!

of voluntaries (as they were then called) under the command of Sir Edward Winkfield. Many of the nobility went on this expedition, which was defined against Cadiz. The fleet failed from Plymouth on the third of June, 1596; before the end of that month the great Spanish armada was deftroyed and the town of Cadiz was facked and burned. Here Lord Effex found 1200 pièces of ordnance, and an immenfe quantity of treasure, ftores, ammunition, &c. valued at twenty million of ducats. The victorious commanders of this fuccefsful expedition returned to Plymouth, Auguft 8, 1596, four days before the death of our poet's fon. Many of our old hiftorians fpeak of the fplendor and magnificence difplayed by the noble and gallant adventurers who served in this expedition; and Ben Jonfon has particularly alluded to it in his Silent Woman, written a few years. afterwards. To this I fufpect two lines already quoted particularly refer:

"Have fold their fortunes at their native homes,

..

Bearing their birth-rights proudly on their backs."

Dr. Johnfon conceived that the following lines in this play

"And meritorious fhall that hand be call'd

"Canonized, and worshipp'd as a faint,

That takes away by any

Thy hateful life."

fecret.courfe

might either refer to the bull published againft Queen Elizabeth, or to the canonization of Garnet,

7 "I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day as any was worn in the fland Voyage, or Cadiz, none difpraifed." Silent Woman, 1609.

Faux, and their accomplices, who in a Spanish book which he had feen, are registered as faints. If the latter allufion had been intended, then this play, or at leaft this part of it, muft have been written after 1605. But the paffage in queflion is founded on a fimilar one in the old play, printed in 1591, and therefore no allufion to the gunpowder-plot could have been intended.

A line of The Spanish Tragedy is quoted in King John. That tragedy, I believe, had appeared in or before 1590.

In the first act of King John, an ancient tragedy, entitled Solyman and Perfeda, is alluded to. The earliest edition of that play, now extant, is that of 1599, but it was written, and probably acted, many years before; for it was entered on the Stationers' books, by Edward Whyte, Nov. 20, 1592.

Marfton's Infatiate Countefs, which, according to Langbaine, was printed in 1603, contains a paffage, which, if it fhould be confidered as an imitation of a fimilar one in King John, will afcertain this hiftorical drama to have been written at least before

that year:

"Then how much more in me, whofe youthful veins, "Like a proud river, overflow their bounds."

So, in King John:

"Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum,
"Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds."

Marston has in many other places imitated Shakfpeare.

A fpeech spoken by the baflard in the fecond act of this tragedy feems to have been formed on one 8 See Vol. XI. p. 348.

in an old play entitled The famous Hiftory of Captain Thomas Siukely. Captain Stukely was killed in 1578. The drama of which he is the fubject, was not printed till 1605, but it is in the black letter, and, I believe, had been exhibited at least fifteen years before.

Of the only other note of time which I have obferved in this tragedy, befide thofe already mentioned, I am unable to make any use. "When I was in France," fays young Arthur,

66

66

Young gentlemen would be as fad as night,`
Only for wantonnefs."

I have not been able to afcertain when the fashion of being fad and gentlemanlike commenced among our gayer neighbours on the continent. A fimilar fashion prevailed in England, and is often alluded to by our poet, and his contemporaries. Perhaps he has in this inftance attributed to the French a fpecies of affectation then only found in England. It is noticed by Lily in 1592, and Ben Jonson in 1598.

12. KING RICHARD II. 1597.

King Richard II. was entered on the Stationers' books, Auguft 29, 1597, and printed in that year.

There had been a former play on this fubject, which appears to have been called King Henry IV. in which Richard was depofed, and killed on the ftage. This piece, as Dr. Farmer and Mr. Tyrwhitt have obferved, was performed on a publick theatre, at the request of Sir Gilly Merick, and fome other followers of Lord Effex, the afternoon

before his infurrection: "fo earneft was he," (Merick) fays the printed account of his arraignment, to fatisfy his eyes with a fight of that tragedy which he thought foone after his lord fhould bring from the ftage to the ftate." "The players told him the play was old, and they should have lofs by playing it, because few would come to it; but no play else would serve: and Sir Gilly Merick gave forty fhillings to Philips the player to play this, befides whatsoever he could get.

It may feem ftrange that this old play should have been represented four years after Shakspeare's drama on the fame fubject had been printed: the reafon undoubtedly was, that in the old play the depoung King Richard II. made a part of the exhibition: but in the first edition of our author's play, one hundred and fifty-four lines, describing a kind of trial of the king, and his actual depofition in parliament, were omitted: nor was it probably reprefented on the stage. Merick, Cuffe, and the rest of Effex's train, naturally preferred the play in which his depofition was represented, their plot not aiming at the life of the queen. It is, I know, commonly thought, that the parliament-scene, (as it is called,) which was first printed in the quarto of 1608, was an addition made by Shakspeare to his play after its first representation: but it seems to me more probable that it was written with the reft, and fuppreffed in the printed copy of 1597, from the fear of offending Elizabeth; against whom the Pope had published a bull in the preceding year, exhorting her fubjects to take up arms against

• Bacon's Works, Vol. IV. 412. State Trials, Vol. VIII. p. 60.

1

her. In 1599 Hayward published his Hiftory of the first Year of Henry IV. which in fact is nothing more than an hiftory of the depofing Richard II. The difpleafure which that book excited at court, fufficiently accounts for the omitted lines not being inferted in the copy of this play which was published in 1602. Hayward was heavily cenfured in the Star-chamber, and committed to prison. At a fubfequent period, (1608,) when King James was quietly and firmly fettled on the throne, and the fear of internal commotion, or foreign invasion, no longer fubfifted, neither the author, the managers of the theatre, nor the bookfeller, could entertain any apprehenfion of giving offence to the fovereign the rejected fcene was reftored without fcruple, and from fome playhouse copy probably found its way to the prefs.

13. KING RICHARD III. 1597.

Entered, at the Stationers' hall, O&. 20, 1597. Printed in that year.

14. FIRST PART OF KING HENRY IV. 1597.

Entered, Feb. 25, 1597. therefore probably in 1597.

[1597-8.] Written Printed in 1598..

15. SECOND PART OF KING HENRY IV. 1598.

The Second Part of King Henry. IV. was entered in the Stationers' books, Auguft 23, 1600, and was printed in that year. It was written, I believe, in 1598. From the epilogue it appears to have been compofed before King Henry V. which itself must have been written in or before 1599.

Meres in his Wit's Treafury, which was published