And art more savage than a barbarous Moor" (i. 1).
King Lear was probably on the stage when the old play of Leir on which it was founded was published. This latter was entered on S. R. 8th May, as "The Tragical History of King Leir and his three daughters, as it was lately acted," but was published as "The true Chronicle History of King Leir and his three daughters, &c., as it hath been divers and sundry times lately acted." It is not tragical in any sense, and ends happily. Shakespeare was the first person who, in opposition to the chronicles, made a tragedy on this story. There can be no doubt that Stafford, the publisher, meant to pass the old play as Shakespeare's; the last trace we have of it on the stage is in April 1594, when it was acted at the Rose by the Queen's and Sussex' men, who almost immediately afterwards broke up. That Shakespeare's play remained on the stage till the end of 1605 is evident from the words "these late eclipses" (i. 2. 112) which clearly refer to the huge eclipse of the sun in October 1605, and the immediately preceding eclipse of the moon in September. The word "late" could not be used, whether in the original text or by subsequent insertion, till October. That Shakespeare had been probably reading Harvey on the subject I have noticed under the preceding play, to which the present is every way closely allied. Compare, for instance, the characters of Iago and Edmund. The Quarto of 1608, entered S. R. 26th November 1607 as acted at Whitehall St. Stephen's Day, i.e., 26th December 1606, is abridged and slightly altered for Court representation and carelessly printed; the Folio is, on the other hand, somewhat shortened for the public stage. The names of the spirits in iii. 4 are from Harsnett's Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures. The two lines at the end of Act i. and the Merlin's Prophecy (iii. 2. 79-95) are not in Shakespeare's manner; they are mere gag, inserted by the Fool-actor to raise a laugh among the groundlings. The story of Gloster and his sons is probably founded on Sidney's Arcadia, ii. 133-138, ed. 1598.
1606.
Macbeth, as we have it, is abridged for the stage in an unusual degree. Nevertheless it contains one scene, iii. 5, and a few lines, iv. i. 39-43, which are not by Shakespeare. The character of Hecate, and the songs in these passages (Black spirits and white, and Come away), are from Middleton's Witch, acted 1621-22. The insertions in Macbeth must have been made in 1622; they were probably merely intended to introduce a little singing and music then popular; and music has ever since been an essential ingredient in the stage representations. Omitting these forty lines, we have ample evidence of the date of the play as Shakespeare left it. In the Porter's speech, ii. 3. 1-23, 26-46, the "expectation of plenty" refers to the abundance of corn in 1606; the allusions to equivocation certainly allude to the trial of Garnet and other Jesuits in the spring of that year: the "stealing out of a French hose" agrees with the short and strait fashion then in vogue, when "the tailors took more than enough for the new fashion sake" (A. Nixon's Black Year, 1606); the touching for the King's evil, iv. 3. 140-159, implies that James was on the throne. Camden, in his Remains (1605), a book certainly known to Shakespeare, refers to it as a "gift hereditary." The "double balls and treble sceptres" in iv. 1. 119-122, necessitate a time of writing subsequent to 24th October 1604, when the constitution was changed. The applicability of the circumstances of the play to the Gowry conspiracy would be especially pleasing to James, and the predictions of the weyward sisters had already been presented to the King at Oxford in Latin in 1605. Warner added an account of Macbeth to his new edition of Albion's England in 1606, but the absolute argument against this being a new play when Forman saw it performed 20th April 1610, lies in the distinct allusion in The Puritan by Middleton, acted 1606—"instead of a jester, we'll ha' th' ghost in a white sheet sit at upper end o' th' table." This was Shakespeare's first play without a jester, and Banquo's ghost sits in Macbeth's place at the upper end. There is little doubt that Malone was right in assigning the visit of the King of Denmark in July and August 1606 as the occasion for the production of this play at Court. But was this the date of its first production on the stage? All the evidences for it are gathered from ii. 3. 1-23, 26-46; iv. 1. 119-122; iv. 3. 140-159; every one of which passages bears evident marks of being an addition to the original text. The description of Cawdor's death is remarkably like that of the Earl of Essex in Stow (by Howes, p. 793), who minutely describes "his asking the Queen's forgiveness, his confession, repentance, and concern about behaving with propriety on the scaffold." Steevens (ii. 4) reminds us of corresponding passages in Hamlet and Cæsar, to which plays Macbeth is throughout more closely allied than to Lear or Timon. The references to Antony, i. 3. 84, iii. 1. 57, are just what might be expected from one who had recently read Plutarch's life of Antony for writing Julius Cæsar. Shakespeare's company were in Scotland in 1601, and were appointed the King's Servants; Laurence Fletcher being admitted burgess of the guild of the borough of Aberdeen, 22d October 1601. This, I think, is the date of production of Macbeth on the stage, 1606 being that of the revised play at Court. But there are traces of a still earlier play. In 1596, August 27, there is, says Mr. Collier, an entry in S. R. (I suppose in that portion relating to fines, &c., which Mr. Arber has not been allowed to reprint) referring to two ballads, one on Macdobeth, the other on The Taming of a Shrew. Kempe, in his Dance from London to Norwich (1600), refers to this ballad as made by "a penny poet whose first making was the miserable stolen story of Mac-do-el or Mac-do-beth or Mac somewhat, for I am sure a Mac it was, though I never had the maw to see it;" he bids the writer "leave writing these beastly ballads; make not good wenches prophetesses, for little or no profit." This ballad was in all probability founded on a play, as its companion was; a play probably written some year or two before. That Shakespeare had some connection with this early play, is rendered probable by iv. 1. 94-101, in which Dunsin'ane is accented in the southern manner; in the rest of the play it is always, as in Scotland, Dunsina'ne. This passage, in which Macbeth speaks of himself in the third person, and rhymes in a manner which strongly reminds us of the pre-Shakespearian stage, suggests that the old play of c. 1593-4 was used by Shakespeare in making his 1601 version. I may ask the reader who doubts the remarkable alterations to which this play has been subjected, to examine the following incomplete lines at points where compression by omission seems to have taken place, i. 3. 103; i. 4. 35; ii. 1. 16; ii. 1. 24; ii. 3. 120; iii. 2. 155; iv. 3. 15; and to compare the later alterations by Davenant and others, as given in my article in Anglia, vol. vii.
1606-7.
Timon of Athens unquestionably contains much matter from another hand. The Shakespearian part is so like Lear in matter, and Anthony and Cleopatra in metre, that the conjectural date here assigned to it cannot be far wrong. It was founded on the passage in North's Plutarch (Life of Antony), and perhaps on the story as told in Painter's Palace of Pleasure, with a hint or two from Lucian's Dialogues (? at second hand; no translation of that time is known). It would be out of proportion in this work to reproduce my 1868 essay on the authorship, which awaits some slight corrections from recent investigation. It will be found in the New Shakspere Society's Transactions for 1874. I can only here point out the parts that are certainly not Shakespeare's, namely, ii. 1; ii. 2. 194-204; iii. 1; iii. 2; iii. 3; iii. 4 (in great part); iii. 5; iii. 6. 116-131; iv. 2; iv. 3. 70-74, 103-106, 464-545; v. i. 157; v. 3. Delius and Elze say the second author was George Wilkins. Perhaps so; but they are certainly wrong in regarding the play as an alteration made by Shakespeare of another man's work. Whether Wilkins completed the unfinished sketch by Shakespeare, or the actors eked it out with matter taken from a previous play by him, I cannot tell: but Shakespeare's part is a whole totus teres atque rotundus. There is no trace of his ever working in conjunction with any author after 1594, although in this play, in The Shrew, and Pericles there is evidence of his writing portions of dramas which were fitted into the work of other men. Wilkins left the King's men in 1607 and wrote for the Queen's. This migration to an inferior company is so unusual as to indicate some rupture on unfriendly terms. Perhaps the insertion of Shakespeare's work in his play offended him. The unShakespearian characters in the play are three Lords—Lucius, Lucullus, and Sempronius; three Servants—Flavius (Steward always in the Shakespeare part), Flaminius, and Servilius; three Strangers; three Creditors—Hortensius, Philotus, and 2d Varro; three Masquers; and the Soldier. I have not here assigned to Wilkins all parts of the play that have been suspected, but only those with regard to which the evidence is definite, with entire exclusion of merely æsthetic opinion.
1607.
Anthony and Cleopatra was entered on S. R. 20th May 1608; and no doubt was written not much more than a year before that date. Where-ever we find plays entered but not printed in their author's lifetime, it is pretty safe to conclude that they were then still on the stage: compare, for Shakespeare, the instances of The Merchant of Venice, Troylus and Cressida, and As You Like it.
1608.