Fletcher, this play is alluded to *; but in what year that tragedy was written, is unknown. If the date of The Maid's Tragedy, by the same authors, were ascertained, it might throw some light on the present inquiry; the quarreling scene between Melantius and his friend being manifestly copied from a similar scene in Julius Cæsar. Dryden mentions a tradition (which he might have received from Sir William D'Avenant) that Philaster was the first play that brought Beaumont and Fletcher into reputation. That play, as has been already mentioned, acted about the year 1609. We may therefore presume that The Maid's Tragedy did not appear before that year; for we cannot suppose it to have been one of the unsuccessful pieces that preceded Philaster. That The Maid's Tragedy was written before 1611, is ascertained by a MS. play, now extant, entitled The SECOND Maid's Tragedy, which was licensed by Sir *New titles warrant not a play for new, was George Buck, on the 31st of October 1611. I believe it never was printed *. If, therefore, we fix the date of the original Maid's Tragedy in 1610, it agrees sufficiently well with that here assigned to Julius Cæsar. It appears by the papers of the late Mr. George Vertue, that a play called Cæsar's Tragedy was acted at court before the 10th of April, in the year 1613. This was probably Shakspere's Julius Cæsar, it being much the fashion at that time to alter the titles of his plays. 31. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, 1608. Antony and Cleoptra was entered on the Stationers' books, May 2, 1608; but was not printed till 1623. In Ben Jonson's Silent Woman, Act IV. Sc. iv. 1609, this play seems to be alluded to: "Morose. Nay, I would sit out a play that were nothing but fights at sea, drum, trumpet, and target." 32. CORIOLANUS, 1609. *This tragedy (as I learn from a MS. of Mr. Oldys) was formerly in the possesion of John Warburton, Esq. Somerset Herald. It had no author's name to it when it was licensed, but was afterwards ascribed to George Chapman, whose name is erased by another hand, and that of Shakspere inserted. 33. TIMON 33. TIMON of ATHENS, 1610, These two plays, which were neither entered in the books of the Stationers-Company, nor printed, till 1623, are classed here only on the principle mentioned in a preceding article *., Shakspere, in the course of about twenty years, produced thirty-five dramas. Most of his other plays have been attributed, on colourable grounds at least, to former years. As we have no proof to ascertain when these were written, It seems reasonable to ascribe them to that period, to which we are not led by any particular circumstance to attribute any other of his works; at which, it is supposed, he had not ceased to write; which yet, unless these pieces were then composed, must, for aught that now appears, have been unemployed. When once he had availed himself of North's Plutarch, and had thrown any one of the lives into a dramatick form, he probably found it so easy as to induce him to proceed, till he had exhausted all the subjects which he imagined that book would afford. Hence the four plays of Julius Cæsar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Timon, are supposed to have been written in succession. Cominius, in the panegyrick which he pronounces on Coriolanus, says, "In the brunt of seventeen battles since "He lurch'd all swords of the garland." : In Ben Johnson's Silent Woman, Act V. Sc. last, we meet (as Mr. Steevens has observed) the same uncommon phraseology': "You have lurch'd your friends of the better half of the garland.” Whether this was a sneer at Shakspere, or a new phrase of that day, it adds some degree of probability to the date here assigned to Coriolanus; for The Silent Woman also made its first appearance in 1609. There is a MS. comedy now extant, on the subject of Timon, which, from the hand-writing and the style, appears to be of the age of Shakspere. In this piece a steward is introduced, under the name of Laches, who, like Flavius in that of our author, endeavours to restrain his master's profusion, and faithfully attends him when he is forsaken by all his other followers. Here too a mock-banquet is given by Timon to his false friends; but, instead of warm water, stones painted like artichokes are served up, which he throws at his guests. From a line in Shakspere's play, one might be tempted to think that something of this sort was introduced by him; though, through the omission of a marginal direction in the only ancient copy of this piece, it has not been customary, to exhibit it: "Second Senator. Lord Timon's mad. "3d. Sen. I feel it on my bones. "4th. Sen. One day he gives us diamonds, next day stones." This comedy (which is evidently the production of a scholar, many lines of Greek being introduced into it) appears to have been written after Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour (1599), to which it contains a reference; but I have not discovered the precise time when it was composed. If it were ascertained, it might be some guide to us in fixing the date of our author's Timon, which, on the grounds that have been already stated*, I suppose to have been posterior to this anonymous play. 34. OTHELLO, 1611. Dr. Warburton thinks that there is in this tragedy a satirical allusion to the institution of the order of Baronets, which dignity was created by king James I, in the year 1611: "The hearts of old gave hands, "But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts " Othello, A&t III. Sc. iv. "Amongst their other prerogatives of honour" (says that commentator), "they [the new-created baronets] had an addition to their paternal arms, of an hand gules in an escutcheon argent. And we are not to doubt but that this was the new heraldry alluded * Ante, p. 34°. 343, 344. to |