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I have no doubt that an equivoque was here intended, and that, befide the obvious fenfe, an allufion was intended to King Henry IV. the heir of France, concerning whofe fucceffion to the throne there was a civil war in that country, from Auguft 1589, when his father was affaffinated, for feveral years. Henry, after ftruggling long against the power and force of the League, extricated himself from all his difficulties by embracing the Roman Catholick religion at St. Denis, on Sunday the 25th of July, 1593, and was crowned king of France in Feb. 1594; I therefore imagine this play was written before that period. In 1591 Lord Effex was fent with 4000 troops to the French king's affiflance, and his brother Walter was killed before Rouen in Normandy. From that time till Henry was peaceably fettled on the throne, many bodies of troops were fent by Queen Elizabeth to his aid: fo that his fituation muft then have been a matter of notoriety, and a fubject of conversation in England.

This play was neither entered on the Stationers' books, nor printed, till 1623, but is mentioned by Meres in 1598, and exhibits internal proofs of having been one of Shakspeare's earliest productions. I formerly fuppofed that it could not have been written till 1596; because the tranflation of the Menæchmi of Plautus, from which the plot appears to have been taken, was not publifhed till 1595. But on a more attentive examination of

6 The words heir and hair were, I make no doubt, pronounced alike in Shak fpeare's time, and hence they are frequently confounded in the old copies of his plays.

that tranflation, I find that Shakspeare might have feen it before publication; for from the printer's advertisement to the reader, it appears that for fome time before it had been handed about in MS, among the tranflator's friends. The piece was entered at Stationers' Hall, June 10, 1594, and as the author had tranflated all the comedies of Plautus, it may be prefumed that the whole work had been the employment of fome years: and this might have been one of the earlieft tranflated. Shakspeare must also have read fome other account of the fame ftory not yet difcovered; for how otherwife could he have got the names of Erraticus and Surreptus, which do not occur in the tranflation of Plautus? There the brothers are called Menæchmus Soficles, and Menæchmus the tra

veller.

The alternate rhymes that are found in this play, as well as in A Midfummer Night's Dream, Love's Labour's Loft, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Romeo and Juliet, are a further proof that thefe pieces were among our author's earlieft productions. We are told by himself that Venus and Adonis was the firft heir of his invention." The Rape of Lucrece probably followed foon afterwards. When he turned his thoughts to the ftage, the measure which he had ufed in thofe poems, naturally prefented itself to him in his firft dramatick essays: I mean in those plays which were written originally by himself. In those which were grounded, like the Henries, on the preceding productions of other men, he naturally followed the example before him, and confequently in those pieces no alternate rhymes are found.

The doggrel meafure, which, if I recollect right, is employed in none of our author's plays except The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, and Love's Labour's Loft, alfo adds fupport to the dates affigned to thefe plays: for these long doggrel verfes, as I have obferved in a note at the end of the piece now under our confideration, are written in that kind of metre which was ufually attributed by the dramatick poets before his time to fome of their inferior characters. He was imperceptibly infected with the prevailing mode in thefe his early compofitions; but foon learned to " deviate boldly from the common track," left by preceding

writers.

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A play with the fame title as that before us, was exhibited at Gray's inn in December 1594; but I know not whether it was Shakspeare's play, or a tranflation from Plautus. After fuch fports, (fays the writer of Gefta Grayorum, 1688,) a Comedy of Errors, like to Plautus his Menechmus, was played by the players: fo that night was begun and continued to the end in nothing but confufion and errors. Whereupon it was ever afterwards called the Night of Errors." The Registers of Gray's-inn have been examined for the purpofe of afcertaining whether the play above-mentioned was our author's; but they afford no information on the fubject.

From its having been reprefented, by the players, not by the gentlemen of the inn, I think it probable that it was Shakspeare's piece.

The name of Dowfabel, which is mentioned in this play, occurs likewife in an Eclogue entitled

The Shepherd's Garland, by Michael Drayton, printed in 4to. in 1593.

6. THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, 1594.

This play and The Winter's Tale are the only pieces which I have found reafon, fince the first edition of this Effay appeared, to attribute to an era widely different from that in which I had originally placed them. I had fuppofed the piece now under confideration to have been written in the year 1606. On a more attentive perufal of it, and more experience in our author's ftyle and manner, I am perfuaded that it was one of his very early productions, and near in point of time to The Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour's Left, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

In the old comedies, antecedent to the time of our author's writing for the flage, (if indeed they deferve that name,) a kind of doggrel measure is often found, which, as I have already obferved, Shakspeare adopted in fome of thofe pieces which were undoubtedly among his early compofitions; I mean his Errors, and Love's Labour's Loft. This kind of metre being found alfo in the play before us, adds support to the fuppofition that it was one of his early productions. The laft four lines of

A minute change has been made in the arrangement of five other plays; A Midfummer Night's Dream, The Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour's Loft, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Cymbeline; but the variation is not more than a period of two or three years.

this comedy furnifh an example of the meafure I allude to:

"'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white,
"And being a winner, God give you good night.
"Now go thy ways, thou hait tam'd a curft fhrew
'Tis a wonder, by your leave, fhe will be tam'd fo.'

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Another proof of The Taming of the Shrew being an early production arifes from the frequent play of words which we find in it, and which Shakspeare has condemned in a fubfequent comedy.

Some of the incidents in this comedy are taken from the Suppofes of Gafcoigne, an author of confiderable popularity, when Shakspeare first began to write for the ftage.

The old piece entitled The Taming of a Shrew, on which our author's play is founded, was entered on the Stationers' books by Peter Short, May 2, 1594, and probably foon afterwards printed. As it bore nearly the fame title with Shakspeare's play, (which was not printed till 1623,) the hope of getting a fale for it under the fhelter of a celebrated name, was probably the inducement to iffue it out at that time; and its entry at Stationers' hall, and publication in 1594, (for from the paffage quoted below it must have been publifhed,) gives weight

From a paffage in a tract written by Sir John Harrington, entitled The Metamorphofis of Ajax, 1596, this old play appears to have been printed before that time, probably in the year 1594, when it was entered at Stationers' hall; though no edition of fo early a date has hitherto been difcovered." Read" (fays Sir John) "the booke of Taming a Shrew, which hath made a number of us fo perfect, that now every one can rule a fhrew in our country, fave he that hath her."

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