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It is extremely probable that this 4th of Auguft was of the year 1600; which standing a little higher on the paper, the clerk of the Stationers' company might have thought unneceffary to be repeated. All the plays which were entered with As You Like it, and are here faid to be ftaied, 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 publifhed in the fame year. So, Much Ado about Nothing, was entered Auguft 23, 1600, and printed also in that year: and Every Man in his Humour was published in 1601.

Shakspeare, it is faid, played the part of Adam in As You Like It. As he was not eminent on the ftage, it is probable that he ceased to act some years before he retired to the country. His appearance, however, in this comedy, is not inconfiftent with the date here affigned; for we know that he performed a part in Jonfon'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, after the two parts of K Henry IV. being, it is faid, compofed at the defire of queen Elizabeth, in order to exhibit Falstaff in love, when all the pleafantry which he could afford in any other fituation was exhaufted. But it may not be thought fo clear, that it was written after K.

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Henry

Henry V. Nym and Bardolph are both hanged in K. Henry V. yet appear in The Merry Wives of Windfor. Falstaff is difgraced in the Second Part of K. Henry IV. and dies in K. Henry V. But in the Merry Wives of Windfor 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 difcountenances Fenton's addreffes to his daughter, because he kept company with the wild Prince and with Pointz. Thefe circumftances feem to favour the fuppofition that this play was written between the Firft and Second Parts of K. Henry IV. But that it was not written then, may be collected from the tradition above mentioned. If it fhould be placed (as Dr. Johnfon obferves it fhould 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-hoftess in K. Henry IV. is,in the Merry Wives of Windfor, Dr. Caius's housekeeper, and makes a decent appearance; and in K. Henry V. is Piftol's wife, and dies in an hofpital; a progreffion that is not very natural. Befides on Mrs. Quickly's firft appearance in the Merry Wives of Windfor, Falstaff does not know her, nor does the know Piftol 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 neceffary at the fame time to revive all thofe perfons with whom he was wont to be exhibited; Nym, Piftol, Bardolph and the Page: and difpofed of them as he found it convenient, without a strict regard to their situations or cataftrophes in former plays.

There is reafon to believe that The Merry Wives of Windfor was revifed and confiderably enlarged by the author, after its firft 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 fuppofes 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, conclufive. I have not met with any information on this head.

This comedy was not printed in its prefent ftate, till 1623, when it was published with the rest of our author's plays in folio.

27. K. HENRY VIII. 1601.

This play feems 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. Johnson and Mr. Steevens obferve, 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 laft fcene, was evidently a fubfequent infertion, after the acceffion of the Scotifh monarch to the throne: for Shakspeare was too well acquainted with courts, to compliment in the life-time of queen Elizabeth, her prefumptive fucceffor, of whom hiftory informs us she was not a little jealous. That the prediction concerning king James was added after the death of the queen, is ftill more clearly evinced, as Dr. Johnfon has remarked, by the aukward manner in which it is connected with the foregoing and fubfequent lines.

It may be objected, that if this play was written after the acceffion of king James, the author could not introduce a panegyrick on him, without making queen Elizabeth the vehicle of it, fhe being the object immediately prefented to the audience in the laft act of K. Henry VIII. and that, therefore, the praifes fo profufely lavifhed on har, 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 he was dead, when it was compofed. The objection certainly has weight; but, I apprehend, the following obfervations afford a fufficient answer to it.

1. It is more likely that Shakspeare fhould have written a play, the chief fubject of which is, the difgrace 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

NOTE.

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 fame year, Mother Bombie, a comedy by Lilly, appears to have been entered under the defcription of " A booke entituled Mother Bumbye, being an Enterlude."

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highly pleafing at court, rather than at a period when it must have been lefs interefting.

Queen Catherine, it is true, is represented as an amiable character, but still fhe is eclipfed; and the greater her merit, the higher was the compliment to the mother of Elizabeth, to whofe fuperior beauty fhe was obliged to give way.

2. Had K Henry VIII. been written in the time of king James I. the author, inftead of expatiating so largely in the laft fcene, in praife of the queen, which he could not think would be very acceptable to her fucceffor, would probably have made him the principal figure in the prophecy, and thrown her into the back-ground as much as poffible.

3. Were James I. Shakspeare's chief object in the original conftruction of the laft act of this play, he would probably have given a very short character of Elizabeth, and have dwelt on that of James, with whofe praise he would have concluded, in order to make the stronger impreffion on the audience, instead of returning again to queen Elizabeth, in a very aukward and abrupt manner, after her character feemed to be quite finifhed: an aukwardnefs that can only be açcounted for, by fuppofing the panegyrick on king James an after-production'.

NOTE.

4. If

1 After having enumerated fome of the bleffings that were to enfue from the birth of Elizabeth, and celebrated her majesty's various virtues, the poet thus proceeds:

Cran. "In her days every man fhall eat in fafety
Under his own vine, what he plants, and fing
The merry fongs of peace to all his neighbours.
God fhall be truly known; and those about her
From her fhall read the perfect ways of honour,
And by thofe claim their greatnefs, not by blood,
[Nor fhall this peace fleep with her; but as when
The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phænix,
Her afhes new-create another heir,

As great in admiration as herself;

So fhall fhe leave her blessedness to one, &c.

He fhall flourish,

And like a mountain cedar, reach his branches

To all the plains about him :-our childrens' children
Shall fee this, and bless heaven.

King. Thou fpeakest wonders.]

Cran. She fhall be, to the happinefs of England,

An aged princefs; many days fhall fee her

And

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 fituation of the kingdom at that time, and of foreign ftates, &c. and as archbishop Cranmer is supposed to have had the gift of prophecy, Shakspeare, probably, would have made him mention fome of thofe circumstances. Whereas the prediction, as it stands at prefent, is quite general, and such as might, without any hazard of error, have been pronounced in the life-time of her majefty; for the principal facts that it forctells, are, that fhe fhould die aged, and a virgin. Of the former, fuppofing this piece to have been written in 1601, the author was fufficiently fecure; for fhe was then near feventy years old. The latter may perhaps be thought too delicate a fubject, to have been mentioned while the was yet living. But, we may prefume, it was far from being an ungrateful topick; for very carly after her acceffion to the throne, the appears to have been proud of her maiden character; declaring that he was wedded to her people, and that the defired no other infcription on her tomb, thanHere lyeth Elizabeth, who reigned and died a virgin". Befides, if Shakespeare knew, as probably most people at that time did, that he became very folicitous about the reputation of virginity, when her title to it was at leaft 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 fhe was dead when it was compofed, it would not prove that this play was written in the time of king James; for thefe latter lines in praife of the queen, as well as the whole of the compliment to the king, might have been added after his acceffion 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 cafe. I do not, however, fee any neceffity for this fuppofition; as there is nothing, in my apprehen

NOTES.

And yet no day without a deed to crown it.

Wou'd I had known no more! but she must die,

She muft, the faints must have her; yet a virgin, &c." The lines between crotchets, are thofe, fuppofed to have been inferted by the author after the acceffion of king James,

Camden 27. Melvil 49.

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fions,

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