STATE OF THE TEXT, AND CHRONOLOGY, OF MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

THIS comedy was first printed in the folio collection of 1623, and there had been no previous claim to the right of printing it made by any entry in the registers of the Stationers' Company. We are very much inclined to think, from the state of the original text, that the editors of the first folio possessed no copy but that from which they printed. Some of the sentences throughout the play are so involved that they have very little the appearance of being taken from a copy which had been used by the actors; and in two cases a word is found in the text (prenzie) which could never have been given upon the stage, and appears to have been inserted by the printer in despair of deciphering the author's manuscript. On the other hand, the metrical arrangement, which has been called "rough, redundant, and irregular," was strictly copied, we have no doubt, from the author's original; for a printer does not mistake the beginnings and ends of blank-verse lines, although little attention might be paid to such matters in a prompter's book. The peculiar structure

of the versification in this comedy was, we are satisfied, the result of the author's system; and, from the integrity with which it has been preserved in the first edition, we believe that the original manuscript passed directly through the hands of the printer, who made the best of it without any reference to other copies. The original edition is divided into acts and scenes. It also gives the enumeration of characters as we have printed them, such a list of "the names of the actors," as we have before observed, being rarely presented in the early copies.

We cannot trace that any allusion to Measure for Measure is to be found in the works of Shakspere's contemporaries. There is, indeed, a passage in a poem, published in 1607, which conveys the same idea as a passage in Measure for Measure :

"And like as when some sudden extasy

Seizeth the nature of a sickly man;

When he's discern'd to swoon, straight by and bye
Folk to his help confusedly have ran,

And seeking with their art to fetch him back,

So many throng, that he the air doth lack."

(' Myrrha, the Mother of Adonis,' by William Barksted.)

The following is the parallel passage in the comedy :

"So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons ;
Come all to help him, and so stop the air

By which he should revive."

Malone says of this coincidence, "That Measure for Measure was 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 hir Venus and Adonis.”* This reasoning is to us not at all conclusive; for Shakspere would not have hesitated to compress the six lines of Barksted into his own dramatic three; or the image might have been derived from some common source. Such coincidences prove nothing in themselves. In the other arguments of Malone as to the date of this play, which he assigns to 1603, we have an utter absence of all proof. The Duke says

"I love the people,

But do not like to stage me to their eyes."

James I., according to Malone, is the model of this dislike of popular applause; and the passage is an apology for his proclamation of 1603, forbidding the people to resort to him. The expres sion in the first act, "Heaven grant us his peace," alludes, says Malone, to the war with Spain, which was not terminated till 1604. The Clown's enumeration of his old friends, the prisoners, includes "Master Starve-lackey the rapier and dagger-man, young Drop-heir that killed lusty Pudding, master Forthright the tilter, and wild Half-can that stabbed Pots:" and so the poet must have had in view the Act of the first of James against such offenders, and the play and "the statute on stabbing" must be dated in the same year. Chalmers carries this laborious trifling even farther, stoutly contending for the date of 1604: the assertion of the Clown, that "all houses in the suburbs must be plucked down," is held by Chalmers to allude to the proclamation of 1604 against the increase of London; and the complaint of Claudio, that "the ne glected act" is enforced against him, is held to allude to "the statute to restrain all persons from marriage, until their former wives, and former husbands, be dead," passed on the 7th of July, 1604.

Conjectures such as these are too often laborious trifling. But, for once, they are pretty nearly borne out by incontrovertible testimony. The perseverance of Mr. Peter Cunningham has been rewarded by discovering in the Audit Office certain passages in the original Office Books of the Masters and Yeomen of the Revels, which fix the date of the representation at Court of some of Shakspere's plays. The Office Book shows that 'Measure for Measure' was presented at Court by the King's Players in 1604; and "The Accompte of the Office of the Reuelles of this whole yeres Charge in An° 1604 untell the last of Octobar 1605," is preceded by the following very curious list of plays acted during that period :—

Hallamas Day being the first of Nouembar A play in the Banket-
inge house att Whitball called The Moor of Venis.

The Sunday ffollowinge A Play of the Merry Wiues of Winsor.
On St. Stiuens Night in the Hall A Play called Mesur for Mesur.
On St. Jhons Night A Maske wth musick presented by the Erl of
Penbrok the Lord Willowbie & 6 Knights more of ye Court.
On Inosents Night The Plaie of Errors.

On Sunday ffollowinge A plaie How to larne of a woman to wooe.
On Newers Night A playe cauled: All Fouelles.

Betwin Newers Day and Twelfe day A Play of Loues Labours Lost.
On Twelfe Night The Queens Matis Maske of Moures wh Aleven
Laydies of honnor to accupayney her matie wch cam in great showes
of devises wch thay satt in wth exselent musike.

On the 7 of January was played the play of Henry the fift.
The 8 of January A play cauled Every on out of his Umor.
On Candelmas night A playe Every one in his Umor.

The Poets wch mayd the plates.

Shaxberd.

Shaxberd.
Hewood.

By Georg Chapman.

By his Matis plaiers.

By his Matis plaiers.

On Shroumonday A Tragidye of The Spanish Maz.

By his Matis plaiers.

On Shroutusday A play cauled The Martchant of Venis againe comanded by the Kings Matie.

The Sunday ffollowing A playe provided and discharged.

Shaxberd.

Nothing can be a stronger evidence of the surpassing popularity of Shakspere than this list. This account was published in 1842 by "the Shakespeare Society," in a volume edited by Mr. Peter Cunningham, and which is highly creditable to his industry and knowledge.

SUPPOSED SOURCE OF THE PLOT.

THE Promos and Cassandra of George Whetstone, printed in 1578, but not acted, was, there can be no doubt, the foundation upon which Shakspere built his Measure for Measure. Whetstone tells us in a subsequent work that he constructed his play upon a novel of Giraldi Cinthio, of which he gives us a translation; observing, "this history, for rareness thereof, is livelily set out in a comedy by the reporter of the work, but yet never presented upon stage." Without entering into a minute comparison of the conduct of the story by Whetstone and by Shakspere, it may be sufficient to give the elder poet's "argument of the whole history."

"In the city of Julio (sometime under the dominion of Corvinus king of Hungary and Bohemia) there was a law, that what man soever committed adultery should lose his head, and the woman offender should wear some disguised apparel during her life, to make her infamously noted. This severe law, by the favour of some merciful magistrate, became little regarded, until the time of Lord Promos' authority, who, convicting a young gentleman named Andrugio of incontinency, condemned both him and his minion to the execution of this statute. Andrugio had a very virtuous and beautiful gentlewoman to his sister, named Cassandra Cassandra, to enlarge her brother's life, submitted an humble petition to the Lord Promos. Promos, regarding her good behaviour and fantasying her great beauty, was much delighted with the sweet order of her talk, and, doing good that evil might come thereof, for a time he reprieved her brother; but, wicked man, turning his liking into unlawful lust, he set down the spoil of her honour ransom for her brother's life. Chaste Cassandra, abhorring both him and his suit, by no persuasion would yield to this ransom. But, in fine, won with the importunity of her brother (pleading for life), upon these conditions she agreed to Promos-first, that he should pardon her brother, and after marry her. Promos, as fearless in promise as careless in performance, with solemn vow signed her conditions; but, worse than any infidel, his will satisfied, he performed neither the one nor the other; for, to keep his authority unspotted with favour, and to prevent Cassandra's clamours, he commanded the gaoler secretly to present Cassandra with her brother's head. The gaoler, with the outcries of Andrugio, abhorring Promos' lewdness, by the providence of God provided thus for his safety. He presented Cassandra with a felon's head, newly executed, who (being mangled, knew it not from her brother's, who by the gaoler was set at liberty) was so aggrieved at this treachery, that, at the point to kill herself, she spared that stroke to be avenged of Promos; and devising a way, she concluded to make her fortunes known unto the king. She (executing this resolution, was so highly favoured of the king, that forthwith he hasted to do justice on Promos; whose judg ment was to marry Cassandra, to repair her crased honour; which done, for his heinous offence he should lose his head. This marriage solemnised, Cassandra, tied in the greatest bonds of affection to her husband, became an earnest suitor for his life. The king (tendering the general benefit of the commonweal before her *Heptameron of Civil Discourses,' 1582. Annals of the Stage,' vol. iii. p. 64.

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