This notice fixes the date of thirteen plays, as having been produced up to 1598. But this list can scarcely be supposed to be a complete one. The expression which Meres uses, "for comedy witness," implies that he selects particular examples of excellence. We know that the three parts of 'Henry VI.' | existed before 1598: we believe that 'The Taming of the Shrew' was amongst the early plays; and that the original sketch of 'Hamlet' had been produced at the very outset of Shakspere's dramatic career. 'All's Well that Ends Well,' we believe, also, to have been an early play, known to Meres as 'Love's Labour's Won.' But carry the list of Meres forward two years, and we have to add 'Much Ado about Nothing' and 'Henry V.,' which were then printed. The account, therefore, stands thus in 1600 : In 1598 Francis Meres published his | have just given, to crowd twenty plays into 'Palladis Tamia, Wit's Treasury,' which ten years. But, putting aside 'Titus Androcontains the most important notice of Shak- nicus,' Meres gives us a list of twelve original spere of any contemporary writer:-"As plays existing when his book was printed in Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best 1598-twelve plays which we would not exfor comedy and tragedy among the Latins, change for all the contemporary dramatic so Shakespeare, among the English, is the literature produced in the years between most excellent in both kinds for the stage: 1593 and 1598. In support of these asserfor comedy, witness his 'Gentlemen of Ve- tions, and these computations, not the slightrona,' his 'Errors,' his 'Love's Labour's Lost,' est direct evidence has ever been offered. his 'Love Labours Won,' his 'Mid-summer's The indirect evidence constantly alleged Night Dream,' and his 'Merchant of Venice;' against Shakspere being a writer before he for tragedy, his 'Richard II.,' 'Richard III.,' was twenty-seven years old is that he had 'Henry IV.,' 'King John,' 'Titus Andro- obtained no reputation, and is not even mennicus,' and his 'Romeo and Juliet.' tioned by any contemporary, previously to the satirical notice of him in the last production of Robert Greene, who died in September, 1592, in which he is called "the only Shake-scene in the country." The very terms used by Greene would imply that the successful author of whom he was envious had acquired a reputation. But this is not the usual construction put on the words. The silence of other writers with regard to Shakspere is minutely set forth by Malone; and his opinions, as it appears to us, have been much too implicitly received-sometimes indolently-sometimes for the support of a theory that would recognise Shakspere as a mere actor, or, at most, as the repairer of other men's works-whilst the original genius of Marlowe, and half a dozen inferior writers, was in full activity around him. The omission of all notice of Shakspere by Webbe, Puttenham, Harrington, Sidney, are brought forward by Malone as unquestionable proofs that our poet had not written before 1591 or 1592. He says that in Webbe's 'Discourse of English Poetry,' published in 1586, we meet with the names of the most celebrated poets of that time, particularly those of the dramatic writers Whetstone and Munday; but that we find no trace of Shakspere or of his works. But Malone does not tell us that Webbe makes a general apology for his omissions, saying, "Neither is my abiding in such place where I can with facility get knowledge of their works." "Three years afterwards," continues Malone, "Puttenham printed his 'Art of English Poesy;' and in that work also we look in vain for the name Plays mentioned by Meres, considering Henry IV. as Two Parts Henry VI., Three Parts Taming of the Shrew Hamlet (sketch) Much Ado about Nothing 13 3 2 20 We have now seventeen plays, including 'Pericles,' left for the seventeenth century; but some of these have established their claim to an earlier date than has been usually assigned to them. 'Twelfth Night' and 'Othello' were performed in 1602. Under the usual chronological order we are compelled, according to the analysis which we of Shakspere." The book speaks of the oneand-thirty years' space of Elizabeth's reign, and thus puts the date of the writing a year earlier than the printing. But we here look in vain for some other illustrious names besides that of Shakspere. Malone has not told us that the name of Edmund Spenser is not found in Puttenham; nor, what is still more uncandid, that not one of Shakspere's early dramatic contemporaries is mentioned -neither Marlowe, nor Greene, nor Peele, nor Kyd, nor Lyly. The author evidently derives his knowledge of "poets and poesy from a much earlier period than that in which he publishes. He does not mention Spenser by name, but he does "that other gentleman who wrote the late 'Shepherd's Calendar." The 'Shepherd's Calendar' of Spenser was published in the year 1579. Malone goes on to argue that the omission of Shakspere's name, or any notice of his works, in Sir John Harrington's 'Apology of Poetry,' printed in 1591, in which "he takes occasion to speak of the theatre, and mentions some of the celebrated dramas of that time," is a proof that none of Shakspere's dramatic compositions had then appeared. The "celebrated dramas" which Harrington mentions are Latin plays, and an old London comedy called 'Play of the Cards.' Does he mention "Tamburlaine,' or 'Faustus,' or 'The Massacre of Paris,' or 'The Jew of Malta ?' As he does not, it may be assumed with equal justice that none of Marlowe's compositions had appeared in 1591; and yet we know that he died in 1593. So of Lyly's 'Galathea,'' Alexander and Campaspe,' 'Endymion,' &c. So of Greene's 'Orlando Furioso,''Friar Bacon,' 'James IV.' So of the 'Jeronimo' of Kyd. The truth is, that Harrington in his notice of celebrated dramas was even more antiquated than Puttenham; and his evidence, therefore, in this matter is utterly worthless. But Malone has given his crowning proof that Shakspere had not written before 1591, in the following words :-" Sir Philip Sidney, in his 'Defence of Poesie,' speaks at some length of the low state of dramatic literature at the time he composed this treatise, but has not the slightest allusion to Shakspere, whose plays, had they then appeared, would doubtless have rescued the English stage from the contempt which is thrown upon it by the accomplished writer, and to which it was justly exposed by the wretched compositions of those who preceded our poet. "The Defence of Poesie' was not published till 1595, but must have been written some years before." There is one slight objection to this argument: Sir Philip Sidney was killed at the battle of Zutphen, in the year 1586; and it is tolerably well ascertained that 'The Defence of Poesie' was written in the year 1581. If the indirect evidence that Shakspere had not acquired any reputation in 1591 thus breaks down, we may venture to inquire whether the same authority has not been equally unsuccessful in rejecting the belief, which was implicitly adopted by Dryden and Rowe, that the reputation of Shakspere as a comic poet was distinctly recognised by Spenser in his 'Thalia,' in 1591 *. What, then, is the theory which we build upon the various circumstances we have brought together, and which we oppose to the prevailing theory in England as to the dates of Shakspere's works? We ask that the author of twenty plays, existing in 1600, which completely changed the face of the dramatic literature of England, should be supposed to have begun to write a little earlier than the age of twenty-seven; that we should assign some few of those plays to a period antecedent to 1590. We have reason to believe that, up to the close of the sixteenth century, Shakspere was busied as an actor as well as an author. It is something too much to expect, then, even from the fertility of his genius, occupied as he was, that he should have produced twenty plays in nine years; and it is still more unreasonable to believe that the consciousness of power which he must have possessed should not have prompted him to enter the lists with other dramatists (whose highest productions may, without exaggeration, be stated as every way inferior to his lowest), This poem of Thalia' is noticed in 'The Life and Writings of Shakspere,' in Knight's Cabinet' and One Volume editions of Shakspere. until he had gone through a probation of six or seven years' acquaintance with the stage as an humble actor. We cannot reconcile it to probability that he who ceased to be an actor when he was forty should have been contented to have been only an actor till he was twenty-seven. We cling to the belief that Shakspere, by commencing his career as a dramatic writer some four or five years earlier than is generally maintained, may claim, in common with his less illustrious early contemporaries, the praise of being one of the great founders of our dramatic literature, instead of being the mere follower and improver of Marlowe, and Greene, and Peele, and Kyd. ing arrangement :— FIRST PERIOD, 1585 to 1593. year to his 29th. Macbeth. Timon of Athens (probably revision of an earlier play). FOURTH PERIOD, 1608 to 1616. From his 44th year to his death. Cymbeline (probably revision of an earlier play). A Winter's Tale. Pericles (probably revision of an earlier play). The Tempest. Troilus and Cressida. Henry VIII. Julius Cæsar. Antony and Cleopatra. There is another view in which the chro : Our belief, then, as to the periods of the original production of Shakspere's Plays, shapes itself into something like the follow-nological order of Shakspere's plays may be regarded and we think that it presents a key to the workings of his genius, in conFrom his 21st nexion with that desire which men of the highest genius only entertain, when a constant succession of new productions is demanded of them by the popular appetitenamely, to generalize their works by certain principles of art, producing novel combinations; which principles impart to groups of them belonging to the same period a corre Titus Andronicus. Hamlet. The first sketch. Henry VI. Three Parts. Two Gentlemen of Verona. Comedy of Errors. Love's Labour's Lost. All's Well that Ends Well (perhaps imper-sponding identity. In Shakspere this is to fect). be regarded more especially with reference to the nature of the dramatic action. We put down these groups, rather as materials for thought in the reader, than as a decided expression of our own conviction; because all such circumstances and relations must be modified by other facts of which we have an incomplete knowledge. As You Like It. Twelfth Night. Measure for Measure. Hamlet (complete). Othello. Lear. BOOK II. CHAPTER I. TITUS ANDRONICUS. THE external evidence that bears upon the authorship of 'Titus Andronicus' is of two kinds : belonged. But neither was the name of Shakspere affixed to the first editions of 'Richard II.,' 'Richard III.,' and 'Henry IV., 1. The testimony which assigns the play Part I.;' nor to the first three editions of to Shakspere, wholly or in part. 'Romeo and Juliet ;' nor to 'Henry V.' These 2. The testimony which fixes the period of similar facts, therefore, leave the testimony its original production. of Hemings and Condell unimpeached. We now come to the second point-the testimony which fixes the date of the original production of 'Titus Andronicus.' There are two modes of viewing this portion of the evidence; and we first present it with the interpretation which deduces from it that the tragedy was not written by Shakspere. The direct testimony of the first kind is unimpeachable: Francis Meres, a contemporary of Shakspere-a man intimately acquainted with the literary history of his day -not writing even in the later period of Shakspere's life, but as early as 1598-compares, for tragedy, the excellence of Shakspere among the English, with Seneca among the Latins, and says, witness, "for tragedy,tholomew Fair,' first acted in 1614, says— 'his Richard II.,' 'Richard III.,' 'Henry IV.,' 'King John,' 'Titus Andronicus,' and his 'Romeo and Juliet.'" The indirect testimony is nearly as important. The play is printed in the first folio edition of the poet's collected worksan edition published within seven years after his death by his intimate friends and "fellows;" and that edition contains an entire scene not found in either of the previous quarto editions which have come down to us. That edition does not contain a single other play upon which a doubt of the authorship has been raised; for even those who deny the entire authorship of 'Henry VI.' to Shakspere have no doubt as to the partial authorship. Against this testimony of the editors of the first folio, that Shakspere was the author of 'Titus Andronicus,' there is only one fact to be opposed—that his name is not on the title-page of either of the quarto editions, although those editions show us that it was acted by the company to which Shakspere Ben Jonson, in the Induction to his 'Bar "He that will swear 'Jeronimo,' or 'Andronicus,' are the best plays yet, shall pass unexcepted at here, as a man whose judgment shows it is constant, and hath stood still these five-and-twenty or thirty years. Though it be an ignorance, it is a virtuous and staid ignorance; and, next to truth, a confirmed error does well." Percy offers the following comment upon this passage, in his 'Reliques of Ancient Poetry:'—" There is reason to conclude that this play was rather improved by Shakespeare with a few fine touches of his pen, than originally written by him: for, not to mention that the style is less figurative than his others generally are, this tragedy is mentioned with discredit in the Induction to Ben Jonson's 'Bartholomew Fair,' in 1614, as one that had been then exhibited 'five-and-twenty or thirty years;' which, if we take the lowest number, throws it back to the year 1589, at which time Shakespeare was but 25: an earlier date than can be found for any other of his pieces." With the views we entertain as to the com |