I must add a word on the Fairy scene, v. 5. The fairies are Nan the Queen (in red?), cf. iv. 4. 71; Will Cricket (in grey?); two other boys, Bede and Bean, in green and white; and Evans, Puck Hobgoblin or Robin Goodfellow, in black. The prefixes Qu., Qui., and Pist. are mistakes for Queen and Puck. Pistol and Quickly cannot be actors in this scene, nor in the entrance are they placed with "Evans, Anne Page, Fairies," but at the ends of the second and third lines, as if by afterthought. All the Pistol fairy speeches belong to Evans (Puck). There seems to have arisen some confusion in the final revision, when this scene was probably altered. Further confirmation of the original early date of the play may be found in Falstaff's statement that the Thames shore was "shelvy and shallow" (iii. 5. 15); for in 1592 the Thames was so low as to be fordable at London Bridge, and Falstaff was thrown in the ford at Datchet. But the allusions to "three Doctor Faustuses" and Mephistopheles are not helpful; Faustus was on the boards till 1597 at least. One of Henry Julius' plays derived from English sources, printed in 1594, The Adulteress, contains the same story as The Merry Wives. If this was not derived from Shakespeare's play, whence was it? The ground of the English play was probably the story in Tarleton's News out of Purgatory (1590). Note that the other play by Julius distinctly traceable in origin to the English stage is Vincentius Ladislaus (1594), in which the similarities to Much Ado (1590), are as marked as in the present instance. We have already seen that Evans acts the part of Robin Goodfellow, and that Will Cricket is another fairy; but these are two characters in Wily Beguiled, in which play Robin Goodfellow means Drayton and Will Cricket Kempe. I believe that in Shakespeare's play, Evans and Dr. Caius are satirical representations of Drayton and Lodge. Drayton is introduced as Evan, a Welsh attorney, by Jonson in For the Honour of Wales, and Lodge was frequently satirised on the stage as a French doctor. The part of Falstaff was acted in Charles the First's time by Lowin, and there is no reason why he should not have been the original performer of it in this play as revised. He was twenty-four years old in 1600.
1600.
Julius Cæsar is alluded to in Weever's Mirror of Martyrs (Sir John Oldcastle), 1601; and the actor of Polonius in Hamlet iii. 2. 109 had probably acted the part of Cæsar; at any rate Cæsar must be anterior to the Quarto Hamlet which was produced in 1601. The structure of this play is remarkable; the first three acts and last two have no characters in common except Brutus, Cassius, Antony, and Lucius; there are in fact two plays in one, Cæsar's Tragedy and Cæsar's Revenge. Contemporary plays by other dramatists were produced in a double pattern: e.g., Marston's Antonio and Mellida, in two parts; Chapman's Bussy d'Ambois, in two parts; Kyd's old play of Jeronymo, in two parts. All these were on the stage at the same time as Julius Cæsar. Revenge-plays with ghosts in them were the rage for the next four years. That the present play has been greatly shortened, is shown by the singularly large number of instances in which mute characters are on the stage; which is totally at variance with Shakespeare's usual practice. The large number of incomplete lines in every possible position, even in the middle of speeches, confirms this. That alterations were made we have the positive testimony of Jonson, who in his Discoveries tells us that Shakespeare wrote, "Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause" (compare iii. 1. 47). That this original reading stood in the acting copies till not long before the 1623 Folio was printed, is clear from the fact that Jonson, in the Induction to his Staple of News (1625), alludes to it as a well-known line requiring no explanation—"Cry you mercy," says Prologue, "you never did wrong but with just cause." This would imply that Shakespeare did not make the alterations himself; a hypothesis confirmed by the spelling of Antony without an h: this name occurs in eight of Shakespeare's plays, and in every instance but this invariably is spelled Anthony. Jonson himself is more likely to have been called on to make this revision than any other author connected with the King's company c. 1622. The "et tu Brute" about which so much has been written was probably taken from Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour (i. 1); it is found in the Duke of York (1595) and elsewhere. Nicholson, in his Acolastus his after wit (S. R. 8th September 1600), probably took it from Shakespeare's play, "Et tu Brute! wilt thou stab Cæsar too?"
1601.
All's Well that Ends Well manifestly contains passages—i. 1. 230-244; i. 3. 130-142; ii. 1. 130-214; ii. 3. 80-110, 132-151; iii. 4 letter: v. 3 concluding part—which are of very early date; certainly written not later than 1593. It is not, however, in my opinion, to be identified with Love's Labour's Won: the allusions to the present title in iv. 4. 35; v. 1. 24; v. 3. 333, 336, all occur in rhyme passages, and some of them, at least, belong to the earlier date. The play, as we have it, was written after Marston's Jack Drum's Entertainment (1600), to which there is a palpable allusion in iii. 6. 41; and before The Dutch Courtesan (probably 1602) by the same author, which contains several allusions to its title. The name Corambus in iv. 3. 185 suggests the same date, as this is the appellation of Polonius in the Quarto Hamlet. The introduction of Violenta, a mute character, in iii. 5, and the substitution of the same name in Twelfth Night, i. 5, for Viola, show that this last-named play was the last written of the two, but not much interval could have occurred between them. In confirmation of this approximation of dates, compare the name Capilet, v. 3. 147, 159, with Twelfth Night, iii. 4. 315. In plot this play agrees with Much Ado in the supposed death of Helen, and the promise of Bertram to marry Maudlin Lafeu; with Measure for Measure, in the substitution of Helen for Diana; with The Gentlemen of Verona, in Helen's pilgrim disguise, and her meeting with the Hostess. In it and Twelfth Night we find a few slight allusions to the Puritans; another confirmation of date. The only other use even of the word Puritan is in the late play Winter's Tale, iv. 3. 46. Compare the doubtful Pericles, iv. 6. 9. The way in which the earthquake is mentioned in i. 3. 91, gives a still further confirmation. There was an earthquake in London in 1601. I take the boasting Parolles to be Marston; born under Mars, muddied in Fortune's displeasure, an egregious coward, an accuser of Captain Dumain of being lousy, he in all points agrees with Marston, as figured in the other satirical plays of the time. The charge against Dumain is repeated against Jonson in Satiromastix; Marston had left the Admiral's company in 1599, just before the Fortune Theatre was built for them. His cowardice is dilated on in Jonson's Conversations, and the allusions to him as Jack Drum are frequent in the play. Once we find Tom Drum in v. 2 (from Tom Drum's Vants in Gentle Craft, 1598), a hint that Thomas Dekker, author of The Shoemaker's Holiday, or The Gentle Craft (1600), was aiding and abetting John Marston in his satirical plays. Helen was acted by a short boy (i. 1. 202). The incident of the King's gift to Helen of his ring, only referred to in the last scene, seems to point at the gift of a ring to Essex by Elizabeth in 1596. Essex was executed in 1601, just before this play was acted. The older parts pointed out above were, I think, incorporated from detached scenes written in 1593 during the plague time, and laid by for future use. The plot is from Giletta of Narbonne in Painter's Palace of Pleasure, a book used by Shakespeare in 1594 for his alteration of Edward III. Mr. Stokes says that Eccleston and Gough acted in this play, on the authority of Mr. Halliwell; one of the many ignes fatui that have misled this unwary compiler.
1601-2.
Twelfth Night, or What You Will, was first acted 2d February 1602 at one of the Inns of Court (Manningham's Diary). Its date lies between Marston's Malcontent (1602), (of Malevole in which play Malvolio is clearly a caricature), and What You Will(1602) by the same author. This adoption of the name of his play seems to have induced Shakespeare to replace it by the now universally adopted title. The appellation Rudesby (v. 1. 55) is from Chapman's Sir Giles Goosecap(1601). Several minor points have been already noticed under the previous play All's Well. In this play, as in that, I believe that earlier written scenes have been incorporated. It is only in similar cases that we find such contradictions as that between the three months' sojourn of Viola at the Count's court (v. 1), and the three days' acquaintance with the Duke in i. 4. In ii. 4 there are palpable signs of alteration, and iii. 1. 159-176, v. 1. 133-148 are surely of early date. Moreover, the singular agreement of the plot with the Comedy of Errors in the likeness of the twins, and with The Gentleman of Verona, or rather with Apollonius and Sylla, whence part of that play was derived, point to a likelihood that the first conceptions of these plays were not far apart in time. I think the early portions were written in 1593, like those of the preceding play. For the change from Duke (i. 1-4) to Count in the rest of the play compare The Gentlemen of Verona. I believe that Sir Toby represents Jonson and Malvolio Marston; but that subject requires to be treated in a separate work from its complexity.
1602.
Troylus and Cressida was published surreptitiously in 1609, with an address to the reader stating that it had been "never staled with the stage." This statement was withdrawn in the same year, and a new title-page issued, "as it was acted by the King's Majesty's servants at the Globe." It had in fact been entered in S. R. 1603, February 7, by J. Roberts, and licensed for printing, "when he hath gotten sufficient authority for it"—which he evidently did not get. It could not therefore have been produced later than 1602. Nor could it, as we have it, have been earlier; the line i. 3. 73, "rank Thersites with his mastic jaws" evidently alluding to Dekker's Satiro-Mastix (1601). I once thought Marston, as Histriomastix or Theriomastix, was alluded to; but the character of Thersites suits Dekker, not Marston. Jonson describes him in The Poetaster, iii. 1, as "one of the most overflowing rank wits in Rome; he will slander any man that breathes if he disgust him." In 1602, Jonson, Marston, and Shakespeare had become reconciled; of reconciliation with Dekker, at any time, there is no trace. This play is probably the "purge" given by Shakespeare to Jonson when he put down all those "of the university pen" (The Return from Parnassus, iv. 3, acted in the winter 1602-3); Ajax representing Jonson, Achilles Chapman, and Hector Shakespeare: but whether this conjecture be true or no, Dekker is certainly Thersites. All this part of the play (the camp story) splits off from the love story of Troylus and Cressida, which is of much earlier date, c. 1593. The two parts are discrepant in minor points, notably in the existence of a truce (i. 3. 262), "dull and long-continued" fighting having been abundant in i. 2. The parts written in 1602 are i. 3; ii. 1; ii. 2; ii. 3; iii. 3. 34 to end; iv. 5. (except lines 12-53); v. i; v. 2 (retains much older work); v. 3. 1-97. All this part bears evident marks of the reading of Chapman's Iliad i.-vii. (1598); the love story is somewhat from the old Troy book printed by Caxton, but more from Chaucer's Troilus and Cressid. At the end of v. 3, in the Folio v. 10. 32-34, are repeated; this shows that the 1602 acting copy was meant to end with v. 3, thus making the play a comedy; as it now stands it is usually classed with the tragedies; in the Folio, it is placed unpaged between the Histories and Tragedies, and is not mentioned in the "Catologue" of contents. The prologue and v. 4-10 contain much work that is unlike Shakespeare's, and are probably by some coadjutor whose other lines have been replaced by the 1602 additions. Heywood in his Iron Age treated this same subject, and the date of that play is important in this investigation. The Ages of Heywood were acted before 1611 (see his Address to the Reader in The Golden Age); The Iron Age was "publicly acted by two companies on one stage at once," and "at sundry times thronged three several theatres." These were the Rose, the Curtain, and the Bull; Pembroke's men, and the Admiral's, acted together at the Rose, October to November 1597. This must have been the time when the Iron Age was performed; but not as a new play. It would otherwise have been entered in Henslowe's Diary as such. All the Ages were then probably old in 1597. In 1595-6 we find them accordingly entered by Henslowe under other names; in 1595, March 5, The Golden Age, whose scenes are in Heaven and Olympus, appears as Steleo (Cœlo) and Olempo; he subsequently writes Seleo for Steleo; The Silver and Brazen Ages on May 7 and May 23, as the first and second parts of Hercules. These three plays were produced in succession. The entry of Galfrido and Bernardo is a forgery, and a clumsy one, for it necessitates a Sunday performance, which is a thing unknown in Henslowe's Diary, if the dates be properly corrected. On 23d June 1596, Troy was acted, palpably The Iron Age; and on 7th April 1597, Five Plays in One may have been the second part of that play. About February 1599, Heywood left the Admiral's men, and joined Lord Derby's; in April, Dekker and Chettle produced their Troylus and Cressida; in May their Agamemnon, and Dekker his Orestes' Furies. I believe that all these were merely enlargements of Heywood's Iron Age. Dekker was a "dresser of plays" and a shameless plagiarist; witness the stealing of Day's work, which he afterwards reclaimed in his Parliament of Bees. At the same time that Dekker was thus pillaging Heywood, his friend Marston was satirising Heywood as Post-haste in Histriomastix for appropriating Shakespeare's Troylus (of 1593) and bringing out The Prodigal Child, the old Acolastus of 1540, as a new play. There can be no doubt that the company satirised in Histriomastix is Derby's. It was a "travelling" company, newly set up, with a poet who extemporises his plays (Heywood had a share in 220) and uses
"No new luxury of blandishment,