testimony to the genius and execution of the great master."* We have no faith whatever in this very easy mode of disposing of the authorship of a doubtful play-of leaving entirely out of view the most important part of every drama, its action, its characterization, looking at the whole merely as a collection of passages, of which the worst are to be assigned to some âme damnée, and the best triumphantly claimed for Shakspere. There are some, however, who judge of such matters upon broader principles. Mr. Hallam says, "Pericles is generally reckoned to be in part, and only in part, the work of Shakspeare. From the poverty and bad management of the fable, the want of any effective or distinguishable character, for Marina is no more than the common form of female virtue, such as all the dramatists of that age could draw, and a general feebleness of the tragedy as a whole, I should not believe the structure to have been Shakspeare's. But many passages are far more in his manner than in that of any contemporary writer with whom I am acquainted." Here "the poverty and bad management of the fable"-" the want of any effective or distinguishable character," are assigned for the belief that the structure could not have been Shakspere's. But let us accept Dryden's opinion that

Shakspeare's own muse his Pericles first bore,"

with reference to the original structure of the play, and the difficulty vanishes. It was impossible that the character of the early drama should not have been im*Shakspeare and his Times,' vol. ii. p. 268. 'History of Literature,' vol. iii. p. 569.

pressed upon Shakspere's earliest efforts. Do we therefore think that the drama, as it has come down to us, is presented in the form in which it was first written? By no means. We agree with Mr. Hallam that in parts the language seems rather that of Shakspere's "second or third manner than of his first." But this belief is not inconsistent with the opinion that the original structure was Shakspere's. No other poet that existed at the beginning of the seventeenth century-perhaps no poet that came after that period, whether Massinger, or Fletcher, or Webster-could have written the greater part of the fifth act. Coarse as the comic scenes are, there are touches in them unlike any other writer but Shakspere. We are willing to believe that, even in the very height of his fame, Shakspere would have bestowed any amount of labour for the improvement of an early production of his own, if the taste of his audiences had from time to time demanded its continuance upon the stage. It is for this reason that we think that the 'Pericles' which appears to have been in some respects a new play at the beginning of the seventeenth century was the revival of a play written by Shakspere some twenty years earlier.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

ANTIOCHUS, King of Antioch.
Appears, Act I. sc. 1.

PERICLES, Prince of Tyre.

Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 4. Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 3; Act III. sc. 1; sc. 3. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 3.

sc. 5.

HELICANUS, a lord of Tyre.

Appears, Act I. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act II. sc. 4. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 3.

ESCANES, a lord of Tyre.
Appears, Act I. sc. 3. Act II. sc. 4.
SIMONIDES, King of Pentapolis.

Appears, Act II. sc. 2; sc. 3; sc. 5.

CLEON, Governor of Tharsus.
Appears, Act I. sc. 4. Act III. sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 4.
LYSIMACHUS, Governor of Mitylene.
Appears, Act IV. sc. 6. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 3.
CERIMON, a lord of Ephesus.
Appears, Act III. sc. 2; sc. 4. Act V. sc. 3.

THALIARD, servant to Antiochus.
Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 3.

LEONINE, servant to Dionyza.
Appears, Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 2.
Marshal.

Appears, Act II. sc. 3.

A Pander and his Wife.
Appear, Act IV. sc. 3; sc. 6.

BOULT, servant to the Pander.
Appears, Act IV. sc. 3; sc. 6.
GOWER, as Chorus.

Appears, Act I. Chorus. Act II. Chorus. Act III. Chorus.
Act IV. Chorus, sc. 4. Act V. Chorus, sc. 2; sc. 3.

The Daughter of Antiochus.
Appears, Act I. sc. 1.

DIONYZA, wife to Cleon.

Appears, Act I. sc. 4. Act III. sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 4. THAISA, daughter to Simonides.

Appears, Act II. sc. 2; sc. 3; sc. 5. Act III. sc. 2; sc. 4. Act V. sc. 3.

MARINA, daughter to Pericles and Thaisa. Appears, Act III. sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 3; sc. 6. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 3.

LYCHORIDA, nurse to Marina.
Appears, Act III. sc. 1; sc. 3.

DIANA.

Appears, Act V. sc. 2.

Lords, Knights, Sailors, Pirates, Fishermen, and Messengers.

SCENE,-DISPERSEDLY IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES.

PERICLES.

ACT I.

Enter Gower.

Before the Palace of Antioch.
To sing a song of old was sung,
From ashes ancient Gower is come;
Assuming man's infirmities,

To glad your ear, and please your eyes.
It hath been sung, at festivals,
On ember-eves, and holy-ales;

And lords and ladies, in a their lives
Have read it for restoratives.

The purpose is to make men glorious;
Et bonum, quo antiquius, eo melius.
If you, born in these latter times,
When wit's more ripe, accept my rhymes,
And that to hear an old man sing,
May to your wishes pleasure bring,
I life would wish, and that I might
Waste it for you, like taper-light.
This Antioch then, Antiochus the Great
Built up, this city, for his chiefest seat;
The fairest in all Syria;

(I tell you what mine authors say :)
This king unto him took a pheere,b
Who died and left a female heir,

VOL. IX.

a In their lives-during their lives.
b Pheere, or fere, is a mate.

X