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Love's Labour Lost was not entered at StationersHall till the 23d of January 1606, but is mentioned by Francis Meres * in his Wit's Treasury, or The Second Part of Wit's Commonwealth †, in 1598, and was printed in that year. In the title-page of this edition (the oldest hitherto discovered), this piece is said to have been presented before her highness [Queen Elizabeth] the last Christmas [1597], and to be newly cor

posed to believe (other proofs being wanting), that play, in which the greater number of rhymes is found, to have been first composed. This, however, must be acknowledged to be but a fallible criterion; for the Three Parts of King Henry VI. which appear to have been among our author's earliest compositions, do not abound in rhymes.

* 'This writer, to whose list of our author's plays we are so much indebted, appears, from the following passage of the work here mentioned, to have been personally acquainted with Shakspere:

"As the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet witty soul of Ovid lies in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakspere. Witness his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugured Sonnets among his pri vate friends, &c." Wit's Treasury, p. 282. There is no edition of Shakspere's Sonnets, now extant, of so early a date as 1598, when Meres's book was printed; so that we may conclude, he was one of those friends to whom they were privately recited, before their publication.

+ This book was probably published in the latter-end of the year 1598; for it was not entered at Stationers-Hall till September in that year,

rected appears

rected and augmented: from which it should seem, that there had been a former impression.

Mr. Gildon, in his observations on Love's Labour Lost, says, " he cannot see why the author gave it this name." The following lines exhibit the train of thoughts, which probably suggested to Shakspere this title, as well as that which anciently was affixed to another of his comedies-Love's Labour Won.

"To be in love where scorn is bought with groans,

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Coy looks with heart-sore sighs; one fading mo

ment's mirth

"With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights: "If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain;

" If lost, why then a grievous labour won."

Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act. I. sc. i.

3. THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY VI. 1591.

The regular First Part of King Henry VI. was not published till 1623, at which time it was entered at Stationers-Hall by the printers of the earliest folio, under the name of The Third Part of King Henry VI. In one sense it might be called so; for two parts had appeared before. But considering the history of that reign, and the period of time it comprehends, it ought to have been called, what in fact it is, The FIRST Part of King Henry VI. Why this First Part was not entered on the Stationers' books with the other two, it is impossible now to determine. That it was written before the Second and Third Parts, Dr. Johnson thinks, Ddiij

appears indubitably from the series of events. "It is apparent," he says, "that The Second Part begins where the former ends, and continues the series of transactions of which it pre-supposes the first part already known. This is a sufficient proof that the Second and Third Parts were not written without dependance on The First, though they were printed as containing a complete period of history."

I once thought differently from the learned commentator; imagining that The First Part of King Henry VI. was not written till after the two other parts. But on an attentive examination of these three plays, I have found sufficient reason to subscribe to Dr. Johnson's opinion.

This piece is supposed to have been produced in the year 1591, on the authority of Thomas Nashe, who in a tract, entitled, Pierce Pennyless his Supplication to the Devil, which was published in 1592*, expressly mentions one of the characters in it, who does not appear in the Second or Third Part of King Henry VI. nor, I believe, in any other play of that time. "How, says he, would it have joyed brave Talbot, the terror of the Frencht, to think that after he had lain

* This was the first edition, for it was not entered on the Stationers' books before that year.

+ Thus Talbot is described in The First Part of King Henry VI. Act I. sc. iii.

"Here, said they, is the terror of the French."

lain two hundred years in his tomb, he should triumph again on the stage, and have his bones new embalmed, with the tears of ten thousand spectators at least (at several times), who, in the tragedian that represents his person, imagine they behold him fresh bleeding."

4. SECOND AND THIRD PARTS OF KING 5.5 HENRY VI. 1592.

In a tract already mentioned, entitled Greene's Groatsworth of Witte, &c. which was written before the end of the year 1592, there is, as Mr. Tyrwhitt has observed *, a parody on a line in The Third Part of King Henry VI. and an allusion to the name of Shakspere.

These two historical dramas were entered on the books of the Stationers-Company, March 12, 1593-4, but were not printed till the year 1600. In their second titles they are called-THE FIRST AND SECOND PARTS of the Contention of the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster; but in reality they are THE SECOND and THIRD PARTS of King Henry VI.

In the last chorus of King Henry V. Shakspere alludeş to the Second Part, perhaps to all the parts of King Henry VI. as popular performances, that had fre

Again, in Act V. sc. i.

" Is Talbot slain, the Frenchmen's only scourge,

Your kingdom's terror?"

*See vol. VI. p. ult.

quently quently been exhibited on the stage; and expresses a hope, that King Henry V. may, for their sake, meet with a favourable reception; a plea, which he scarcely would have urged, if he had not been their author.

6. THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA, 1593. This comedy was not entered on the books of the Stationers-Company till 1623, at which time it was first printed; but is mentioned by Meres in 1598, and bears strong internal marks of an early composition.

7. THE WINTER'S TALE, 1594.

The Winter's Tale was, perhaps, entered on the Stationers' books, May 22, 1594, under the name of A Wynter Nyght's Pastime; which might have been the same play. It is observable that Shakspere has two other similar titles; -Twelfth Night, and A Midsummer Night's Dream: and it appears that the titles of his plays were sometimes changed; thus, All's Well that Ends Well, we have reason to think, was called Love's Labour Won: and Hamlet was sometimes called Hamlet's REVENGE, Sometimes The HISTORY of Hamlet. However, it must not be concealed, that The Winter's Tale is not enumerated among our author's plays, by Meres, in 1598: a circumstance which, yet, is not decisive to shew that it was not then written; for neither is Hamlet nor King Henry VI. mentioned by him.

Greene's Dorastus and Fawnia, from which the plot of this play is borrowed, was published in 1588.

The

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