for Measure, All's Well that Ends Well, and other plays. It was acted by the Revells Children between 1607 and 1611, probably not so near the later date, when it was published, as the former.

The Dumb Knight, by Lewis Machin and Gervase Markham, acted by the Revells Children, and published 1608, in addition to indirect allusions to and parodies on Lear, Merry Wives of Windsor, Othello, Macbeth, as well as earlier plays, contains this passage :—

"A book that never an orator's clerk in this kingdom but is beholden unto; it is called Maids' Philosophy, or Venus and Adonis.” If the character of Alphonso is imitated from Iachimo, Cymbeline cannot be later than 1608; but I think this not likely.

Another play filled with allusions to Shakespeare is the Puritan, by W. S., 1607, acted by the Paul's Children; for instance :—

"Instead of a jester we'll have the ghost in a white sheet set at the upper end of the table."

Macbeth was the first of Shakespeare's plays that had no jester in it.

Act iv. Sc. 3 is distinctly imitated from Pericles, iii. 2, which fixes the date of that play as not later than 1607.

Richard III., i. 2, 33.

66

Compare also

Pyeboard. Let me entreat the corpse to be set down. Sheriff. Bearers, set down the coffin. This were wonderful and worthy Stowe's Chronicle.

Pye. I pray bestow the freedom of the air upon our wholesome art. Mass! His cheeks begin to receive natural warmth. .. 0, he stirs, he stirs again; look, gentlemen! he recovers, he starts, he rises.

Sher. O, O defend us! out, alas !

Pye. Nay; pray be still; you'll make him more giddy else. He knows nobody yet.

Oath.

Zounds, where am I? Covered with snow! I marvel. Pye. Nay; I knew he would swear the first thing, &c. &c.”

In comparing Pericles, note that Thaisa says, "O, dear Diana! Where am I?" on awaking.

Locrine, 1595, edited by W. S., is a remarkable play; it contains allusions to, parodies on lines in, or the lines themselves borrowed

from, the plays of Peele, Greene, and Marlowe ; the so-called plays of Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, Henry VI., and Richard III.; Kyd's Jeronimo and other old dramas. But in no instance can I trace any allusion to any undoubted play of Shakespeare. The wooing of Eshild, Act iv. Sc. I, seems to be imitated from Richard III., i. 2. and

echoes

"Methinks I see both armies in the field,"

"I think there be six Richmonds in the field."

If this be so, Richard III. cannot have been written later than 1595, which agrees with the date I give to it.

Here we must leave this subject, not from deficiency of material, but because a fuller exposition of the question would require a volume, and is unfit for an elementary treatise. We next proceed to consider Shakespeare's plays individually as regards-I, their authenticity; 2, the origin of their plots; 3, the date of their production; 4, miscellaneous observations which do not fall under the above headings. Throughout the next chapter the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, refer to the headings now enumerated.

I take the plays in their chronological order as nearly as it can be ascertained; this being the natural order for study or investigation of any writer whose development we care to become acquainted with; and therefore I prefix a table of the time-succession of Shakespeare's works. The reasons for the order will be found under the heads of each play.

Approximate Chronological Table of the production of Shakespeare's
1-15 1
Works.

1588-Venus and Adonis.

1589-Taming of a Shrew (part).
Corambis Hamlet (part)

i. 1591-Love's Labour's Lost (revised 1597).

Love's Labour's Won..

ii. 1592-Comedy of Errors.

Midsummer Night's Dream (revised 1599).

iii.

vi.

vii.

viii.

ix.

X.

xi.

Richard II. (revised 1597).

Troilus and Cressida and Twelfth Night (begun).

1595-Two Gentlemen of Verona (completed).

Richard III. (quarto).

? Scene in I Henry VI.

John.

Ала

1596-Romeo and Juliet (first revision). entiv

1604-All's Well that Ends Well (re-written). 3

xxiv.

I.-LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.

1. Certainly Shakespeare's.

2. Origin unknown.

3. Dated by Drake and Delius (rightly) 1591; Chalmers, 1592; Malone, 1594. It was printed in 1598, as "presented before her highness [Queen Elizabeth] last Christmas (1597), and newly corrected and augmented." Among the added parts are probably, i. 2, 171-192; iii. 1, 166—207; iv. 3, 1—25; v. 2, 575–590; 726— 833; 847-879; and the corrected parts, i. 1, 1—48; ii. 1, 1—177; iv. 1, 1—12; iv. 3, 290—380; v. 2, I-40. The conceit of A-jax and ajakes being perhaps taken from Harrington's Metamorphosis of Ajax, 1596 (cf. v. 2, 579), and "the first and second cause, passado, duello," &c., alluding to Saviolo's Treatise of Honour and Honourable Quarrels, 1595 (cf. i. 2, 184).

4. Berowne and Rosaline in this play are first sketches of Benedick and Bettris in Much Ado About Nothing. There was a companion play called Love's Labour's Won, mentioned by Meres, but not extant. This is generally, and no doubt rightly, considered to have been the nucleus of All's Well that Ends Well. Mr. Brae inclines to Much Ado About Nothing: I think as good a case as his could be made out for Twelfth Night or for several other plays of Shakespeare's. The title is alluded to in Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act. i. Sc. 1, 6.

II. COMEDY OF ERRORS.

1. Undoubtedly Shakespeare's (though all the doggrel lines are suspected by Ritson).

2. Taken from the Menæchmi of Plautus; in great part of the plot. There is a translation of this comedy by W[illiam] W[arner], 1595. From the last line of the prologue to this, "Much pleasant, error ere they meet together," Shakespeare may have taken his title ;