3. I have tried to show that these three portions were written at different dates about 1594, 1595, and 1607. The whole play was printed in 1608 as never having been acted. Thersites is referred to in Cymbeline "Thersites' body is as good as Ajax When neither are alive."-Act iv. Sc. 2, 1. 252. This scene in Cymbeline I assign to 1607-8, which agrees with my date for Troylus; which Malone places in 1602, on account of an entry in the Stationers' books, referring, not to the play of 1599 by Dekker and Chettle, but to one acted by the Chamberlain's men; and there is a reference to the story of Troylus and Cressida in the comedy of Histriomastix, which seems to imply that Shakespeare had written some play on this subject before Elizabeth's death: she is spoken of as alive in the last Act. 66 Troy. Come Cressida, my cresset light, Thy face doth shine both day and night. Thy knight his valiant elbow wears, May lay him down in death to snort. Here take my skreene, wear it for grace; Therewith to make thy enemies lame." glove in the Was the play This surely refers to the changing of sleeve and play in direct connexion with Shakespeare's name. by him, not containing the Thersites and Achilles part, exhibited soon after 1595? Troylus is referred to in Much Ado about Nothing (1599) as the first employer of Pandars. I cannot hesitate on this matter. Shakespeare's play in its first form was exhibited before 1599, probably in 1597. 4. The love part of this play is a pendant to Romeo and Juliet; Pandarus should be compared with the Nurse. XXX. PERICLES. I. First two Acts and Gower throughout unquestionably by Wilkins, who founded a novel on this play afterwards. The brothel scenes in Act iv. Sc. 5 and 6 by Rowley, I think; S. Walker says by Dekker, who did not write for the King's Company. Acts iii., iv., v., with these omissions, by Shakespeare. The play put together by Wilkins. 2. Founded on a novel by T. Twine, The Patterne of Painful Adventures, &c., that befell unto Prince Appolonius, the Lady Lucina his wife, and Tharsia his daughter, &c., re-published in 1607, entered in 1576. Gower tells the story in Confessio Amantis 1554. The play follows this version sometimes. The Gesta Romanorum story (nearly the same) does not seem to have been used. 3. Certainly before 2 May, 1608, when it was entered; probably before the re-publishing of Twine's novel in 1607. I should date 1607. Delius tells me that he prefers 1608. 4. The Shakespeare part should be carefully compared with the corresponding stories in Cymbeline and Winter's Tale, especially the latter, in which the same extraordinary lapse of time is permitted between the Acts. This play and Rowley's New Wonder, and Marston's Insatiate Countess, are probably the three most incorrectly printed plays in the language. The beginning of the Shakespeare part, Act iii. Sc. I, should be compared with the opening of The Tempest. Restorations to life after apparent death occur in Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado about Nothing, Cymbeline, and Winter's Tale. XXXI.-ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA. 1. Undoubted. 2. Founded on Plutarch's Life of Marcus Antonius. 3. Dated unanimously early in 1608. XXXII.-CORIOLANUS. 1. Undoubted. 2. Founded on Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus. 3. Usually dated 1609-10; I prefer 1609. Menenius' fable (Act i. Sc. 1) is taken from Camden's Remaines (1605), and not from North's Plutarch. The play must have been written before 1612 for this reason; Mr. Halliwell has found that in every edition of North's Plutarch up to 1603 "unfortunately" is printed for "unfortunate" in the passage corresponding to Act v. Sc. 1, 1. 98. This is an evident misprint, as it spoils the meaning. Shakespeare corrected it, and wrote "unfortunate," which was adopted in the 1612 edition of North's Plutarch. As to Shakespeare's own copy being the one in the Greenock library dated 1612, if it was so he must have used another. He did not write Julius Cæsar after that date. XXXIII. THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. 1. Written by Shakespeare and Fletcher as stated in the Quarto of 1634. Shakespeare's part consists of Act i.; Act iii. Sc. 1, 2; Act v. Sc. 1, 3, 4. 2. Founded on the Knight's Tale of Chaucer.. 3. The date of Shakespeare's share I fix from internal evidence as 1609; that of Fletcher's completion of the play is probably the same as that of his finishing Henry VIII. 1613. XXXIV.-CYMBELINE. 1. The wretched vision in Act vi. Sc. 4 cannot be Shakespeare's; the rest of the scene is also doubtful. 2. Dated by Drake, 1605; Chalmers, 1606; Malone, 1609; Delius, 1610. Some scenes are probably earlier, about 1607-8; for the rest, Delius is probably right, or nearly so. The name Leonatus is from Sidney's Arcadia, which Shakespeare used for his Lear. The story of Cymbeline in Holinshed is near that of Lear and that of Macbeth; and the story of Hay and his sons staying his country. men in a lane in a battle against the Danes is near that of Macbeth in Holinshed's Chronicle of Scotland. Shakespeare, therefore, probably wrote Lear, Macbeth, and Cymbeline nearly at the same time. There is also an allusion to Cleopatra's sailing on the Cydnus to meet Anthony; he had therefore been reading for the play of Anthony and Cleopatra. The character of Imogen is distinctly imitated in the Euphrasia of Beaumont's Philaster (dated by Dyce 1608, possibly 1610-11). Compare also : with "I hear the tread of people; I am hurt : The gods take part against me, could this boor Philaster iv. I. "I have bely'd a lady, The princess of this country; and the air of 't Cymbeline iv. 2. I date the play as completed 1609-10, after Coriolanus, Lear, Macbeth, and Anthony and Cleopatra. 3. Founded on Holinshed's Chronicles and a novel of Boccaccio (Day 11, Novel 9). The story is also found in Westward for Smelts (1603). The scenes containing the story of Bellario and Imogen's flight I assign to an earlier date than the rest of the play; the whole of the scenes with Iachimo are certainly of the later date (1609-10 ?). 4. The date of the commencement of the play is A.D. 16, Cymbeline's 24th year of reigning, Augustus' 42nd, XXXV.-THE TEMPEST. 1. The masque in Act iv. Sc. 1 has been considered by the Cambridge editors an insertion, like the vision in Cymbeline. 2, 3. The pamphlet describing the tempest of July 1609, which dispersed the fleet of Sir George Somers and Sir Thomas Gates, in which the Admiral-ship was wrecked on the island of Bermuda, was published in December 1609, or January 1609-10. The narrative of Jourdan, in which "the Bermudas" is called the Isle of Devils, is dated 13 October, 1610. The True Declaration of the Councill of Virginia was also published in 1610. Shakespeare's play was produced either late in 1610 or early in 1611. There can be no doubt of the play having been founded on these narratives. (See Malone's essay in Variorum Shakspeare, 1821.) 4. This is one of the plays that observes the unity of time. Mr. Staunton conjectured that one of the characters at least (the Duke of Milan's son, Act i. Sc. 2, 1. 438) is lost. He thought that each player had a property in his own part, and that sometimes all the parts could not be bought up by the publishers. The play is certainly very short, only 2,068 lines, the average being 3,000; and it is strange that this character of the Duke's son is not brought on the stage. Perhaps Francisco is what is left of him. The pronunciation of Stephano (pronounced Stephano in the Merchant of Venice 1596) was probably learned from Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humour (1598), in which Shakespeare acted. Compare with this in Cymbeline, Act iv. Sc. 2, the proparoxyton pronunciation of Posthumus. XXXVI.-WINTER'S TALE. 1. Undoubted. 2. Founded on Greene's Dorastus and Fawnia (1588). 3. Dated 1610-11. Mentioned in Sir Henry Herbert's Office Book as an olde playe called Winter's Tale, formerly allowed of by |