32. The Winter's Tale: 1610. That this play was written after the accession of King James, appears probable from the following lines:—
——— "If I could find example
Of thousands, that had struck anointed kings
And flourished after, I'd not do't; but since
Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment, bears not one,
Let villany itself forswear it."[495:A]
"If, as Mr. Blackstone supposes," observes Mr. Douce, "this be an allusion to the death of the Queen of Scots, it exhibits Shakspeare in the character of a cringing flatterer, accommodating himself to existing circumstances, and is moreover an extremely severe one. But the perpetrator of that atrocious murder did flourish many years afterwards. May it not rather be designed as a compliment to King James, on his escape from the Gowrie conspiracy, an event often brought to the people's recollection during his reign, from the day on which it happened being made a day of thanksgiving?"[495:B]
Thus Osborne tells us, that "amongst a number of other Novelties, he (King James) brought a new Holyday into the Church of England, wherein God had publick thanks given him for his Majesties deliverance out of the hands of E. Goury. And this fell out upon Aug. 5[495:C];" and from Wilson we learn, the title which this day bore in the almanacks of the time:—"The fifth of August this year (1603)
had a new title given to it. The Kings Deliveries in the North must resound here."[496:A]
From an allusion to this play and to The Tempest, in Ben Jonson's Induction to Bartholomew Fair, 1614, there is some reason to conclude, that these dramas were written within a short period of each other, and that The Winter's Tale was the elder of the two. "He is loth," he says, "to make nature afraid in his plays, like those that beget Tales, Tempests, and such like drolleries."[496:B] Now, it will be found in the next article, that we have no trifling data for attributing the composition of The Tempest to the year 1611; and, could it be rendered highly probable, that the production of The Winter's Tale did not occur before 1610, an almost incontrovertible support would be given to our chronology of both plays. It happens, therefore, very fortunately, that in a note by Mr. Malone, annexed to his chronological notice of The Winter's Tale, in the edition of our author's plays of 1803, a piece of information occurs, that seems absolutely to prove the very fact of which we are in search. It appears, says this Critic, from the entry which has been quoted in a preceding page, that The Winter's Tale "had been originally licensed by Sir George Buck;" and he concludes by remarking, that "though Sir George Buck obtained a reversionary grant of the office of Master of the Revels, in 1603, which title Camden has given him in the edition of his Britannia printed in 1607, it appears from various documents in the Pells-office, that he did not get complete possession of his place till August, 1610."[496:C] In fact, Edmond Tilney, the predecessor of Sir George Buck, died at the very commencement of October, 1610, and was buried at Leatherhead, in Surrey, on the sixth of the same month; and it is very likely that, during his illness, probably