"So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons; "Come all to help him, and so stop the air "By which he should revive." Measure for Measure, Act II. Sc.iv. "And, like as when some sudden extasie "Seizeth the nature of a sicklie man; "When he's discern'd to swoune, straite by and by "Folke to his helpe confusedly have ran, "And seeking with their art to fetch him backe, "So many throng that he the ayre doth lacke." Myrrha the Mother of Adonis, or Luste's Prodigies, by William Barksted, a poem, 1607. 26. CYMBELINE, 1604. Cymbeline was not entered on the Stationers' books, nor printed, till 1623. It stands the last play in the earliest folio edition; but nothing can be collected froin thence; for the folio editors manifestly paid no attention to chronological arrangement. Not con taining any intrinsick evidence by which its date might be ascertained, it is attributed to this year, chiefly because there is no proof that any other play was written by Shakspere in 1604. And as in the course of somewhat more than twenty years, he produced, according to some, forty-three, in the opinion of others, thirty-five dramas, we may presume that he was not idle during any one year of that time. This play was perhaps alluded to, in an old comedy, called The Return from Parnassus : "Frame, as well we might, with easy strain, "With far more praise, and, with as little pain, "Stories of love, where 'fore the wond'ring bench "The lisping gallant might enjoy his wench; 7 "Or make some sire acknowledge his lost son "Found, when the weary act is almost done.” If the author of this piece had Cymbeline in contemplation, it must have been more ancient than it is here supposed; for from several passages in The Return from Parnassus, that comedy appears to have been written before the death of queen Elizabeth, which happened on the 24th of March 1603. Mr. Steevens has observed, that there is a passage in Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster, which bears a strong resemblance to a speech of Jachimo in Cymbeline: "I hear the tread of people: I am hurt ; Philaster, A&t IV. Sc. i. But * In the last act of Cymbeline, two sons are found. the author might have written son on account of the rhyme. Ii ij "I have "I have bely'd a lady "The princess of this country; and the air of Revengingly enfeebles me; or could this carle, "A very drudge of nature, have subdu'd me "In my profession ?" Cymbeline, A& V. Sc. ii. Philaster is supposed to have appeared on the stage about 1609 being mentioned by John Davies' of Hereford, in his Epigrams, which have no date, but were printed, according to Oldys, in or about that year *. One edition of the tract called Westward for Smelts, from which part of the fable of Cymbeline is borrowed, was published in 1603. 27. KING LEAR, 1605. The tragedy of King Lear was entered on the books of the Stationers-Company, Nov. 26, 1607, and is there mentioned to have been played the preceding Christmas, before his Majesty at Whitehall. But this, I conjecture, was not its first exhibition. It seems extremely probable, that its first appearance was in 1605; in which year the old play of King Leir, that had been entered at Stationers-Hall in 1594, was * Additions to Langbaine's Account of the Dramatick Poets. MS. printed printed by Simon Stafford, for John Wright, who, we may presume, finding Shakspere's play success, ful, hoped to palm the spurious one on the publick for his *. Our author's King Lear was not published till 1608, Harsnet's Declaration of Popish Impostures, from which Shaks pere borrowed some fantastick names of spirits, mentioned in this play, was printed in 1603. 28. MACBETH, 1606. From a book, entitled Rex Platonicus, cited by Dr. Farmer, we learn that king James, when he visited Oxford in 1605, was addressed by three students of St. John's College, who personated the three weird sisters, and recited a short dramatick poem, founded on the prediction of those sibyls (as the author calls them) relative to Banquo and Macbeth. Dr. Farmer is of opinion, that this little piece t preceded Shakspere's play; a supposition which is strengthened by the silence of the author of Rex Platonicus, who, if Macbeth had then appeared on the * Shakspere has copied one of the passages in this old play. This he might have done, though we should suppose it not to have been published till after his King Lear was written and acted; for the old play had been in possession of the stage for many years before 1605. In Rex Platonicus it is called Lusiuncula. stage, would probably have mentioned something of it. It should be likewise remembered, that there subsisted at that time a spirit of opposition and rivalship between the regular players and the academicks of the two universities; the latter of whom frequently acted plays both in Latin and English, and seem to have piqued themselves on the superiority of their exhibitions to those of the established theatres *. Wishing probably to manifest this superiority to the royal pedant, it is not likely that they would choose, for a collegiate interlude, a subject which had already appeared on the public stage, with all the embellishments that the magick hand of Shakspere could bestow. This tragedy contains an allusion to the union of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, under one sovereign, and also to the cure of the * Ab ejusdem collegii alumnis (qui et cothurno tragico et socco comico principes semper habebantur) Vertumnus, comœdia faceta, ad principes exhilarandos exhibetur. Rex Platonicus, p. 78. Arcadiam restauratam Isiacorum Arcadum lectissimi ceci. nerunt, unoque opere, principum omniumque spectantium animos immensâ et ultra fidem affecerunt voluptate; simul que patrios ludiones, etsi exercitatissimos, quantum intersit inter scenam mercenariam & eruditam docuerunt, Ib. P. 228, See also the lines quoted above from The Return from Parnassus, and A& IV. Sc. iii. of that piece, which was acted publickly at St. John's-College in Cambridge. |