblet, to marry her, fitting in her Dolphin chamber, at a round table, by a sea-coal fire, on Wednesday in Whitsun-week, when the prince broke his head for likening his father to a singing man of Windsor.”
* ↑ See Merry Wives of Windsor, Act II. Sc. last.—Meas. for Meas. Act I. Sc. iii. and iv.—As you Like It, Act IV. Sc. i. and iii.—Othello, Act III. Sc. iii. “I slept the next night well,” &c.
* ↑ Dr. Lodge published, in the year 1596, a pamphlet called Wit’s Miserie, or the World’s Madness, discovering the incarnate Devils of the age, quarto. One of thse devils is Hate-virtue, or sorrow for another man’s succeſſe, who, says the doctor, is a foule lubber, and looks as pale as the wizard of the ghost, who cried so miserably at the theatre, Hamlet revenge.” Farmer’s Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare.
* ↑ This comedy was not printed till 1609, but it had appeared many years before. The time when it was written, is ascertained with great precision by the following circumstances. It contains an allusion to Meres’s Wit’s Treasury, first printed in the latter end of the year 1598, (Ante p. 176.) and is itself mentioned by Nashe in his Lenten Stuff, 4to. 1599.—“ It is right of the merry cobler’s stuff, in that witty play of the Case is Altered.”
* ↑ Jonson’s works, vol. VII. p. 362. Whalley’s edit.
* ↑ Between the years 1595 and 1600, some of Lilly’s comedies were performed by these children. Many of the plays of Jonson were represented by them between 1600 and 1609;.—From a paſſage in Jack Drum’s Entertainment, or the Comedy of Pasquil and Catherine, which was printed in l601, we learn that they were much followed at that time.
* ↑ It has been observed to me, that there are other instances of this being used as a christian name; it is certainly very uncommon; and may be fairly supposed, in this case, to have taken its rise from the play.—After all, however, it is not quite clear that this was his name. The name subscribed to Shakspeare’s original Will (which I have seen) seems to be Hamnet: but in the body of the Will, he is called Hamlet Sadler.
* ↑ Mr. Oldys, in his Ms. Additions to Langbaine’s Lives of the Dramatick Poets, says, on I know not what authority, that Greene’s Arcadia was printed in 1589. If he is right, it is still less probable that this paſſage should have related to our author’s Hamlet.
* ↑ “ The Country Lawyers too jog down apace, Each with his noverint universi face.” Ravenscroft’s Prologue prefixed to Titus Andronicus. Our ancient deeds were written in Latin, and frequently began with the words, Noverint Universi. The form is still retained. Know all men, &c.
* ↑ It is observable that on the republication of this old play in 1611, the two parts are set forth—“ as they were (sundry times) lately acted by the Queene’s Majesties servants”—a description, which, probably, was copied literally from the former edition in 1591. If this had been really Shakspeare’s performance, it would have been described, on its re-impreſſion, as acted by his Majesty’s servants; for so runs the title of most of his genuine pieces, that were either originally printed or re-published after the year 1603. The bookseller, the better to impose on the publick, prefixed the letters W. Sh. to the new edition of this play in 1611, which do not appear in the former impreſſion in 1591.
* ↑ Proceedings at the Arraignment of Sir Gilly Merricke, 4to. 1601.
* ↑ On the 16th of March 1599, in fact 1600. See the Letters of the Sydney Family, vol. II. p. 175.
* ↑ The old K. Henry V. must have been written before 1590, for Tarleton, who acted two parts in it, (the Clown, and the Judge) died in that year.
* ↑ If the allusion should be supposed to have been, not to the Oldcastle of the old play, but to our author’s Sir John Falstaff, as exhibited in The First Part of King Henry IV. such a supposition will not at all weaken the argument in the text.
* ↑ The circumstance of Hotspur’s death in this pjay, and its being an historical drama, I suppose, induced Meres to denominate the First Part of Henry IV. a tragedy.
* ↑ Wit’s Treasury, p. 282.
* ↑ See the Chorus to the fifth act of King Henry V.
* ↑ “ He rather prays you will be pleased to see “ One such, to-day, as other plays should be; “Where neither Chorus wasts you o’er the seas, &c.” Prologue to Every Man in his Humour. These lines formerly appeared to me so decisive with respect to the date of this piece, that I have quoted them, in a note on K. Henry V. to shew that this historical drama must have been written before 1598; an opinion from which, for the reasons above stated, I am now disposed to recede.
* ↑ That this attack on King Henry V. was made in 1601, appears the more probable from this circumstance:—in Ben Jonson's Poetaster, which was first acted in that year, several passages of this play are ridiculed.
* ↑ Jonson himself tells us in his Induction to the Magnetick Lady, that this was his first dramatick performance.—"The author beginning his studies of this kind with Every Man in his Humour."
* ↑ If the names of the actors, prefixed to this play, were arranged in the same order as the persons represented, which is very probable, Shakspeare played the part of Old Knowell. It is said, that he also played the part of Adam in As you Like It; and we are informed by Betterton that he performed the Ghost in his own Hamlet. We may presume, therefore, that he usually represented old men.
* ↑ See an old comedy called The Return from Parnaſſus: [This piece was not published till 1606; but appears to have been written in 1602—certainly was produced before the death of Queen Elizabeth, which happened on the 24th of March 1603.] "Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down; ay and Ben Jonson too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his credit." The play of Jonson's in which he gave the poets a pill, and endeavoured to ridicule some words used by Shakspeare, is the Poetaster, acted in 1601. In what manner Shakspeare put him down, or made him bewray his credit, does not appear. His retaliation, we may be well assured, contained no gross or illiberal abuse; and, perhaps, did not go beyond a ballad or an epigram, which may have perished with things of greater consequence. He has, however, marked his disregard for the calumniator of his fame, by not leaving him any memorial by his Will.—In an apologetical dialogue that Jonson annexed to the Poetaster he says, he had been provoked for three years (i.e. from 1598 to 1601) on every stage by slanderers; as for the players, he says, “ It is true, I tax’d them, And yet but some, and those so sparingly, As all the rest might have sat still unquestion’d— ———— What they have done against me, I am not mov’d with. If it gave them meat, Or got them cloashs, ’tis well; that was their end. Only, amongst them, I am sorry for Some better natures, by the rest drawn in To run in that vile line.” By the words “ Some better natures” there can, I think, be little doubt that Shakspeare was alluded to.
* ↑ “ Ah! ma mere, s’écrie-t-il, il y a un gros rat derriére la tapiſſirie—il tire son épée, court au rat, et tue le bon homme Polonius.”—Ouvres de Voltaire. Tome XV. p. 473. 4to.
* ↑ In his Silent Woman, Act V. Sc. ii. 1609. Jonson seems to point at Shakspeare, as one whom he viewed with scornful, yet jealous, eyes: “ So, they may censure poets and authors, and compare them; Daniel with Spenser, Jonson with t’other youth, and so forth.” In the Induction to Bartholomew Fair, which was acted in 1614, two years before the death of our author, three of his plays, and in the piece itself two others, are attempted to be ridiculed. The Induction to The Staple of News, which appeared in 1625, not very long after the publication of our author’s plays in folio, contains a sneer at a paſſage in Julius Cæsar— “ Know Cæsar doth not wrong; nor without cause Will he be satisfied—” which for the purpose of ridicule is quoted unfaithfully; and in the same play may be found an effort, as impotent as that of Voltaire, to raise a laugh at Hamlet’s exclamation when he kills Polonius. Some other paſſages which are found in Jonson’s works, might be mentioned in support of this observation, but being quoted hereafter for other purposes, they are here omitted. Notwithstanding these proofs, Jonson’s malevolence to Shakspeare, and jealousy of his superior reputation, have been doubted by Mr. Pope and others; and much stress has been laid on a paſſage in his Discoveries, and on the commendatory verses prefixed to the first edition of our author’s plays in folio.—The reader, after having perused the following character of Jonson, drawn by Mr. Drummond of Hawthornden, a contemporary, and an intimate acquaintance of his, will not, perhaps readily believe these posthumous encomiums to have been sincere. “ Jonson, (says that writer) was a great lover and praiser of himself; a condemner and scorner of others, rather chusing to to lose a friend than a jest; jealous of every word and action of those about him, especially after drink, which was one of the elements he lived in; a diſſembler of the parts which reigned in him; a bragger of some good that he wanted: he thought nothing right, but what either himself or some of his friends had done. He was paſſionately kind and angry; careless either to gain or to keep; vindictive, but, if he was well answered, greatly chagrined; interpreting the best sayings often to the worst. He was for any religion, being versed in all. His inventions were smooth and easy, but above all, he excelled in translation. In short, he was, in his personal character, the very reverse of Shakespeare; as surly, ill-natured, proud and disagreeable, as Shakespeare, with ten times his merit, was gentle, good-natured, easy, and amiable.” Drummond's Works, fol. 1711. In the year l619 Jonson went to Scotland, to visit Mr. Drummond, who has left a curious account of a conversation that paſſed between them, relative to the principal poets of those times. From a natural partiality to his author, the foregoing well-authenticated character was suppreſſed by the last learned editor of Jonson’s works.
* ↑ His misquoting a line of Julius Cæsar, so as to render it nonsense, at a time when the play was in print, is a strong illustration of this part of his character. The plea of an unfaithful memory cannot be urged in his defence, for he tells us in his Discoveries, that till he was past forty, he could repeat every thing that he had written.
* ↑ Of this see a remarkable instance in K. Henry IV. P. II. Act I. sc. i. where Morton in a long speech having informed Northumberland that the archbishop of York had joined the rebel party, the Earl replies,—“ I knew of this before”—The quarto contains the reply, but not a single line of the narrative to which it relates.
* ↑ See Mr. Steevens’s extracts from the books of the Stationers’ company, ante p. 256.
* ↑ This appears to be one of the many titles by which plays were anciently described. “ An Enterlude, entitled the tragedie of Richard III (not our author’s) was entered on the Stationers’ books, by Thomas Creede, June 19, 1594; and in the same year, Mother Bombie, a comedy by Lilly, appears to have been entered under the description of “ A booke entituled Mother Bumbye, being an Enterlude.”
* ↑ After having enumerated some of the bleſſings that were to ensue from the birth of Elizabeth, and celebrated her majesty’s various virtues, the poet thus proceeds: Cran. “ In her days every man shall eat in safety Under his own vine, what he plants, and sing The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours. God shall be truly known; and those about her From her shall read the perfect ways of honour, And by those claim their greatness, not by blood, [Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but as when The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phænix, Her ashes new-create another heir, As great in admiration as herself; So shall she leave her bleſſedness to one, &c. ————————— He shall flourish, And like a mountain cedar, reach his branches To all the plains about him:—our childrens’ children Shall see this, and bless heaven. King. Thou speakest wonders.] Cran. She shall be, to the happiness of England, An aged princess; many days shall see her And yet no day without a deed to crown it. Wou’d I had known no more! but she must die, She must, the saints must have her; yet a virgin, &c.” The lines between crotchets, are those, supposed to have been inserted by the author after the accesion of king James.
* ↑ Camden 27. Melvil 49.
* ↑ The author of Shakespeare illustrated.
* ↑ Thus Henry IV. P. I. was called Hotspur; Henry IV. P. II. or The Merry Wives of Winsdor, was exhibited under the name of Sir John Falstaff; Much Ado about Nothing was new named Benedict and Beatrix, and Julius Cæsar seems to have been represented under the title of Cæsar’s Tragedy.
* ↑ The Prince Palatine was not present at the representation of K. Henry VIII.' on the 30th of June O. S. when the Globe playhouse was burnt down, having left England some time before. But the play might have been revived for his entertainment in the beginning of the year 1613; and might have beeen occasionally represented afterwards.
* ↑ In support of this conjecture it may be observed that Ben Jonson has in many places endeavoured to ridicule our author for representing battles on the stage. So in his prologue to Every Man in his Humour: ———“ Yet ours for want, hath not so lov’d the stage, As he dare serve the ill customs of the age, Or purchase your delight at such a rate As, for it, he himself must justly hate; To make, &c.—————— ————————— or with three rusty swords, And help of some few foot and half-foot words, Fight over York and Lancaster’s long jars, And in the tyring house bring wounds to scars.” Again, in his Silent Woman, Act IV. sc. iv. “ Nay, I would sit out a play, that were nothing but fights at sea, drum, trumpet, and target.” We are told in the memoirs of Ben Jonson’s life, that he went to France in the year 1613. But at the time of the revival of King Henry VIII. he either had not left England, or was then returned; for he was a spectator of the fire which happened at the Globe theatre during the representation of that piece. [See the next note.] It may, perhaps, seem extraordinary, that he should have presumed to prefix this covert censure of Shakspeare, to one of his own plays. But he appears to have eagerly embraced every opportunity of depreciating him. This occasional prologue (whoever was the writer of it) confirms the tradition handed down by Rowe, that our author retired from the stage about three years before his death. Had he been at that time joined with Heminge and Burbage in the management of the Globe theatre, he scarcely would have suffered the lines above alluded to, to have been spoken. In lord Harrington’s account of the money disbursed for the plays that were exhibited by his majesty’s servants, in the year 1613, before the Elector Palatine, all the payments are said to have been made to “ John Heminge, for himself and the rest of his fellows;” from which we may conclude that he was then the principal manager. A correspondent, however, of Sir Thomas Puckering’s (as I learn from Mr. Tyrwhitt) in a Ms. letter, preserved in the Museum, and dated in the year 1613, calls the company at the Globe, “ Bourbage’s company”—Shakspeare’s name stands before either of these, in the licence granted by K. James; and had he not left London before that time, the players at the Globe theatre, I should imagine would rather have been entitled, his company.—The burlesque parody on the account of Falstaff’s death, which is contained in Fletcher’s’s comedy of the Captain, acted in 1613, and the ridicule of Hamlet’s celebrated soliloquy, and of Ophelia’s death, in his Scornful Lady, which was represented about the same time, confirm the tradition that our author had then retired from the stage, careless of the fate of his writings, inattentive to the illiberal attacks of his contemporaries, and negligent alike of present and posthumous fame.
* ↑ The Globe theatre (as I learn from the Mſſ. of Mr. Oldys) was thatched with reeds, and had an open area in its center. This area we may suppose to have been filled by the lowest part of the audience, whom Shakspeare calls the groundlings.—Chambers are not, like other guns, pointed horizontally, but are discharged as they stand erect on their breeches. The accident may, therefore, be easily accounted for. If these pieces were let off behind the scenes, the paper or wadding with which their charges were confined, would reach the thatch on the inside; or if fixed without the walls, it might have been carried by the wind to the top of the roof. This accident is alluded to, in the following lines of Ben Jonson’s Execration upon Vulcan, from which it appears, that he was at the Globe playhouse when it was burnt; a circumstance which in some measure strengthens the conjecture that he was employed on the revival of King Henry VIII. for this was not the theatre at which his pieces were usually represented: “ Well fare the wise men yet on the Bank-side, “ My friends, the watermen! they could provide “ Against thy fury, when, to serve their needs, “ They made a Vulcan of a sheaf of reeds; “ Whom they durst handle in their holy-day coats, “ And safely trust to dress, not burn their boats. “ But O those reeds! thy mere disdain of them “ Made thee beget that cruel stratagem, “ (Which some are pleas’d to style but thy mad prank) “ Against the Globe, the glory of the Bank : “ Which, though it were the fort of the whole parish, “ Flank’d with a ditch and forc’d out of a marish, “ I saw with two poor chambers taken in, “ And raz’d; ere thought could urge this might have been. “ See the world’s ruins! nothing but the piles “ Left, and wit since to cover it with tiles. “ The breth’ren, they straight nois’d it out for news, “ ’Twas verily some relick of the stews, “ And this a sparkle of that fire let loose, “ That was lock’d up in the Winchestrian goose, “ Bred on the Bank in time of popery, “ When Venus there maintain’d her mistery, “ But others fell, with that conceit, by the ears, “ And cried, it was a threat’ning to the bears, “ And that accursed ground, the Paris-garden, &c.”
* ↑ No other play with this title has come down to us. We have therefore a right to conclude that the play entered in the books of the Stationers’ company, was Shakspeare’s.
* ↑ “ The tragedy which I have undertaken to correct, was in all probability, one of his first endeavours on the stage.—Shakespeare (as I hinted) in the apprenticeship of his writing modelled it [the story of Lollius] into that play which is now called by the name of Troilus and Creſſida.”—Dryden’s pref. to Troilus and Creſſida.
* ↑ See Mr. Tyrwhitt’s note.
* ↑ Wilson’s Hist. of K. James, ad ann. 1603.
* ↑ In the last act of Cymbeline two sons are found. But the author might have written son on account of the rhyme.
* ↑ Additions to Langbaine’s Account of the Dramatick Poets. Ms.
* ↑ “ These two epistles, being so pertinent to our historie, I thought neceſſarie to translate.”—Bryt. Troy p. 211.
* ↑ Shakspeare has copied one of the paſſages in this old play. This he might have done, though we should suppose it not to have been published till after his K. Lear was written and acted; for the old play had been in poſſeſſion of the stage for many years before 1605.
* ↑ In Rex Platonicus it is called Lusiuncula.
* ↑ Ab ejusdem collegii alumnis (qui et cothurno tragico et socco comico principes semper habebantur) Vertumnus, comædia faceta, ad principes exhilarandos exhibetur. Rex Platonicus, p. 78. Arcadiam restauratam Isiacorum Arcadum lectiſſimi cecinerunt, unoque opere, principum omniumque spectantium animos immensa et ultra fidem affecerunt voluptate; simulque patrios ludiones, etsi exercitatiſſimos, quantum intersit inter scenam mercenariam & eruditam docuerunt, Ib. p. 228. See also the lines quoted above from the Return from Parnaſſus, and Act IV. Sc. iii. of that piece, which was acted publickly at St. John’s college in Cambridge.
* ↑ Macbeth, Act IV. Sc. i. ii.
* ↑ Mr. Upton was of opinion that this masque preceded Macbeth. But the only ground that he states for this conjecture, is, “that Jonson’s pride would not suffer him to borrow from Shakespeare, though he stole from the ancients.”
* ↑ In an advertisement prefixed to an edition of A Mad World my Masters, a comedy by Thomas Middleton, 1640, the printer says, that the author was “ long since dead.” Middleton probably died soon after the year 1616. He was chronologer to the city of London, and it does not appear that any masque or pageant, in honour of the Lord Mayor, was set forth by him after that year. From the dates of his printed plays and from the ensuing verses on his last performance, by Sir William Lower, we may conclude, that he was as early a writer, and at least as old, as Shakspeare: “ Tom Middleton his numerous iſſue brings, “ And his last muse delights us when she sings: “ His halting age a pleasure doth impart, “ And his white locks shew master of his art.” The following dramatick pieces by Middleton appear to have been published in his life-time.—Your Five Gallants, 1601.—Blurt Master Constable, or the Spaniard’s night Walke, 1602.—Michaelmas Term, 1607.—The Phænix, 1607.—The Family of Love, 1608.—A Trick to catch the Old One, 1608.—A Mad World my Masters, 1608.—The Roaring Girl, or Moll Cutpurse, 1611.—Fair Quarrel, 1617.—A Chaste Maid of Cheapside, 1620.—A Game at Cheſſe, 1625—Most of his other plays were printed, about thirty years after his death, by Kirkman and other booksellers, into whose hands his manuscripts fell.
* ↑ In a former note on this tragedy, I have said that the original edition contains only the two first words of the song in the 4th act, beginning——Black spirits, &c; but have lately discovered the entire stanza in an unpublished dramatic piece, viz. “ A Tragi-Coomodie called The Witch; long since acted by his Ma.ties Servants at the Black Friers; written by Tho. Middleton.” The song is there called—“ A charme-song, about a veſſell.” The other song omitted in the 5th scene of the 3d act of Macheth, together with the imperfect couplet there, may likewise be found, as follows, in Middleton’s performance.—The Hecate of Shakespeare, says:——— “ I am for the air, &c.” The Hecate of Middleton (who like the former is summoned away by aerial spirits) has the same declaration in almost the same words:——“ I am for aloft,” &c. “Song.] Come away, come away: $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ in the aire. “Heccat, Heccat, come away. “ Hec. I come, I come, I come, “ With all the speed I may, “ With all the speed I may, “ Wher’s Stadlin? “ Heere.] in the aire. “ Wher’s Puckle? “ Heere.] in the aire. “ And Hoppo too, and Hellwaine too, $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ in the aire. “ We lack but you, we lack but you: “ Come away, make up the count. “ Hec. I will but ’noynt, and then I mount. “ A spirit like a cat descends. $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ There's one comes downe to fetch his dues, $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ above A kiſſe, a coll, a sip of blood: And why thou staist so long “ I muse, I muse, “ Since the air’s so sweet and good. “Hec. Oh, art thou come? “ What newes, what newes?” “ All goes still to our delight, $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ above. “ Either come, or els Refuse, refuse. Hec.]Now I am furnish’d for the flight. Fire.] Hark, hark, the catt sings a brave treble in her owne language. Hec. going up]Now I goe, now I flie, “ Malkin my sweete spirit and I. “ Oh what a daintie pleasure ’tis “ To ride in the aire, “ When the moone shines faire “ And sing, and daunce, and toy and kiss! “ Over woods, high rocks and mountains, “ Over seas, our mistris’ fountains, “ Over sleepe towres and turrets, “ We fly by night ’mongst troopes of spiritts. “ No ring of bells to our cares founds, “ No howles of woolves, no yelpes of hounds; “ No, not the noyse of waters’-breache, “ Or cannons’ throat, our height can reache. “ No ring of bells, &c.] above. “ Fire.] Well mother, I thank your kindness: you must be gambolling i’ th’aire, and leave me to walk here, like a foole and a mortall. Exit. Finis Actus Tercii.” This Fire-stone, who occasionally interposes in the course of the dialogue, is called, in the list of Persons Represented,—“ The Clowne and Heccat’s son.” Again, the Hecate of Shakespeare says to her sisters:— “ I’ll charm the air to give a sound, “ While you perform your antique round, &c. [Musick. The witches dance and vanish.” The Hecate of Middleton says on a similar occasion:—————— “ Come, my sweete sisters, let the aire strike our tune, “ Whilst we shew reverence to yond peeping moone. [Here they dance and Exeunt.” In this play, the motives which incline the witches to mischief, their manners, the contents of their cauldron, &c. seem to have more than accidental resemblance to the same particulars in Macbeth. The hags of Middleton, like the weird sisters of Shakespeare, destroy cattle because they have been refused provisions at farm houses. The owl and the cat (Gray Malkin) give them notice when it is time to proceed on their several expeditions.—Thus Shakespeare’s Witch:— “ Harper cries;—’tis time, ’tis time,” Thus too the Hecate of Middleton:————— “ Hec.] Heard you the owle yet? “ Stad.] Briefely in the copps. “ Hec.] ’Tis high time for us then.” The Hecate of Shakespeare, addreſſing her sisters, observes, that Macbeth is but a wayward son, who loves for his own ends, not for them. The Hecate of Middleton has the same observation, when the youth who has been consulting her, retires:—————— “ I know he loves me not, nor there’s no hope on’t.” Instead of the greasse that’s sweaten from the murderer’s gibbet, and the finger of birth-strangled babe, the witches of Middleton employ “ the gristle of a man that hangs after sunset,” (i. e. of a murderer, for all other criminals were anciently cut down before evening) and the “ fat of an unbaptized child.” They likewise boast of the power to raise tempests that shall blow down trees, overthrow buildings, and occasion shipwreck; and, more particularly, that they can “ make miles of woods walk.” Here too the Grecian Hecate is degraded into a presiding witch, and exercised in superstitions peculiar to our own country. So much, for the scenes of enchantment; but even other parts of Middleton’s play coincide more than once with that of Shakespeare. Lady Macbeth says, in act II: “ ————— the surfeited grooms “ Do mock their charge with snores. I have drugg’d their poſſets.”————— So too Francisca in the piece of Middleton: “ —————they’re now all at rest, “ And Gasper there and all:—List!—fast asleepe; “ He cryes it hither.—I must disease you straight, Sir: “ For the maide-servants, and the girles o’ th’ house, “ I spic’d them lately with a drowsie poſſet, “ They will not hear in haste.”————— And Francisca, like lady Macbeth, is watching late at night to encourage the perpetration of a murder. The expreſſion which Shakespeare has put into the mouth of Macbeth, when he is sufficiently recollected to perceive that the dagger and the blood on it, were the creations of his own fancy, ———“ There’s no such thing”——is likewise appropriated to Francisca, when she undeceives her brother, whose imagination had been equally abused. From the instances already produced, perhaps the reader would allow, that if Middleton’s piece preceded Shakespeare’s, the originality of the magic introduced by the latter, might be fairly questioned; for our author (who as actor, and manager, had access to unpublished dramatic performances) has so often condescended to receive hints from his contemporaries, that our suspicion of his having been a copyist in the present instance, might not be without foundation. Nay, perhaps, a time may arrive, in which it will become evident from books and manuscripts yet undiscovered and unexamined, that Shakespeare never attempted a play on any argument, till the effect of the same story, or at least the ruling incidents in it, had been already tried on the stage, and familiarized to his audience. Let it be remembered, in support of this conjecture, that dramatic pieces on the following subjects,—viz. King John, King Richard II. and III. King Henry IV. and V. King Henry VIII. King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Measure for Measure, the Merchant of Venice, the Taming of a Shrew, and the Comedy of Errors,—had appeared before those of Shakespeare, and that he has taken somewhat from all of them that we have hitherto seen. I must observe at the same time, that Middleton, in his other dramas, is found to have borrowed little from the sentiments, and nothing from the fables of his predeceſſors. He is known to have written in concert with Jonson, Fletcher, Masinger, and Rowley; but appears to have been unacquainted, or at least unconnected, with Shakespeare. It is true that the date of The Witch cannot be ascertained. The author, however, in his dedication (to the truelie worthie and generously affected Thomas Holmes Esquire) observes, that he recovered this ignorant-ill-fated labour of his (from the play-house, I suppose) not without much difficultie. Witches (continues he) are, ipso facto, by the law condemn’d, and that onely, I think, hath made her lie so long in an imprison’d obscuritie. It is probable, therefore from these words, as well as from the title-page, that the play was written long before the dedication, which seems to have been added soon after the year 1603, when the act of K. James against witches paſſed into a law. If it be objected, that The Witch appears from this title-page to have been acted only by his majesty’s servants, let it be remembered that these were the very players who had been before in the service of the Queen; but Middleton, dedicating his work in the time of James, speaks of them only as dependants on the reigning prince. Here too it may be remarked, that the first dramatic piece in which Middleton is known to have had a hand, viz. The Old Law, was acted in 1599; so that The Witch might have been-composed, if not performed at an earlier period than the acceſſion of James to the crown; for the belief of witchcraft was sufficiently popular in the preceding reigns. The piece in question might likewise have been neglected through the caprice of players, or retarded till it could be known that James would permit such representations; (for on his arrival here, both authors and actors who should have ventured to bring the midnight mirth and jollity of witches on the stage, would probably have been indicted as favourers of magic and enchantment) or, it might have shrunk into obscurity after the appearance of Macbeth; or perhaps was forbidden by the command of the king. The witches of Shakespeare (exclusive of the flattering circumstance to which their prophecy alludes) are solemn in their operations, and therefore behaved in conformity to his majesty’s own opinions. On the contrary, the hags of Middleton are ludicrous in their conduct, and leſſen, by ridiculous combinations of images, the solemnity of that magic in which our scepter’d persecutor of old women most reverently and potently believed. The conclusion to Middleton’s dedication has likewise a degree of singularity that deserves notice.—“ For your sake alone, she hath thus conjur’d her self abroad; and beares no other charmes about her, but what may tend to your recreation; nor no other spell, but to poſſes you with a beleif, that as she, so he, that first taught her to enchant, will alwaies be, &c.”—“ He that taught her to enchant,” would have sufficiently expreſſed the obvious meaning of the writer, without aid from the word first, which seems to imply a covert censure on some person who had engaged his ‘‘Hecate’’ in a ‘‘secondary’’ course of witchcraft. The reader must have inferred from the specimen of incantation already given, that this MS. play (which was purchased by Major Peirson out of the collection of one Griffin, a player, and is in all probability the presentation copy) had indubitably paſſed through the hands of Sir William Davenant; for almost all the additions which he pretends to have made to the scenes of witchcraft in Macbeth (together with the names of the supplemental agents) are adopted from Middleton. It was not the interest therefore of Sir William, that this piece should ever appear in print: but time that makes important discoveries, has likewise brought his petty plagiarism to light. I should remark, that Sir W. D. has corrupted several words as well as proper names in the songs, &c. but it were needless to particularize his mistakes, as this entire tragi-comedy will hereafter be published for the satisfacton of the curious and intelligent readers of 'Shakespeare. Steevens.
* ↑ The Triumph of Health and Prosperity at the Inauguration of the most worthy Brother, the Right Hon. Cuthbert Hasket, draper; composed by Thomas Middleton, draper, 1626, 4to.
* ↑ That dramatic pieces were sometimes written long before they were printed, may be proved from the example of Marlowe’s Rich Jew of Malta, which was entered on the books of the Stationers’ company in the year 1594, but was not published till 1633, as we learn from the preface to it written by Heywood. It appears likewise from the same registers, that several plays were written, that were never published at all.
* ↑ The spelling in the MS. is sometimes more antiquated than any to be met with in the printed copies of Shakespeare, as the following instances may prove:—Byn for been—sollempnely for solemnly—dampnation for damnation—quight for quite—grizzel for gristle—doa for doe—ollyff for olive, &c.
* ↑ Sir William Davenant might likewise have formed his play of Albovine King of Lombardy on some of the tragic scenes in this unpublished piece by Middleton. Yet the chief circumstances on which they are both founded, occur in the fourth volume of the Histoires Tragiques, &c. par François de Belle-forest, 1580, p. 297, and at the beginning of Machiavel’s Florentine History. Steevens.
* ↑ From a paſſage in a tract written by Sir John Harrington, entitled The Metamorphoses of Ajax, 1596, this old play appears to have been printed before that year, though no edition of so early a date has hitherto been discovered. “ Read the booke of Taming a Shrew, which hath made a number of us so perfect, that now every one can rule a shrew in our country, save he that hath hir.”
* ↑ “ This is a way to kill a wife with kindness.” The Taming of the Shrew. Act IV. Sc. i.
* ↑ See a note on Julius Cæsar, Act I. Sc. i. in which they are enumerated.
* ↑ This play, as appears by the title-page, was privately acted by the students of Trinity College in Oxford. In the running title it is called The Tragedy of Julius Cæsar; perhaps the better to impose it on the publick for the performance of Shakspeare.
* ↑ The following passages in Antony and Cleopatra, (and others of the same kind may perhaps be found) seem to me to discover such a knowledge of the appropriated characters of the persons exhibited hibited in Julius Cæsar, and of the events there dilated and enlarged upon, as Shakspeare would necessarily have acquired from having previously written a play on that subject: Pompey. ——— “I do not know Wherefore my father should revengen want, Having a son and friends, since Julius Cæsar, Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted, There saw you labouring for him. What was’t That mov’d pale Cassius to conspire? And what Made all-honour'd, honest, Roman Brutus, With the arm’d rest, courtiers of beauteous freedom, To drench the capitol, but that they would Have one man but a man?” So, in another place, “When Antony found Julius Cæsar dead, He cry’d almost to roaring; and he wept When at Philippi he found Brutus slain.” Again, Ant. He at Philippi kept His sword ev’n like a dancer, while I struck The lean and wrinkled Casiius; and ’twas I That the mad Brutus ended.”
* ↑ “Nor fire nor cank’ring age, as Naso said Of his, thy wit-fraught book shall once invade: Nor shall I e’er believe or think thee dead (Though miss’d) untill our bankrout stage be sped (Impossible!) with some new strain, t’out do Passions of Juliet and her Romeo; Or till I hear a scene more nobly take Than when thy half-sword-parlying Romans spake.” Verses by L. Digges, prefixed to the first edition of our author’s plays, in 1623.
* ↑ By a similar figure these children are in Hamlet called “little Eyases.”——
* ↑ “New titles warrant not a play for new, The subject being old; and ’tis as true, Fresh and neat matter may with ease be fram’d Out of their stories that have oft been nam’d With glory on the stage. What borrows he From him that wrought old Priam’s tragedy, That writes his love for Hecuba? Sure to tell Of Cæsar’s amorous heats, and how he fell In the Capitol, can never be the same To the judicious.” Prologue to the False One.
* ↑ This tragedy (as I learn from a Ms. of Mr. Oldys) was formerly in the possession of John Warburton, Esq. Somerset Herald. It had no author’s name to it, when it was licensed, but was afterwards ascribed to George Chapman, whose name is erased by another hand, and that of Shakspeare inserted.
* ↑ See Dr. Farmer’s Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare.
* ↑ Ante No. 31.
* ↑ Ante p. 324.
* ↑ "I may quarter, coz," says Slender in the Merry Wives of Windsor. "You may (replies justice Shallow) by marrying.
* ↑ Ms. Vertue.
* ↑ Perhaps it was formerly an established custom to have plays represented at court in the Christmas holydays, and particularly on Twelft Night. Two of Lilly’s comedies (Alexander and Campaspe, 1591—and Mydas, 1592) are said in their title pages, to have been played befoore the queenes majestie on Twelfe-day at night; and several of Ben Jonson’s masques were presented at Whitehall, on the same festival. Our author’s Love’s Labour Lost was exhibited before queen Elizabeth in the Christmas holy-days; and his King Lear was acted before king James on St. Stephen’s night; (the night after Christmas-day.)
* ↑   “Let greatness of her gladly scepters vaunt, Not scepters, no but reeds, soon bruis’d, soon broken. And let this worldly pomp our wits enchant, All fades, and scarcely leaves behind a token. Those golden palaces, those gorgeous halls, With furniture superfluously fair, Thofe stately courts, those sky-encount’ring walls, Evanish all like vapours in the air.” Darius, Act. III. Ed. 1603.   ———“These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air; And, like the baseless fabrick of this vsion, The cloud-capt tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And like this unsubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind.Tempest, Act IV. Sc. i. Whether we suppose Shakspeare to have imitated lord Sterline, or lord Sterline to have borrowed from him, the fourth line above quoted from the tragedy of Darius, renders it highly probable that Shakspeare wrote, (as Sir Thomas Hanmer conjectured,) “Leave not a track behind.”
* ↑ See a note on Julius Cæsar, Act I. Sc. i.
* ↑ Observations on the Tempest, p. 67. Mr. Holt imagined, that lord Essex was united to lady Frances Howard in 1610; but he was mistaken: their union did not take place till the next year.
* ↑ Jan. 5, 1606–7. The earl continued abroad four years from that time; so that he did not cohabit with his wife till 1611.
* ↑ “Nay, if you be an undertaker I am for you.” See Twelfth Night, Act IV. Sc. iii. and the note there.
* ↑ Comm. Journ. Vol. I. p. 456, 457, 470.
* ↑ The comedies particularly alluded to, are, Love’s Labour Lost, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Comedy of Errors.
* ↑ See the first note on Twelfth Night, Actt I. Sc. i.
* ↑ “A comical satyre of Every Man out of his Humour,” was entered on the Stationers’ books, by John Helme, in the year 1600; and the piece was, I suppose, then published, for several passages of it are found in a miscellaneous collection of poetry, entitled England’s Parnassus, printed in that year.
Footnotes