The play, thus revived and new-named, was probably called in the bills of that time, a new play, which might have led Sir Henry Wotton to defcribe it as fuch. And thus his account may be reconciled with that of the other contemporary writers, as well as with thofe arguments which have been here urged in fupport of the early date of King Henry VIII. Every thing has been fully ftated on each fide of the queftion. The reader muft judge.

Mr. Roderick in his notes on our author, (appended to Mr. Edward's Canons of Criticism,)

this was not the theatre at which his pieces were ufually represented:

Well fare the wife men yet on the Bank-fide,
My friends, the watermen! they could provide
Against thy fury, when, to ferve their needs,
They made a Vulcan of a fheaf of reeds;
Whom they durft handle in their holy-day coats,
And fafely truft to drefs, not burn, their boats.
But O thofe reeds! thy mere difdain of them
Made thee beget that cruel ftratagem,

(Which fome are pleas'd to ftyle but thy mad prank,)
Against the Globe, the glory of the Bank:

Which, though it were the fort of the whole parish,
Flank'd with a ditch, and forc'd out of a marish,

I faw with two poor chambers taken in,

Andraz'd; ere thought could urge this might have been.
See the world's ruins! nothing but the piles

1 Left, and wit fince to cover it with tiles.

The brethren, they ftraight nois'd it out for news,
'Twas verily fome relick of the ftews,

And this a fparkle of that fire let loose,
1. That was lock'd up in the Wincheftrian goose,
Bred on the Bank in time of popery,

When Venus there maintain'd her mystery.
But others fell, with that conceit, by the ears,
And cried, it was a threat'ning to the bears,
And that accurfed ground, the Paris-garden," &c.

takes notice of fome peculiarities in the metre of the play before us; viz. "that there are many more verfes in it than in any other, which end with a redundant fyllable,"-" very near two to one, "— and that the "cafura or paufes of the verfe are full as remarkable." The redundancy, &c. obferved by this critick, Mr. Steevens thinks (a remark, which, having omitted to introduce in its proper place, he defires me to infert here,)" was rather the effect of chance, than of design in the author; and might have arifen either from the negligence of Shakfpeare, who in this play has borrowed whole fcenes and fpeeches from Holinfhed, whofe words he was probably in too much hafte to comprefs into verfification ftrictly regular and harmonious; or from the interpolations of Ben Jonson, whose hand Dr. Farmer thinks he occafionally perceives in the dialogue.'

Whether Mr. Roderick's pofition be well founded, is hardly worth a conteft; but the peculiarities which he has animadverted on, (if fuch there be) add probability to the conjecture that this piece underwent fome alterations, after it had passed out of the hands of Shakspeare.

23. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, 1602.

Troilus and Creffida was entered at Stationers' hall, Feb. 7, 1602-3, under the title of The booke of Troilus and Creffida, by J. Roberts, the printer of Hamlet, the Merchant of Venice, and MidfummerNight's Dream. It was therefore, probably, written in 1602. It was printed in 1609, with the title of The Hiftory of Troilus and Creffida, with a preface by the editor, who speaks of it as if it had not been then acted. But it is entered in 1602-3," as acted

by my Lord Chamberlen's men. " The players at the Globe theatre, to which Shakspeare belonged, were called the Lord Chamberlen's fervants till the year 1603. In that year they obtained a licence for their exhibitions from king James; and from that time they bore the more honourable appellation of his majesty's fervants. There can, therefore, be little doubt, that the Troilus and Creffida which is here entered, as acted at Shakspeare's theatre, was his play, and was, if not reprefented, intended to have been reprefented there."

Perhaps the two difcordant accounts, relative to this piece, may be thus reconciled. It might have been performed in 1602 at court, by the lord chamberlain's fervants, (as many plays at that time were,) and yet not have been exhibited on the publick ftage till fome years afterwards. The editor in 1609 only fays, " it had never been ftaled with the fage, never clapper-claw'd with the palms of the vulgar."

As a further proof of the early appearance of Troilus and Creffida, it may be observed, that an incident in it feems to be burlefqued in a comedy entitled Hiftriomafix, which, though not printed till 1610, muft have been written before the death of Queen Elizabeth, who, in the last act of the piece, is fhadowed under the character of Aftræa, and is spoken of as then living.

6 No other play with this title has come down to us. We have therefore a right to conclude that the play entered in the books of the Stationers' company, was Shakspeare's.

[See the Additions to the Hiftory of the English Stage, in Vol. III. from whence it is proved that there was an earlier play on this fubject. STEEVENS.]

In our author's play, when Troilus and Creffida part, he gives her his fleeve, and fhe, in return, prefents him with her glove.

To this circumftance thefe lines in Hiftriomaflix feem to refer. They are spoken by Troilus and Creffida, who are introduced in an interlude :

Troi. Come, Creffida, my creffet light,
Thy face doth fhine both day and night.
"Behold, behold, thy garter blue

Thy knight his valiant elbow weares,
That, when he shakes his furious fpeare,
The foe in fhivering fearful fort

May lay him down in death to fnort.

66

Creff. O knight, with valour in thy face,
Here take my Skreene, weare it for grace;

Within thy helmet put the fame,

Therewith to make thy enemies lame."

་

In Much Ado about Nothing, Troilus is mentioned as the firft employer of pandars." Shakspeare, therefore, probably had read Chaucer's poem before the year 1600, when that play was printed. In Cymbeline it is faid, that.

"Therfites' body is as good as Ajax',

66 When neither are alive.

This feems to import a precedent knowledge of Ajax and Therfites, and in this light may be regarded as a prefumptive proof that Troilus and Creffida was written before Cymbeline.

Dryden fuppofed Troilus and Creffida to have been one of Shakspeare's earliest performances; ?

7 "The tragedy which I have undertaken to correct, was in all probability, one of his firft endeavours on the ftage.Shakspeare (as I hinted) in the apprenticeship of his writing modelled it the ftory of Lollius] into that play which is

!

يالي

>

but has not mentioned on what principles he founded his judgment. Pope, on the other hand, thought it one of his laft; grounding his opinion not only on the preface by the editor in 1609, but on "the great number of obfervations both moral and political with which this piece is crowded, more than any other of our author's. " For my own part, were it not for the entry in the Stationers' books, Ifhould have been led, both by the colour of the writing and by the above-mentioned preface, to class it (though not one of our author's happiest effufions) in 1608, rather than in that year in which it is here placed.

24. MEASURE FOR MEASURE, 1603.

This play was not registered at Stationers' hall, nor printed, till 1623. But from two paffages in it, which feem intended as a courtly apology for the ftately and ungracious demeanour of King Ja mes I. on his entry into England, it appears probable that it was written not long after his acceffion · to the throne:

I'll privily away. I love the people,

But do not like to ftage me to their eyes. Though it do well, I do not relish well Their loud applause, and aves vehement; Nor do I think the man of fafe difcretion "That does affect it." Measure for Meafure, A&I. fc. i, Again, A& II. sc. iv :

}

So

The general, fubject to a well-wish'd king,

Quit their own part, and in obfequious fondnef

now called by the name of Troilus and Creffida."-Dryden's pref. to Troilus and Greffida.