On December 26th and 28th the Chamberlain's servants performed before the Queen at Greenwich, apparently in the daytime. Kempe, Shakespeare, and Burbadge were paid for these performances on the following March. It is singular that the performance of "A comedy of Errors like unto Plautus his Menœchmi" should have also been performed apparently by the same company at Gray's Inn, also on December 26th. This seems to be the first mention of Shakespeare's play, the true title of which is simply Errors: but whether it was written in 1590 or 1593-4, there is no evidence that is absolutely decisive. The allusion to France fighting against her heir, v. ii. 2. 125, would be equally applicable at any date from July 1589, when Henri III. was killed, to February 1594, when Henri IV. was consecrated.
That the date of Midsummer Night's Dream should be fixed in the winter of 1594-5 was long since seen by Malone, the allusions to the remarkable weather of 1594 being too marked to be put aside contemptuously. It has also been attempted to assign other dates on account of the play's being manifestly written for some marriage solemnity. It is not needful to alter the date for that reason. Either the marriage of W. Stanley, Earl of Derby, at Greenwich, on 24th January, 1594-5, or that of Lord Russel, Earl of Bedford, to Lucy Harrington (before 5th February, S. R.), would suit very well in point of time. The former is the more probable; because it took place at Greenwich, where we know the Chamberlain's men to have performed in the previous month, and because these actors had mostly been servants to the Earl of Derby's brother in the early part of the previous year.
There is little, if any doubt, that Shakespeare produced Richard II. and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, as we now have it, in this year. A larum for London, or The Siege of Antwerp, by (?) Lodge, was acted about this time.
The play of Richard Duke of York was printed in 1595 and on 1st December Edward III. was entered on S. R.
The performances of the Chamberlain's men, 1594-5, at Court, were on December 26, 27, 28; January 5; February 22. Payment was made to Hemings and Bryan.
1596.
Early in this year the play of Sir T. More was produced by the Chamberlain's company. The name of T. Goodale, who was one of their actors, occurs in the MS. It appears from the notes of E. Tylney, then Master of the Revels, that much revision had to be made in its form in consequence of its reproducing, under a thin disguise, a narrative of the Apprentice Riots of June 1595. The imprisonment of the Earl of Hertford in October of the same year was too closely paralleled by that of Sir T. More in the play to be agreeable to the Government. Another point objected to was satirical allusion to Frenchmen. The date hitherto assigned to this play is "1590 or earlier" (Dyce), which is palpably wrong.
Soon after Shakespeare's King John was acted. It contains, in my opinion, an allusion to the expedition to Cadiz in June (i. 2. 66-75).
On July 23d Henry Carey died, and the "Chamberlain's players" became the men of his son, George Carey L. Hunsdon.