In the first edition of this effay I supposed Thé Winter's Tale to have been written in 1594; an error (as it now appears to me) into which I was led by an entry in the Stationers' regifters dated May 22, in that year, of a piece entitled A WinterNight's Paftime, which I imagined might have been this play under another name, the titles of our author's plays having been fometimes changed.*

The opinion, however, which I gave on this fubject, was by no means a decided one. I then mentioned that "Mr. Walpole thought, that this play was intended by Shakspeare as an indirect apology for Anne Bullen, in which light it might be confidered as a Second Part to King Henry VIII.; and that my refpect for that very judicious and ingenious writer, the filence of Meres, in whose catalogue of our author's dramas published in 1598 the play before us is not found, and the circumftance of there not being a fingle rhyming couplet throughout this piece, except in the chorus, made me doubt whether it ought not rather to be ascribed to the year 1601 or 1602, than that in which I then placed it."

The doubts which I then entertained, a more attentive examination of this play has confirmed; and I am now perfuaded that it was not near fo

Though Sir George Buck obtained a reverfionary grant of the office of Mafter of the Revels, in 1603, which title ̧ Camden has given him in the edition of his Britannia printed in 1607, it appears from various documents in the Pellsoffice that he did not get complete poffeffion of his place till Auguft 1610.

4 Thus, Hamlet was fometimes called Hamlet's Revenge, fometimes The Hiftory of Hamlet; The Merchant of Venice was fometimes called The Jew of Venice, &c. See p. 151, n. 2.

1

early a compofition as the entry above-mentioned led me to fuppofe.

Mr. Walpole has obferved,' that "The Winter's Tale may be ranked among the hiftorick plays of Shakspeare, though not one of his numerous criticks and commentators have difcovered the drift of it. It was certainly intended (in compliment to Queen Elizabeth) as an indirect apology for her mother Anne Boleyn. The addrefs of the poet appears no where to more advantage. The fubject was too delicate to be exhibited on the flage without a veil; and it was too recent, and touched the queen too nearly, for the bard to have ventured fo home an allufion on any other ground than compliment. The unreasonable jealoufy of Leontes, and his violent conduct in confequence, form a true portrait of Henry the Eighth, who generally made the law the engine of his boisterous paffions. Not only the general plan of the story is most applicable, but feveral paffages are fo marked, that they touch the real history nearer than the fable. Hermione on her trial fays,

This feems to be taken from the very letter of Anne Boleyn to the king before her execution, when fhe pleads for the infant princefs, his daughter. Mamillius, a young prince, an unnecessary character, dies in his infancy; but it confirms the allufion, as queen Anne, before Elizabeth, had a

'Hiftorick Doubts.

fill-born fon. But the moft ftriking paffage, and which had nothing to do in the tragedy, but as it pictured Elizabeth, is, where Paulina defcribing the new-born princess, and her likenefs to her father, fays, "he has the very trick of his frown." There is another fentence indeed fo applicable, both to Elizabeth and her father, that I fhould fufpect the poet inferted it after her death. Paulina, speaking of the child, tells the king:

'Tis yours;

And, might we lay the old proverb to your charge,
So like you, 'tis the worse.

This conjecture muft, I think, be acknowledged to be extremely plaufible. With respect, however, to the death of the young prince Mamillius, which is fuppofed to allude to Queen Anne's having had a ftill-born fon, it is but fair to obferve, that this circumftance was not an invention of our poet, being founded on a fimilar incident in Lodge's Doraftus and Fawnia, in which Garinter, the Mamillius of The Winter's Tale, likewife dies in his infancy. But this by no means diminishes the force. of the hypothefis which has been just now stated; it only fhews, that Shakspeare was not under the neceffity of twisting the ftory to his purpose, and that this as well as the many other correfponding circumftances between the fictitious narrative of Bellaria, (the Hermione of the present play) and the real hiftory of the mother of Elizabeth, almost forced the fubject upon him.

Sir William Blackstone has pointed out a paffage in the first act of this play, which had escaped my obfervation, and which, as he juftly obferves,

furnishes a proof that it was not written till after the death of queen Elizabeth:

Of thousands, that had ftruck anointed kings,
And flourifh'd after, I'd not do it; but fince
Nor brafs, nor ftone, nor parchment, bears not one,
Let villainy itfelf forfwear it."

Thefe lines could never have been intended for the ear of her who had deprived the queen of Scots of her life. To the fon of Mary they could not but have been agreeable.

Mr.

If we fuppofe with Mr. Walpole that this play was intended as a compliment to Queen Elizabeth, it ought rather to be attributed to the year 1602, than that in which I have placed it: but the paffage laft quoted is inconfiftent with fuch a date. Walpole himself alfo has quoted fome lines, which he thinks could not have been inferted till after the death of Elizabeth. Perhaps our author lay'd the fcheme of the play in the very year in which the queen died, and finifhed it in the next. This is the only fuppofition that I know of, by which these difcordancies can be reconciled, I have therefore attributed it to 1604.

In that year was entered on the Stationers' books "A ftrange reporte of a monstrous fish, that appeared in the form of a woman from her waift upward, feene in the fea." To this perhaps the poet alludes, when he makes Autolycus produce a ballad "Of a fish that appeared upon the coaft, on Wednesday the fourfcore of April, forty thousand fathom above water, and fung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids: it was thought, he was a woman, and was turn'd into a cold fifh," &c.

There is, fays one of the characters in this piece, "but one Puritan among them, and he fings pfalms to hornpipes." The precife manners of the puritans was at this time much ridiculed by proteftants; and the principal matters in dispute between them (whether the furplice fhould be used in the cele-. bration of divine fervice, the crofs in baptifm, and the ring in marriage,) were gravely difcuffed at Hampton Court before the king, who acted as moderator, in the beginning of the year 1604. The points difcuffed on that occafion were, without doubt, very popular topicks at that time; and every stroke at the Puritans, for whom King James had a hearty deteftation, must have been very agreeable to him as well as to the frequenters of the theatre, against which that sect inveighed in the bittereft terms. Shakspeare, from various paffages in his plays, feems to have entirely coincided in opinion with his majefty, on this subject.

The metre of The Winter's Tale appears to me lefs eafy and flowing than many other of our poet's dramas; and the phrafeology throughout to be more involved and parenthetical than any other of his plays. In this harfhnefs of diction and involution of fentences it ftrongly resembles Troilus and Creffida, and King Henry the Eighth, which I suppose to have been written not long before.

26. 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 majefty at White