ham's. We have, moreover, in the 'Histrio-Mastix' · -a contemporary dramatic satire, something like Sheridan's modern 'Critic'. —a direct ridicule of Shakespeare's incident of Cressida's receiving from Troilus his sleeve' as a pledge of love, both characters being there introduced in a burlesque interlude. This piece, having been written and acted during the reign of Elizabeth, cannot be of a later date than 1602, and must refer to a Troilus' of prior date, which must have been Shakespeare's, unless we suppose the same incident to have been used in both pieces."

In 1596, George Chapman published his translation of the first seven books of the Iliad,' in a new edition; in 1600, he increased the number to fifteen, which were completed some years after.* Chapman was not only a brother dramatist, but, as his biography informs us, a personal friend of Shakespeare's, who, therefore, could not but have read this Homer,' independently of its great attractions in itself. His translation, with much redundancy and extravagance, and exhibiting almost as little of the grand simplicity of the original as Pope's, yet breathes an impetuous and fiery animation, which, with his free and spirited versification, and his bold invention of compound epithets, render many loftier portions of his version exceedingly Homeric. Brave language are Chapman's Iliads,' said a critical contemporary; and there can be little doubt that Shakespeare was familiar with it. The author of the first three acts of TROILUS AND CRESSIDA certainly was so; and it is equally clear to me that he had become acquainted with the true Homeric characters after his first concoction of his play, and engrafted them upon his own youthful production.

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"All the more purely intellectual portions, the moral and political reasonings, and some of the nicer touches of character, have as much the impress of after-thoughts, inserted in a groundwork of a different taste and composition, as the added passages of thoughtful philosophy' in HAMLET have when compared with the dialogue in the first printed copy. On the other hand the bustle and excursions, and stage directions of the last act, are exactly in the melodramatic taste of those latter scenes of CYMBELINE, which, on account of their resemblance to the tragedies of Shakespeare's predecessors, have been pronounced to be the spared remnants of the original drama, almost wholly rewritten, after an interval of many years.

"It would seem that the author became satisfied, perhaps before he had finished his work, that the revised play was little fitted for the stage, and, against his usual practice, at that

"The first complete edition of 'The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets Done according to the Greek, by George Chapman,' is without date; but is ascertained to have been published later than 1603, and before 1611-probably about the last date."

period, committed it to the press; for its first edition is not one of those mutilated copies justly complained of by his folio editors, but certainly printed from a full and correct manuscript. For some reason, soon after its publication, it was thought expedient to try its success upon the stage; probably because the manager thought that the Poet's popularity would make up for any want of stage-effect.

"In such a recasting and improvement of a juvenile work, unless it was wholly rewritten which seems never to have been Shakespeare's method the work would bear the characteristics of the several periods of its composition, and with the vernal flush of his youthful fancy, it would have its crudity of taste, but contrasted with the matured fulness of thought, and the laboring intensity of compressed expression, of his middle career.

"It affords some support to this theory, that Coleridge, in 1802, classed this play as belonging to an epoch of the author's life when, with a greater energy of poetry, and all the world of thought,' there were still some of the growing pains and the awkwardness of growth; but when again he reviewed the same question of chronological classification of Shakespeare's dramas, in 1819, he placed TROILUS AND CRESSIDA at the very last point in the cycle of his genius. But at least the theory, if not founded on much positive evidence, has the merit of being an hypothesis solving all the observed phenomena; and the Copernican theory of astronomy itself was adopted, and long maintained, on no more conclusive proof. If more accurate investigation should overthrow this conjecture, it will be no great mortification to have erred, when the most sagacious and accomplished of my predecessors have failed before me.'

The period when this play was first written is, then, uncertain. That of its recasting, rewriting, and production upon the stage is definitively settled by the date of the two impressions of the quarto edition. In January 1608-9 it was a new and yet unperformed play, and in 1609, between the issue of the first quarto impression and the second, it had been brought upon the stage. As to the manner and occasion of its first production, the German critic Tieck put forth a more than plausible conjecture, which Mr. Knight thus brings forward, and ably supports: :

"And here arises the question, whether the expressions, 'never staled with the stage,' -never clapper-clawed with the palms of the vulgar,'- 'not sullied with the smoky breath of the multitude,' mean that the play had not been acted at all, or that it had not been acted on the public stage. There is a good

deal of probability in the conjecture of Tieck upon this subject:

"In the palace of some great personage, for whom it was probably expressly written, it was first represented, according to my belief, for the king himself, who, weak as he was, contemptible as he sometimes showed himself, and pedantic as his wisdom and shortsighted as his politics were, yet must have had a certain fine sense of poetry, wit, and talent, beyond what his historians have ascribed to him. But whether the king, or some one else, of whom we have not received the name, it is sufficient to know that for this person, and not for the public Shakspere wrote this wonderful comedy.'

"We have already noticed the remarkable passage in the conclusion of the preface of 1609 in the Introductory Notice to Henry V. We there stated that the copy of Troilus and Cressida was acknowledged by the editor to have been obtained by some artifice; that we learn that the copy had an escape from some powerful possessors; and that those possessors were probably the proprietors of the Globe Theatre. Of this latter opinion we now entertain some doubt. The proprietors of the Globe Theatre were clearly hostile to the publication of Shakspere's later plays; and, in fact, with the exception of Lear, and Troilus and Cressida, no play was published between 1603 and Shakspere's death. Now, in the title-page of the original Lear, published in 1608, there is the following minute particularity: As it was played before the King's Majesty at Whitehall upon St. Stephen's night in Christmas holidays, by his Majesty's Servants playing usually at the Globe, on the Bank's side.' From this statement it appears to us highly probable that in the instances both of Lear and Troilus and Cressida, the plays were performed, for the first time, before the king; that the copies so used were out of the control of the players who represented these dramas; and that some one, authorized or not, printed each play from the copy used on these occasions. Let us look again at the passage in the preface to Troilus and Cressida under this impression: Thank Fortune for the scape it hath made amongst you, since by the grand possessors' wills I believe you should have prayed for them rather than been prayed.' There is an obscurity in this passage which, in our former notice of it, we did not attempt to clear up. believe you should have prayed for them rather than been prayed' is quite unintelligible, if the grand possessors' had been the proprietors of the Globe Theatre. But suppose the grand possessors to be, as Tieck has conjectured, some great personage, probably the king himself, for whom the play was expressly written, and a great deal of the obscurity of the preface vanishes. By the grand possessors' wills you should have prayed for them (as subjects publicly pray for their rulers)

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rather than been prayed (as you are by players who solicit your indulgence in prologues and epilogues.)"

Little difficulty exists in the formation of the text of Troilus and Cressida; for although the impression in the folio is deformed with many errors of the press, they are rarely of an important or very confusing nature; and we are able to correct them with great certainty by the aid of the quarto edition, from a copy of which the text of the folio was printed, as we know by the perpetuation in the latter of some of the typographical errors in the former. And as the circumstances under which the quarto edition was published show that its text was obtained from an authentic source, this and the carelessness with which the play was printed in the folio give the quarto an unusually authoritative position. Nevertheless, in most cases of intentional variation, it will be found that the text of the folio is :he superior.

The period of the action of this play is of course definitively settled. The siege of Troy took place between 1193 and 1184 B. C. For the costume, the remains of early Greek art, and particularly the Grecian and Phrygian figures reproduced in Hope's Costume of the Ancients from ancient vases and statues, furnish ample authority, though they are not of a date quite so ancient as that of the action of the play.

A neuer writer to an euer reader.

ET

Newes.*

TERNALL reader, you have beere a new play, neuer ftald with the stage, neuer clapper-clawd with the palmes of the vulger, and yet passing full of the palme comicall; for it is a birth of your braine, that neuer vnder-tooke any thing commicall vainely: and were but the vaine names of commedies changde for the titles of commodities, or of playes for pleas, you should see all thofe grand cenfors, that now stile them fuch vanities, flock to them for the maine grace of their grauities; especially this authors commedies, that are fo fram'd to the life, that they ferue for the mofi common commentaries of all the actions of our liues, showing such a dexteritie, and power of witte, that the most difpleafed with playes are pleafd with his commedies. And all fuch dull and beauy-witted worldlings, as were neuer capable of the witte of a commedie, comming by report of them to his representations, baue found that witte there, that they neuer found in them-selues, and baue parted better-wittied then they came; feeling an edge of witte set upon them, more then ever they dreamd they had braine to grinde it on. So much ana fuch fauord salt of witte is in his commedies, that they feeme (for their height of pleasure) to be borne in that fea

* Address Prefixed to those Copies of the Edition of 1609, the title pages of which do not state that it "was acted by the King's Majesty's Servants, at the Globe."