form a basis for higher investigations. The anatomy of each, and the comparative physiology of dramatic authors as a class, have yet to be given, and then the crowning work, the life history of our greatest men, as shown in their writings, their dynamical psychology, will become possible, which (with all deference to the metaphysical critics who have wasted their great acumen by beginning at the wrong end) it has not yet been and could not yet be. NOTE ON "TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA." [No result of my investigations appears to have been so unfavourably received as the date I have assigned to The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Professor Ward, for instance (a most judicious and accurate critic), expresses himself strongly adverse to it. Yet on carefully examining his own views he seems substantially to agree with me. I as well as he believe that The Two Gentlemen was anterior to our present versions of Love's Labour's Lost, Midsummer Night's Dream, and Richard II.-that is to say, to the revised, emended, altered, augmented versions published by Shakespeare; just as I believe King John, as we have it, to have been anterior to the revised Richard II. But in speaking of the dates of production of plays, I speak of their original performance, not their subsequent alteration for the press or for a second run at the theatres. No one, as far as I know, when discussing the date of The Merry Wives of Windsor ever speaks of the Folio version (probably made 1605), but of the first sketch as in the Quarto (probably made 1598). There is little doubt that all Shakespeare's plays were amended in this way. know it to be true of a large proportion of them. We It may be well, however, in order to clear up this point, to show here the relation that his alterations bear to the Quarto editions, All Quartos (with the possible exception of Quarto I of Romeo and Juliet) issued up to the date of 1600 were authorized, and in my opinion superintended, by Shakespeare himself. All after 1600 were unquestionably surreptitious. The dividing point is found in the entry of August 4, where As You Like It, Henry V., and Much Ado 66 about Nothing, appear without name of enterer. At the beginning of the register is a rough note that these three plays were to be stayed;" As You Like It was apparently stayed accordingly. Henry V. appeared afterwards in a surreptitious edition of Pavier's; but Much Ado was allowed and published by the firm who had hitherto published all the other authorized Quartos of the histories. For what reason they did not also publish the other comedies does not appear. But this we know that excepting the surreptitious Henry V. every play printed in Quarto before 1600 was admitted as an authentic copy by the Folio editors. For even in the case of Richard III., whoever made the Folio alterations made them on a copy of the third Quarto, and in all other cases they used this Quarto as copy to reprint from. In every case then of Quartos issued up to 1600 we may depend on having Shakespeare's authorized version of the play. Now it is very singular that the list of such authorized Quartos coincides in extent of time precisely with Meres' list of plays up to 1598, if we admit Mr. Brae's identification of Much Ado with Love's Labour's Won; and had The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona,1 and King John,' been edited, the two lists would have been identical, play for play. But as these were not re-written, we must expect them to appear immature and out of chronological position when compared with the other plays that had the advantage of adaptation in accordance with Shakespeare's more matured experience. F. G. FLEAY, January 1, 1876.] These three plays, it will be observed, fall among the last nine in the Table, p. 259. LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. CHAPTER XII. PERSONAL SATIRE COMMON ON THE OLD It has always IT has long been known that in certain instances, such as the quarrel between Jonson, Marston, and Dekker, the Elizabethan playwrights represented individual characters on the stage under fictitious names. Thus Jonson in his Poetaster ridiculed Marston as Crispinus and Dekker as Demetrius; Marston in his What You Will indicated himself by Lampatho Doria, and Jonson by Quadratus ; Dekker in his Satiromastix retaliated on Jonson under the character of Horace. But the extent to which this "taxing of private parties" was carried has never yet been fully recognised. been supposed that such instances as are mentioned above are exceptional: that the absence of private satire is as marked as that of political allusions; that just as any hint, however slight, to the effect that the government of the country was mismanaged was instantly repressed, and the players of the obnoxious drama silenced, so abuse directed towards individuals was, either by the authority of the Chamberlain or the influence of public opinion, generally banished from the stage. I am however prepared to show that in various plays the characters of private persons were attacked, their works ridiculed, incidents of their career, true, or supposed to be so, held up for animadversion, and personalities generally indulged in that could hardly be rivalled on the Athenian stage or in the lowest class of modern newspapers. Among these plays one is conspicuous; and as it has lately been introduced into Dodsley's Collection, and has been prolific in errors through the prevalent habit of taking Malone's dicta as proven without further investigation, it specially commends itself to our notice. This play is called Wily Beguiled. Its plot is very simple. The hand of Lelia the heroine, daughter of Gripe the usurer, is sought by three suitors, Sophos a scholar, Churms a lawyer, and Peter Plodall a farmer's son. The last of these is favoured by Gripe because he has land and is rich; the scholar is forbidden his house on account of his poverty: and the lawyer seeks to further his own ends while pretending to assist Gripe in his. Fortunatus, Lelia's brother, who has been away in the wars, returns in the nick of time to frustrate Churm's plans and procure the marriage of Sophos with Lelia. Peter Plodall is discomfited as well as Churms, and his hireling Robin Goodfellow, who has attempted to frighten Sophos in a devil's accoutrements, comes in for a good thrashing. There is also an underplot, in which a match takes place between Peg Pudding the daughter of Lelia's nurse, and Will Cricket the son of one of old Plodall's tenants. I will now try to show that these characters have all special satirical significations, and that under this plot events then recent are figured and caricatured. First then, who is Churms the "Wily" lawyer who is "Beguiled" in this play? He describes himself thus. "I have been at Cambridge a scholar, at Cales a soldier, and now in the country a lawyer, and the next degree shall be a coney catcher." This at once points to Thomas Lodge, who after taking his degree served in the army, travelled, and became a member of Gray's Inn. But on looking into the Prologue all uncertainty is removed : for in it "Prologue" having ascertained from the placard on the curtain that the play to be performed is Spectrum, “a looking-glass,” which he characterises as a history "Of base conceits and damned roguery, The very sink of hell-bred villany," bids a "Juggler" tell the players' fiery poet that "before I have done with him I'll make him do penance on a stage in a calf-skin." The Juggler then "conveys" Spectrum away, and Wily Beguiled stands in its place. Prologue then says, "Go to that barm-froth poet and to him say, He quite hath lost the title of his play; His calf-skin jests from hence are quite exiled: This identifies Wily with the author of The Looking Glass for London which was chiefly written by Lodge, Robert Greene having also a hand in it, and at the same time prepares us to find in Wily Beguiled a mirror held up if not to Nature, yet to the theatrical events of the time. The "calf-skin jests" allude to the 14th scene of the Looking Glass, where "a man in devil's attire" is beaten by Adam : a wretched scene. This is parodied in the beating of Robin in our play, while he is in like manner dressed in calf-skin to represent a fiend. Having then identified the knavish lawyer with Lodge, we naturally expect to find other dramatic authors among the characters. Some of these are easy to identify: for example, this passage, "For Sophos let him wear the willow garland, And pluck his hat down in his sullen eyes," at once shows that Sophos is Marston the author of the Malcontent : the very name Robin Goodfellow identifies that character with Henry Chettle, whose play under that title was produced in 1602. Fortunatus in like manner is Dekker, the author of Old Fortunatus, 1595. The Dutch cobbler mentioned in the play I shall show by and by to be Michael Drayton: Tom Shoemaker, "who was constable of the town," is I think Thomas Middleton; the gentlemanusher similarly alluded to must of course be Chapman; and young Plodall the low-born peasant, the slow lout, is I fear Ben Jonson, whose tardiness in producing the promised Apology for the Poetaster is also alluded to in the words “as long as Hunks with the great head has been about to show his little wit in the second part of his paltry poetry." Next as to the female characters. I have ascertained by induction from several plays of this class, that when a lover indicates a dramatic author, his mistress signifies the company of players for whom he writes, her father is the manager of the company, and marriage signifies his binding himself to write for them. Lelia in this instance must be the Prince's (or Admiral's if before 1602) company |