STATE OF THE TEXT, AND CHRONOLOGY, OF ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

THIS comedy was first printed in the folio collection of 1623; and it was entered at Stationers' Hall by Blount and Jaggard, on the 8th November, 1623, as being one of those "not formerly entered to other men." In the original copy the play is divided into acts, but not into scenes. There are several examples of corruption in the text; but, upon the whole, it is very accurately printed, both with regard to the metrical arrangement and to punctuation.

We have already expressed an opinion as to the date of this comedy. "Meres has also mentioned, amongst the instances of Shakspere's excellence for comedy, Love's Labour Won. This is generally believed to be All's Well that ends Well; and probably, in some form or other, this was au early play."* After this opinion was expressed by us, Mr. Hunter's Disquisition on the Tempest' was published, in which he repudiates the notion that Love's Labour Won and All's Well that ends Well are identical. Mr. Hunter states that a passing remark of Dr. Farmer, in the Essay on the Learning of Shakspere, first pointed out this supposed identity; and he adds, "the remark has since been caught up and repeated by a thousand voices. Yet it was made in the most casual, random, and hasty manner imaginable. It was supported by no kind of argument or evidence; and I cannot find that any persons who have repeated it after him have shown any probable grounds for the opinion." It is not in the spirit of controversy that we are now about to show probable grounds for the opinion." In supporting our view of this question we must necessarily dissent from Mr. Hunter's theory; but we shall endeavour to enforce our own "argument" without being betrayed into the spirit which too often has degraded Shaksperian criticism, and which we described in our original Prospectus as "doubly disagreeable in connexion with the works of the most tolerant and expansive mind that ever lifted us out of the region of petty hostilities and prejudices."

44

some

The remark in Farmer's Essay to which Mr. Hunter alludes was certainly made in a

"casual"