1

Croud to his prefence, where their untaught love
Muft needs appear offence.

King James was fo much offended by the untaught, and, we may add, undeserved, gratulations of his fubjects, on his entry into England, that he iffued a proclamation, forbidding the people to refort to him." Afterwards," fays the hiftorian of his reign, "in his publick appearances, especially in his fports, the acceffes of the people made him fo impatient, that he often difperfed them with frowns, that we may not fay with curfes.

It is obfervable throughout our author's plays, that he does not fcruple to introduce Englifh figns, habits, customs, names, &c. though the scene of his drama lies in a foreign country; and that he has frequent allufions to the circumflances of the day, though the events which form the fubject of his piece are fuppofed to have happened a thousand years before. Thus, in Coriolanus, Hob and Dick are plebeians; and the Romans tofs their caps in the air, with the fame expreffions of feftivity which our poet's contemporaries difplayed in Stratford or London. In Twelfth Night we hear of the bed of Ware, and the bells of Saint Bennet; and in The Taming of the Shrew the Pegafus, a fign of a publick houfe in Cheapfide in the time of Queen Elizabeth, is hung up in a town in Italy. In Hamlet the Prince of Denmark and Guildenfern hold a long converfation concerning the children of the Chapel and St. Paul's. The opening of the prefent play, viewed in this light, furnishes an additional argu

See Mr. Tyrwhitt's note.

Wilfon's Hiftory of King James, ad ann. 1603.

ment in fupport of the date which I have affigned to it. When king James came to the throne of England, March 24, 1602-3, he found the kingdom engaged in a war with Spain, which had lafted near twenty years, "Heaven grant us his peace!" fays a gentleman 'to Lucio, A&t I. fc. ii.; and afterwards the bawd laments, that " what with the war, what with the fweat, fhe was cuftom-fhrunk." Suppofing these two paffages to relate to our author's own time, they almoft decifively prove Meafure for Mea fure to have been written in 1603; when the war was not yet ended, as the latter words feem to imply, and when there was fome profpect of peace, as the former feem to intimate. Our British Solomon very foon after his acceffion to the throne manifefted his pacifick difpofition, though the peace with Spain was not proclaimed till the 19th of Auguft, 1604.

By the fweat, confidering who. the speaker is, it is probable that the disorder most fatal to those of her profeffion was intended. However, the plague was fometimes fo called; and perhaps the dreadful peftilence of 1603 was meant; which carried off in the month of July in that year 857 perfons, and in the whole year 30,578 perfons: that is, one fifth part of the people in the metropolis; the total number of the inhabitants of London being at that time about one hundred and fifty thousand. If fuch was the allufion, it likewife confirms the date attributed to this play.

Some part of this laft argument in confirmation of the date which I had affigned fome years ago to the comedy before us, I owe to Mr. Capell; and while I acknowledge the obligation, it is but just to add, that it is the only one that I met with, which VOL. II.

M

in the smallest degree could throw any light on the present inquiry into the dates of our author's plays.

"In the dry defert of ten thousand lines; "

after wading through two ponderous volumes in quarto, written in a style manifeftly formed on that of the clown in the comedy under our confideration, whofe narratives, we are told, were calculated to laft out a night in Ruffia, when nights are at the longeft.

In the year 1604, fays Wilfon the hiftorian, "the fword and buckler trade being out of date, diverse fects of vitious perfons, under the title of roaring boys, bravadoes, royfters, &c. commit many infolencies; the streets fwarm night and day with quarrels: private duels are fomented, especially between the English and Scotch: and great feuds between proteftants and papifts." A proclamation was published to reftrain thefe enormities; which proving ineffectual, the legislature interpofed, and the act commonly called the ftatute of ftabbing, 1 Jac. I. c. 8. was made. This ftatute, as Sir Michael Forster obferves, was principally intended to put a stop to the outrages above enumerated, "committed by perfons of inflammable fpirits and deep refentment, who, wearing fhort daggers under their cloaths, were too well prepared to do quick and effectual execution upon provocations extremely flight." King James's firft parliament met on the 19th of March, 1603-4, and fat till the 7th of July following. From the time of James's acceffion to the throne great animofity fubfifted between the English and Scotch; and many of the outrageous acts which gave rife to the ftatute of

ftabbing, had been committed in the preceding year, about the end of which year I fuppofe Measure for Meafure to have been written. The enumeration made by the Clown, in the fourth act, of the perfons who were confined with him in the prison, is an additional confirmation of the date affigned to it. Of ten prisoners whom he names, four are ftabbers, or duellifts: "Mafter Starve-lacky, the rapier and dagger man, young Drop-heir that kill'd lufty Pudding, Master Forth-right, the tilter, and wild Half-can that ftabb'd Pots."

That Meafure for Meafure was written before 1607, may be fairly concluded from the following paffage in a poem published in that year, which we have good ground to believe was copied from a fimilar thought in this play, as the author, at the end of his piece, profeffes a perfonal regard for Shakspeare, and highly praifes his Venus and

Adonis: 2

So play the foolish throngs with one that fwoons; Come all to help him, and so stop the air

By which he should revive."

Meafure for Measure, A& II. sc. iv.

2 See the verfes alluded to, ante, p. 2, & feq. n. 9. This writer does not seem to have been very fcrupulous about adopting either the thoughts or expreffions of his contemporaries; for in his poem are found two lines taken verbatim. from Marlton's Infatiate Countefs, printed four years before Myrrha, the Mother of Adonis, &c.

Night, like a mafque, was enter'd heaven's great hall,
With thousand torches ushering the way."

It appears from Ben Jonfon's Silent Woman, that W. Barksted was an actor, and was employed in the theatre where our author's plays were reprefented. He might therefore have performed a part in Measure for Measure, or have feen the copy before it was printed.

And like as when fome fudden extafie
Seizeth the nature of a ficklie man;
When he's difcern'd to fioone, ftraite by and by
Folke to his helpe confufedly have ran;
And fecking with their art to fetch him backe,
So many throng, that he the qyre doth lacke.

Myrrha, the Mother of Adonis, or Lufte's Prodigies, by William Barksted, a poem, 1607.

25. THE WINTER'S TALE, 1604.

Greene's Doraftus and Fawnia, from which the plot of this play was taken, was published in 1588. The Winter's Tale was not entered on the Stationers' books, nor printed till 1623. It was acted at court in 1613. 3

3 MS. of the late Mr. Vertue. I had obferved in a note that Ben Jonfon had ridiculed this play and The Tempest, in his Bartholomew Fair, which firft appeared in the year 1614, and that he might have been induced to do fo from their having been acted at court in the preceding year. But I am now inclined to think that he rather joined thefe plays in the fame cenfure, in confequence of their having been produced at no great distance of time from each other; and that The Winter's Tale ought to have been ascribed to the year 1613. In the office-book of Sir Henry Herbert I obferve, that among the court-plays performed at Chriftmas were generally included the laft new pieces which had been exhibited on the publick ftage. Several of Fletcher's latter plays were performed at court in the fame year in which they were firft reprefented. But the entry which has been quoted in a preceding page, relative to The Winter's Tale, furnishes a ftill ftronger reafon for referring it to this year; for it appears that it had been originally licensed by Sir George Buck, and that the licensed copy had been loft. The licenfed copy of The Honeft Man's Fortune, which was produced in the year 1613, was likewise loft, and afterwards re-licenfed by Sir Henry Herbert on its revival in 1624-5. It is highly probable that The Winter's Tale was first exhibited at the Globe in the fame year, and that both thefe pieces were deftroyed by the fire which confumed that theatre, June 30, 1613.