those plays which, as far as any edition is known, were printed for the first time in the folio of 1623 :

In addition to the eighteen plays thus recited, which were first printed in the folio, there were four other plays there first printed in a perfect shape. Of the fourteen Comedies, nine first appeared in that edition. Between the quarto editions of the four Comedies," Love's Labour's Lost," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Merchant of Venice," "Much Ado about Nothing," and the folio of 1623, the variations are exceedingly few; and these have probably, for the most part, been created by the printer. "The Merry Wives of Windsor "-of the quarto edition of which, in 1602 and in 1619, we shall give a more particular account in our notice of that play—is a very incomplete sketch of the Comedy which first appeared in a perfect shape in the edition of 1623.

The second edition of 1632 was held up as an authority by Steevens, because, in some degree, it appeared to fall in with his notions of versification. We doubt if it had an editor properly so called; for the most obvious typographical errors are repeated without change. The printer, probably, of this edition occasionally pieced out what he considered an imperfect line, and altered a word here and there that had grown obsolete during the changes in our language since Shakspere first wrote. But, beyond this, we have no help in the second edition; and none whatever in the subsequent ones. For eighteen plays, therefore, the folio of 1623 must be received as the only accredited copy -standing in the same relation to the text as the one manuscript of an ancient author. For four other plays it must be received as the only accredited complete copy.

The folio of 1623 contains thirty-six plays: of these, thirteen were published in the author's lifetime, with such internal evidences of authenticity, and under such circumstances, as warrant us in receiving them as authentic copies. These copies are, therefore, entitled to a very high respect in the settlement of the author's text. But they do not demand an exclusive respect; for the evidence, in several instances, is most decided, that the author's posthumous copies in manuscript were distinguished from the printed copies by verbal alterations, by additions, by omissions not arbitrarily made, by a more correct metrical arrangement. To refer these differences to alterations made by the players, has been a favourite theory with some of Shakspere's editors; but it is manifestly an absurd one. We see, in numerous cases, the minute but most effective touches

of the skilful artist; and a careful examination of this matter in the plays where the alterations are most numerous, is quite sufficient to satisfy us of the jealous care with which Shakspere watched over the more important of these productions, so as to leave with his “fellows" more complete and accurate copies than had been preserved by

the press.

The order in which the Comedies are presented in the folio of 1623 is as follows:

The Tempest.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Measure for Measure.

The Comedy of Errors.

Much Ado about Nothing.

Love's Labour 's Lost.

Midsummer Night's Dream.

The Merchant of Venice.

As You Like It.

The Taming of the Shrew.

All's Well that Ends Well.

Twelfth Night, or What You Will.
The Winter's Tale.

In the Pictorial Edition' we have endeavoured, to the best of our judgment, to arrange the Comedies and Tragedies according to the evidence of the dates of their composition. The Histories follow the Chronology of the several Reigns.

We subjoin a Chronological Table of Shakspere's Plays, which we have constructed with some care, showing the positive facts which determine dates previous to which they were produced.

Out of the thirty-seven Plays of Shakspere the dates of thirty-one are thus to some extent fixed in epochs. These dates are, of course, to be modified by other circumstances. There are only six plays remaining, whose dates are not thus limited by publication, by the notice of contemporaries, or by the record of their performances; and these certainly belong to the poet's latter period. They are:-

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.

STATE OF THE TEXT, AND CHRONOLOGY, OF THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

We have seen, from the list previously given, that this comedy was originally printed in the first folio. The text is singularly correct.

In the edition of 1623, the Two Gentlemen of Verona appears the second in the collection of "Comedies." The Tempest, which it can scarcely be doubted was one of Shakspere's latest plays, precedes it. The arrangement of that edition, except in the three divisions of "Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies," and in the order of events in the "Histories," is quite arbitrary. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to fix a precise date to many of Shakspere's plays; and the reasons which Malone, Chalmers, and Drake have given for the determining of an exact chronological order (in which they each differ), are, to our minds, in most instances, unsatisfactory. In the instance before us, Malone originally ascribed the play to the year 1595, because the lines which we shall have occasion afterwards to notice,

"Some, to the wars, to try their fortunes there;
Some, to discover islands far away; "—

he thought had reference to Elizabeth's military aid to Henry IV., and to Raleigh's expedition to Guiana. He has subsequently fixed the date of its being written as 1591, because there was an expedition to France under Essex in that year. The truth is, as we shall shew, that the excitements of military adventure, and of maritime discovery, had become the most familiar objects of ambition, from the period of Shakspere's first arrival in London to nearly the end of the century. The other arguments of Malone for placing the date of this play in 1591, appear to us as little to be regarded. They are, that the incident of Valentine joining the outlaws has a resemblance to a passage in Sidney's Arcadia, which was not published till 1590;-that there are two allusions to the story of Hero and Leander, which he thinks were suggested by Marlowe's poem on that subject; and that there is also an allusion to the story of Phaeton, which Steevens thinks Shakspere derived from the old play of King John, printed in 1591. All this is really very feeble conjecture, and it is absolutely all that is brought to shew an exact date for this play. The incident of Valentine is scarcely a coincidence, compared with the story in the Arcadia ;—and if Shakspere knew nothing of the classical fables from direct sources (which it is always the delight of the commentators to suppose), every palace and mansion was filled with Tapestry, in which the subjects of Hero and Leander, and of Phaeton, were constantly to be found. Malone, for these and for no other reasons, thinks the Two Gentlemen of Verona was produced in 1591, when its author was twenty-seven years of age. But he thinks, at the same time, that it was Shakspere's first play.

SUPPOSED SOURCE OF THE PLOT.

A charge which has been urged against Shakspere, with singular complacency on the part of the accusers, is, that he did not invent his plots. A recent writer, who in these later days has thought that to disparage Shakspere would be a commendable task, says, "If Shakspere had little of what the world calls learning, he had less of invention, so far as regards the fable of his plays. For every one of them he was, in some degree, indebted to a preceding piece." * We do not mention this writer as attaching any value to his opinions; but simply because he has contrived to put in a small compass all that could be raked together, in depreciation of Shakspere as a poet and as a man. The assertion that the most inventive of poets was without invention "as far as regards the fable of his plays," is as absurd as to say that Scott did not invent the fable of Kenilworth, because the sad tale of Amy

Life of Shakspere in Lardner's Cyclopædia.

Robsart is found in Mickle's beautiful ballad of "Cumnor Hall." The truth is, that no one can properly appreciate the extent as well as the subtlety of Shakspere's invention-its absorbing and purifying power-who has not traced him to his sources. It will be our duty, in many cases, to direct especial attention to the material upon which Shakspere worked, to shew how the rough ore became, under his hands, pure and resplendent-converted into something above all price by the unapproachable skill of the artist. It is not the workman polishing the diamond, but converting, by his wonderful alchemy, something of small value into the diamond. It is, in a word, precisely the same process by which the unhewn block of marble is fabricated into the perfect statue: the statue is within the marble, but the Phidias calls it forth. The student of Shakspere will understand that we here more particularly allude to the great plays which are founded on previous imaginative works, such as Romeo and Juliet, and Lear; and not to those in which, like the Two Gentlemen of Verona, a few incidents are borrowed from the romance writers.

66

"But what shall we do?" said the barber in Don Quixote, when, with the priest, the housekeeper, and the niece, he was engaged in making bonfire of the knight's library-"what shall we do with these little books that remain?" 'These," said the priest, "are probably not books of chivalry, but of poetry." And opening one, he found it was the Diana of George Montemayor, and said (believing all the rest of the same kind), "These do not deserve to be burnt like the rest, for they cannot do the mischief that these of chivalry have done: they are works of genius and fancy, and do nobody any hurt." Such was the criticism of Cervantes upon the Diana of Montemayor. The romance was the most popular which had appeared in Spain since the days of Amadis de Gaul; and it was translated into English by Bartholomew Yong, and published in 1598. The story involves a perpetual confusion of modern manners and ancient mythology; and Ceres, Minerva, and Venus, as well as the saints, constitute the machinery. The one part which Shakspere has borrowed, or is supposed to have borrowed, is the story of the shepherdess Felismena, which is thus translated by Mr. Dunlop:-"The first part of the threats of Venus was speedily accomplished; and, my father having early followed my mother to the tomb, I was left an orphan. Henceforth I resided at the house of a distant relative; and, having attained my seventeenth year, became the victim of the offended goddess, by falling in love with Don Felix, a young nobleman of the province in which I lived. The object of my affections felt a reciprocal passion; but his father, having learned the attachment which subsisted between us, sent his son to court, with a view to prevent our union. Soon after his departure, I followed him in the disguise of a page, and discovered on the night of my arrival at the capital, by a seranade I heard him give, that Don Felix had already disposed of his affections. Without being recognised by him, I was admitted into his service, and was engaged by my former lover to conduct his correspondence with the mistress who, since our separation, had supplanted me in his heart."

This species of incident, it is truly observed by Steevens, and afterwards by Dunlop, is found in many of the ancient novels. In Twelfth Night, where Shakspere is supposed to have copied Bandello, the same adventure occurs; but in that delightful comedy, the lady to whom the page in disguise is sent, falls in love with him. Such is the story of Felismena. It is, however, clear that Shakspere must have known this part of the Romance of Montemayor, although the translation of Yong was not published till 1598; for the pretty dialogue between Julia and Lucetta, in the first act, where Julia upbraids her servant for bringing the letter of Proteus, corresponds, even to some turns of expression, with a similar description by Felismena, of her love's history. We give a passage from the old translation by Bartholomew Yong, which will enable our readers to compare the romance writer and the dramatist ::

"Yet to try, if by giving her some occasion I might prevaile, I saide unto her-And is it so, Rosina, that Don Felix, without any regard to mine honour, dares write unto me? These are things, mistresse (saide she demurely to me again), that are commonly incident to love, wherefore, I beseech you, pardon me; for if I had thought to have angered you with it, I would have first pulled out the bals of mine eies. How cold my hart was at that blow, God knowes; yet did I dissemble the matter, and suffer myself to remain that night only with my desire, and with occasion of little sleepe."—(p. 55.)

Those who are curious to trace this subject further, may find all that Shakspere is supposed to have borrowed from Montemayor, in the third volume of " Shakspeare Illustrated," by Mrs.

Dunlop's History of Fiction.

Lenox. We have compared this lady's translation of the passages with that of Bartholomew Yong. The substance is correctly given, though her verbal alterations are not improvements of the quaint prose of the times of Elizabeth.

The writer in Lardner's Cyclopædia, whom we have been already compelled to mention, says, "The Two Gentlemen of Verona (a very poor drama), is indebted for many of its incidents to two works the Arcadia of Sidney, and the Diana of Montemayor." This writer had neither taken the trouble to examine for himself, nor to report correctly what others had said who had examined. The single incident in Sidney's Arcadia which bears the slightest resemblance to the story of the Two Gentlemen of Verona, is where Pyrocles, one of the two heroes of the Arcadia, is compelled to become the captain of a band of people called Helots, who had revolted from the Lacedemonians; and this is supposed to have given origin to the thoroughly Italian incident of Valentine being compelled to become the captain of the outlaws. The English travellers in Italy, in the time of Shakspere, were perfectly familiar with banditti, often headed by daring adventurers of good family. Fynes Moryson, who travelled between Rome and Naples in 1594, has described a band headed by "the nephew of the Cardinal Cajetano." We may, therefore, fairly leave the uninventive Shakspere to have found his outlaws in other narratives than that of the Arcadia. With regard to the Diana of Montemayor, we have stated the entire amount of what the author of the Two Gentlemen of Verona is supposed to have borrowed from it.

PERIOD OF THE ACTION, AND MANNERS.

Amongst the objections which Dr. Johnson, in the discharge of his critical office, appears to have thought it his duty to raise against every play of Shakspere, he says, with regard to the plot of this play, "he places the emperor at Milan, and sends his young men to attend him, but never mentions him more." As the emperor had nothing whatever to do with the story of the Two Gentlemen of Verona, it was quite unnecessary that Shakspere should mention him more; and the mention of him at all was only demanded by a poetical law, which Shakspere well understood, by which the introduction of a few definite circumstances, either of time or place, is sought for, to take the conduct of a story, in ever so small a degree, out of the region of generalization, and, by so doing, invest it with some of the attributes of reality. The poetical value of this single line

"Attends the emperor in his royal court,"*.

can only be felt by those who desire to attach precise images to the descriptions which poetry seeks to put before the mind, and, above all, to the incidents which dramatic poetry endeavours to group and embody. Had this line not occurred in the play before us, we should have had a very vague idea of the scenes which are here presented to us; and, as it is, the poet has left just such an amount of vagueness as is quite compatible with the free conduct of his plot. He is not here dramatizing history. He does not undertake to bring before us the fierce struggles for the real sovereignty of the Milanese between Francis I. and the Emperor Charles V., while Francesco Sforza, the Duke of Milan, held a precarious and disputed authority. He does not pretend to tell us of the dire calamities, the subtle intrigues, and the wonderful reverses which preceded the complete subjection of Italy to the conqueror at Pavia. He does not shew us the unhappy condition of Milan, in 1529, when, according to Guicciardini, the poor people who could not buy provisions at the exorbitant prices demanded by the governor died in the streets,-when the greater number of the nobility fled from the city, and those who remained were miserably poor,-and when the most frequented places were overgrown with grass, nettles, and brambles. He gives us a peaceful period, when courtiers talked lively jests in the duke's saloons, and serenaded their mistresses in the duke's courts. This state of things might have existed during the short period between the treaty of Cambray, in 1529 (when Francis I. gave up all claims to Milan, and it became a fief of the empire under Charles V.), and the death of Francesco Sforza in 1535; or it might have existed at an earlier

* Act I. Scene III.