[354:D] Herrick, as I have observed in a former work, seems more particularly to have delighted in drawing the manners and costume of the fairy world.—He has devoted several of his most elaborate poems to these sportive creations of fancy. Under the titles of The Fairy Temple, Oberon's Palace, The Fairy Queen, and Oberon's Feast, a variety of curious and minute imagery is appositely introduced. Literary Hours, 3d edit. vol. iii. p. 85.—To these may be added another elegantly descriptive piece, entitled, King Oberon's Apparel, written by Sir John Mennis, and published in The Musarum Deliciæ, or The Muses Recreation, 1656.
[354:E] In his political ballad entitled The Fairies Farewell.
[354:F] Vide L'Allegro, and the occasional sketches in Paradise Lost and Comus.
[355:A] See Shepherd's Pipe, Eglogue I. Chalmers's English Poets, vol. vi. p. 315. col. 2.
CHAPTER X.
OBSERVATIONS ON ROMEO AND JULIET; ON THE TAMING OF THE SHREW; ON THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA; ON KING RICHARD THE THIRD; ON KING RICHARD THE SECOND; ON KING HENRY THE FOURTH, PARTS I. & II.; ON THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, AND ON HAMLET—DISSERTATION ON THE AGENCY OF SPIRITS AND APPARITIONS, AND ON THE GHOST IN HAMLET.
In endeavouring to ascertain the chronological series of our author's plays, we must ever hold in mind, that, in general, nothing more than a choice of probabilities is before us, and that, whilst weighing their preponderancy, the slightest additional circumstance, so equally are they sometimes balanced, may turn the scale. It appears to us, that an occurrence of this kind will be found to point out, more accurately than hitherto, the precise period to which the first sketch of the following tragedy may be ascribed.
7. Romeo and Juliet: 1593. The passage in this play on which the commentators have chiefly relied for the establishment of their respective dates, runs thus:—