But plenty of Old England's mother's words."
The allusion to Troylus, l. 267-275, in which "he shakes his furious spear," has led some persons to a very absurd identification of Posthaste with Shakespeare. I have noticed before the singular allusion to The Iron Age in John iv. 1. 60 (1596).
1603.
The Taming of the Shrew is unlike any play hitherto considered; the Shakespearian part of it being evidently confined to the Katharine and Petruchio scenes—ii. 1. 167-326; iii. 2 (except 130-150, 242-254); iv. 1; iv. 3; iv. 5 (except three lines at end); v. 2 (except ten lines at conclusion). The construction of the play shows that it was not composed by Shakespeare in conjunction with another author, but that his additions are replacements of the original author's work; alterations made hurriedly for some occasion when it was not thought worth while to write an entirely new play. Such an occasion was the plague year of 1603, when the theatres were closed and the companies had to travel. We shall see, hereafter, that Shakespeare's other similar alterations of other men's work were made in like circumstances. This date is confirmed by the allusions to other taming plays, of which there were several; the present play, in its altered shape, being probably the latest: ii. 1. 297 refers to Patient Grissel, by Dekker, Chettle, and Haughton, December 1599; "curst" in ii. 1. 187, 294, 307; v. 2. 188, to Dekker's Medicine for a Curst Wife, July 1602; and iv. 1. 221 to Heywood's Woman Killed with Kindness, March 1603. There is nothing but the supposed inferiority of work to imply an earlier date; and this, on examination, will be seen to be merely a subjective inference arising from the reflex action of the less worthy portion with which Shakespeare's is associated. Rudesby in iii. 2. 10 is from Sir Giles Goosecap (1601), and Baptista, as a man's name, could hardly have come under Shakespeare's notice, when in his Hamlet he made it a woman's. The earlier play thus altered probably dates 1596, when an edition of The Taming of a Shrew was reprinted. This last-named play was written for Pembroke's company in 1588-9. Another limit of date is given by the name Sincklo in the Induction. Sinklo was an actor with the Chamberlain's men, from 1597 to 1604. Nicke in iv. 1. is Nicholas Tooley. The play is not mentioned by Meres in 1598. In the Induction, "The Slys are no rogues: we came in with Richard Conqueror," is, I think, an allusion to the stage history of the time. Sly and Richard the Third (Burbadge) came into Lord Strange's company together in 1591. In the Pembroke play, Don Christophero Sly was probably acted by Christopher Beeston. The Induction, partly revised by Shakespeare, seems to have been clumsily fitted by the players (as, indeed, the whole play is, especially in the non-appearance of "my cousin Ferdinand," iv. 1. 154, whose place seems to be taken by Hortensio): surely Sly ought to have been replaced, as in the 1588 play; and is it possible that Shakespeare even in a farce should have made Sly talk blank verse, sc. 2, l. 60-120? The Taming of a Shrew, as acted in June 1594 at Newington Butts, was the old play which had belonged to Pembroke's men, probably by Kyd; but the first version of the play, afterwards altered by Shakespeare, was written, I think, by Lodge, (? aided by Drayton in the Induction). This Induction was, I think, greatly altered by Shakespeare in 1603.
1603.
Hamlet is extant in three forms—the Folio, which is evidently a stage copy considerably shortened for acting purposes; the 1604 Quarto, which is a very fair transcript of the author's complete copy, with a few omissions; and the 1603 Quarto, imperfect and inaccurate. The date of the perfect play is certainly 1603. In ii 2. 346, &c., we find that the tragedians of the city—i.e., Shakespeare's company—are "travelling," and that "their inhibition comes of the late innovation." This has been interpreted in various ways, the most absurd being that which regards the establishment of the Revels children in 1604 as the innovation: hardly less so is Malone's notion that the putting down of the Curtain players in 1600 is the inhibition referred to. The Globe company travelled in 1601 in consequence of Essex' attempt at political innovation, and their acting Richard II. in connection therewith; they travelled again in 1603, the theatres being shut because of the plague: this latter is the time referred to in the final version, for in the latter part of that year the Puritan party had by millenary petitions at Hampton Court conferences, and so forth, attempted a religious "innovation;" and their anxiety to avoid this charge is evident in their continual protests that it was a reformation, not an innovation, that they wanted (see Fuller, Church History, under 1603-4 passim). The immediately succeeding passage, l. 351-379, however, which also occurs in the earlier version, distinctly points to 1601. The "berattling of the common stages by the aery of little eyases," the controversy between poet and player, ended in that year; these lines are not contained in the second Quarto. The words "if they should grow themselves to common players," indicate a possible date of writing c. 1610, when Ostler and Underwood, Chapel boys in 1601, had grown up and been taken into the King's men; but the use of the present tense in the preceding paragraph shows that the same Chapel children who had been engaged in the Jonson and Marston quarrel were still on the stage, and that the date of writing is anterior to their replacement by the Revels boys in January 1604. The growing to common players then must be taken generally, not specifically; unless we suppose a still further revision c. 1610, which on other grounds is not unlikely. It may be worth noting that the play of Dido, in rivalry of which the player's speech in ii. 2 is recited, belonged to these same Chapel children. In like manner the Pyrgus in Jonson's Poetaster recites bits of The Battle of Alcazar in rivalry with Dekker's Captain Stukeley. But although the date of the perfect play is almost certainly 1603, Hamlet had certainly been on the stage some years at that time. Tucca in Satiromastix (1601) says, "My name's Hamlet Revenge," and he comes on, "his boy after him, with two pictures under his cloak." In Marston's Malcontent (1601), "Illo, ho, ho, ho! art thou there, old Truepenny?" must refer to Hamlet. In iii. 2. 42, "Let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them," refers, I think, to extemporising Kempe, who left Shakespeare's company in 1599. Florio's Montaigne, which is implicitly referred to throughout the play (see Mr. Feis, Shakespeare and Montaigne, 1884), was entered S. R. 4th June 1600. On the title-page of the first Quarto it is said that the play had been acted in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and elsewhere; i.e., in the travelling of 1601. It is pretty clear, then, that 1601 was the date of its production. Polonius (iii. 2. 108) had already played Julius Cæsar in the University, which could hardly have been before 1601; and Hamlet was entered by Roberts 26th July 1602, in S. R., "as it was lately acted." Plays thus produced during "travels," were almost always hurried and careless performances; indeed, this form of Hamlet seems to have been an unfinished refashioning of the old play by Kyd, that had so long been performed by the Chamberlain's men. The names Corambis and Montano for Polonius and Reynaldo, and a good deal of Acts iii. and iv., seem to be remnants of this old play. The name Corambus is found in the German version, which probably dates c. 1592. It also occurs in All's Well, iv. 3. 185. The first Quarto is in this instance, as in those of Romeo, Henry V., and Merry Wives, in my opinion, printed from a partly revised prompter's copy of the 1601 play, which became useless when the fuller version was made. In this instance there are traces of alterations having been made on this copy similar to that in Romeo, iii. 5. 177. The usual explanation of the peculiar text of imperfect Quartos is, that notes were taken in shorthand at the theatre, which, eked out by the vampings of some playdresser, made up a saleable version, however incorrect. The stronghold of this theory is the soliloquy in iii. 1. 56, &c. The minor errors of "right done" for "write down," i. 2. 222; "invenom'd speech" for "in venom steept," ii. 2. 533; "honor" for "owner," v. 1. 121; and the like, can be easily paralleled in the most authentic copies of printed plays of the period. But a careful examination of the text of that speech of Hamlet's in the first Quarto, shows that its present meaningless shape arises from the displacement of two lines only, an error which is most unlikely to have occurred in shorthand notes, and is completely subversive of the hack play-writing botcher hypothesis. I append this soliloquy, as I suppose it to have stood in the MS. of the prompter's copy, after the partial 1601 correction:
bourne
The undiscover'd country from whose sight
no passenger ever return'd.
Ay, that