LITERARY HISTORY.

Cymbeline was first printed in the Folio, but our earliest mention of the play occurs in the MS. of Dr. Simon Forman, the astrologer, already quoted by Mr. Symons in his Introduction to Macbeth. Forman witnessed a performance of Macbeth on April 20th, 1610, and one of The Winter's Tale (the only other Shakespearian drama mentioned by him) on May 15th, 1611, both at the Globe Theatre, but he gives no date for the performance of Cymbeline; it cannot, however, be later than September, 1611, the date of his death. The following is his account:-" Of Cimbalin King of England. - Remember also the storri of Cymbalin, King of England in Lucius tyme; howe Lucius cam from Octavus Cesar for tribut, and being denied, after sent Lucius with a greate armi of souldiars, who landed at Milford Haven, and affter wer vanquished by Cimbalin, and Lucius taken prisoner; and all by means of three outlawes, of the which two of them were the sonns of Cimbalin, stolen from him when they were but two yers old by an old man whom Cymbalin banished, and he kept them as his own sonns twenty yers with him in a cave; and howe of [? one] of them slewe Clotan, that was the quens sonn, goinge to Milford Haven to sek the love of Innogen, the kinges daughter, whom [sic] he had banished also for lovinge his daughter; and howe the Italian that cam from her love conveied himself into a cheste, and said yt was a chest of plate sent from her love and others to be presented to the kinge; and in the deepest of the night, she being aslepe, he opened the cheste, and came forth of yt, and vewed her in her bed, and the markes of her body, and toke awai her braslet, and after accused her of adultery to her love, &c., and in thend howe he came with the Romains into

England, and was taken prisoner, and after reveled to Innogen, who had turned herself into mans apparrell, and fled to mete her love at Milford Haven, and chanchsed to fall on the cave in the wodes wher her two brothers were; and howe, by eating a sleping dram, they thought she had bin deed, and laid her in the wodes, and the body of Cloten by her in her loves apparrell that he left behind him; and howe she was found by Lucius, etc."

If Cymbeline was a new play when Forman made these notes, it must be assigned to the years 1610 or 1611, and this date would be in accordance with the conclusions drawn from internal evidence-considerations, that is, of style and metre-which would bring it near to The Winter's Tale and The Tempest. It is impossible, in the present state of our knowledge, to be more precise, but there is a certain looseness of construction about the play which undoubtedly gives some colour to the theory of a double date advocated by Fleay and Ingleby. According to this theory some scenes were written as early as 1606 or 1607, and the rest in 1609 or 1610, but the two critics differ as to which scenes belong to the earlier and which to the later date. According to Fleay the part derived from Holinshed belongs to the earlier date, while Ingleby thinks that the earlierwritten scenes are the bedchamber scene, ii. 2; Cymbeline's defiance of the Romans, iii. 1; and the whole of act v. except the first scene. Knight also, after Coleridge and Tieck, believed the play to be a "youthful sketch" afterwards elaborated. But after all has been said, these theories, like so many other conjectures of the kind with which the Shakespearian student is familiar, fail to rise above the rank of unproven, though extremely interesting, hypotheses. In the present case Fleay's strongest point-indeed almost his

only point-is an inconsistency which he notes in the character of Cloten: "In the later version he is a mere fool (see i. 3; ii. 1); but in the earlier parts he is by no means deficient in manliness, and the lack of his 'counsel' is regretted by the King in iv. 3" (Life and Work of Shakespeare, p. 246); while Ingleby relies partly on certain resemblances to Macbeth,-which, however, need not prove more than that for some reason or other, such as a reperusal, or a stage revival, which we know from Forman did actually take place in 1610, this play was fresh in the author's mind at the time when he was composing Cymbeline (see note 95 on ii. 2);—and partly on the fact that Iachimo's narrative of the wager in v. 5. 153, &c., resembles Boccaccio's story rather than the account in i. 4 (see note 326 on this passage).

As to the source of the plot, Shakespeare has fitted a story of Boccaccio into an historical framework derived from Holinshed. An account of the latter will be found in note 1 on the Dramatis Persona: Boccaccio's story is the ninth of the second day of the DecameThe following is an outline of it:1

ron.

A company of Italian merchants meeting at an inn in Paris fell one evening after supper to discussing their wives whom they had left at home. Three of them had but little opinion of the constancy of their ladies, but one, Bernabo Lomellini of Genoa, stoutly maintained that his wife was proof against all assaults and would continue so, however long he might be absent from her. This excessive confidence on Bernabo's part was met with derision by a young merchant of Piacenza called Ambrogiuolo, who affirmed that had he the opportunity he would in brief space of time bring Bernabo's wife to that which he had already gotten of other women. Bernabo offered to stake his life upon his wife's honesty, but was persuaded by Ambrogiuolo, who had no lust for his blood, to lay five thousand gold florins, against a thousand of his, and then after a written agreement had been drawn up, Ambrogiuolo departed to Genoa. Here on inquiry he found that all, and more than all that Bernabo had told him of Ginevra (for such was the lady's name), was true, "wherefore him seemed. he was come on a fool's errand." However, he managed to bribe a poor woman who was a dependent of Ginevra to bring him in a chest "into the gentlewoman's very bedchamber, where, according to the

1 The quotations are from Mr. John Payne's translation, 1886.

ordinance given her of him, the good woman commended it to her care for some days as if she had a mind to go somewhither." In the night accordingly, when he judged the lady to be asleep, he opened the chest and " came softly out into the chamber where there was a light burning, with whose aid he proceeded to observe the ordinance of the place, the paintings and every other notable thing that was therein and fixed them in his memory." He also noted a mole which Ginevra had "under the left pap and about which were sundry little hairs as red as gold." He then took "from one of her coffers a purse and a night-rail, together with sundry rings and girdles, and laying them all up in his chest, returned thither himself and shut himself up therein as before; and on this wise he did two nights without the lady being ware of ought. On the third day the good woman came back for the chest," and Ambrogiuolo rewarded her according to his promise, and returned with all speed to Paris. There he called together the merchants and declared that he had won the wager; "and to prove this to be true, he first described the fashion of the chamber and the paintings thereof and after showed the things he had brought with him thence, avouching that he had them of herself. Bernabo confessed the chamber to be as he had said and owned, moreover, that he recognised the things in question as being in truth his wife's; but said that he might have learned from one of the servants of the house the fashion of the chamber and have gotten the things in like manner;" then Ambrogiuolo described the mole he had observed on Ginevra's breast, and Bernabo, to whom this "was as if he had gotten a knife-thrust in the heart, such anguish did he feel," confessed that what he said was true, and paid the wager in full. After this Bernabo set out for Genoa, and halting at a country house of his about a score of miles from the city, he sent on a servant with a letter to his wife, bidding her come to him there, at the same time giving secret orders to the servant to put her to death on the road. Accordingly the man delivered the letter, and "was received with great rejoicing by the lady, who on the morrow took horse with him and set out for their country house." At a convenient place on the road the man halted and bade her prepare for instant death; he knew not, he said, wherein she had offended her husband, but that his master had commanded him on pain of hanging to put her to death. "Whereupon quoth the lady, weeping, Alack, for God's sake, consent not to become the murderer of one who hath never wronged thee, to serve another! God who knoweth all knoweth that I never did aught for which I should receive such a recompense from my husband. But let that be; thou mayest, an thou wilt, at once content God and thy master and me, on this wise; to wit, that thou take these my clothes and give me but thy doublet and a hood and with

Now

the former return to my lord and thine and tell him that thou hast slain me; and I swear to thee by that life which thou wilt have bestowed on me, that I will remove hence and get me gone into a country whence never shall any news of me win either to him or to thee or into these parts." The servant did as she begged him, and returned with her clothes to his master, to whom he declared that he had fulfilled his commands and had left the lady's dead body among a pack of wolves. Ginevra, in her man's disguise, betook herself to the coast, where she engaged herself as a servant to a Catalan gentleman, who happened to have come ashore to refresh himself, under the name of Sicurano da Finale. With this gentleman she sailed to Alexandria, where she attracted the notice of the Sultan, and was given to him as a page by the Catalan. She soon rose in the Sultan's favour, and was appointed by him captain of the guard, which was sent to protect the interests of the merchants at the annual fair at Acre. it happened that Ambrogiuolo had also come to Acre to the fair, and was one day in the shop of certain Venetian merchants, where he exposed his merchandise for sale, when Ginevra entered and recognised among other trinkets the very purse and girdle which Ambrogiuolo had stolen from her. She asked where Ambrogiuolo had got them, and he replied that they were a love token from his paramour Madam Ginevra, wife of Bernabo Lomellini, at the same time recounting the story of the wager. Thereupon Ginevra "perceiving this fellow to have been the occasion of all her ills, determined not to let him go unpunished therefor," and to this end she "clapped up a strait acquaintance with him," and, when the fair was over, persuaded him to accompany her back to Alexandria. Here she lent him money to trade with, and meantime found means through the agency of certain Genoese merchants, who were then at Alexandria, to have Bernabo brought thither also. Then she caused both Ambrogiuolo and Bernabo to be brought before the Sultan, and by dint of threats, the whole truth was extorted from the former, who expected no worse punishment therefor than the restitution of the five thousand gold florins and of the stolen trinkets." Bernabo was also interrogated, and confessed that he had caused a servant of his to put his wife to death. Ginevra's time was now come; she offered to produce the lady, if the Sultan would vouchsafe to punish the deceiver and pardon the dupe. The Sultan, "disposed in the matter altogether to comply with Sicurano's wishes," consented, and Ginevra then discovered herself. Ambrogiuolo was put to a painful death,1 but Bernabo and Ginevra returned to Genoa "with great joyance and exceeding rich."

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1 It may be noticed, as another link between Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale, that Boccaccio's description of this

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It is uncertain whether Shakespeare read the story in the original or in a translation. No complete translation of the Decameron into English existed before 1620, but there were earlier partial versions. Steevens had seen a deformed and interpolated" English imitation of this story, printed at Antwerp in 1518. Another adaptation occurs in a collection of tales called Westward for Smelts, from which Malone and Ingleby think Shakespeare drew some of his incidents; but it is extremely doubtful whether he ever saw it, for though Steevens and Malone speak of an edition of 1603, none is now known earlier than 1620. The reader, however, who wishes to form his own opinion on this point will find the story printed in extenso in Boswell's Malone, vol. xiii., and in Hazlitt's Collier's Shakespeare's Library, part I. vol. ii. Cymbeline is the last play in the Folio, where, though in fact a comedy, it is entitled The Tragedie of Cymbeline. As against the suggestion that it was included in the volume as an afterthought, the fact that the signatures, as well as the paging, are continuous with those of the play preceding (Antony and Cleopatra) may go for what it is worth.

STAGE HISTORY.

Concerning Cymbeline early records are all but silent. Mr. Fleay in his "Chronicle History" assumes that it was written in part in 1606, just after Lear and Macbeth, "for which the same chronicler had been used" (p. 246), and was produced in 1609 after the Roman plays and before The Winter's Tale. These dates may be taken as approximately correct. In the curious autograph pamphlet of Dr. Simon Forman, the famous astrologer in the Ashmole collection of manuscripts, is a reference to a performance, undated, of Cymbeline, and as Forman died in September, 1611, it must have been earlier than that date. The punning title, for such it is to be feared punishment furnished Autolycus with the mock sentence which he passes on the young clown: Winter's Tale, iv. 4. 812 and note.

2 The entry of this 1620 edition in the Stationers' Registers is dated 15th Jan. 1619-20, and is entered, with all the form of a new publication, as written by "Kinde Kit of Kingstone."

it must be judged, of Forman's tract is "The Bocke of Plaies and Notes therof per Formans for common policie," and the account, curious as an early analysis of a plot, is transcribed by Halliwell - Phillipps, Outlines of the Life of Shakspeare, ii. 86, ed. 1886, and given in our Literary History (see p. 75).

From this period a leap of near a century and a half is taken before anything further is heard concerning Cymbeline. On the 8th November, 1744, at the Haymarket, then under the management of Theophilus Cibber, Cymbeline was revived. No cast is preserved. In her autobiography Mrs. Charke says, “I went to the Hay-market, where my brother revived the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, and would have succeeded by other pieces he got up, in particular by the run of Cymbeline, but was obliged to desist by virtue of an order from the Ld Cn (Lord Chamberlain): I imagine partly occasioned by a jealousy of his having a likelihood of a great run of the last-mentioned play; and which would of course been detrimental, in some measure, to the other houses" (p. 168, ed. 1755). In these sentences Genest finds pretty clear proof that the play in question was Shakespeare's Cymbeline and not D'Urfey's. Cibber was Leonatus. Who was the Imogen is unknown. Most probably it was Miss Jenny Cibber, the daughter of Theophilus Cibber's first wife, Jenny Johnson. She at least played during the same season Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, 11th September, 1744, and Andromache in The Distressed Mother, 20th October, 1744.

This production of Shakespeare's Cymbeline, accepting the rather sanguine assumption of Genest that it is his, had long been anticipated by that of D'Urfey's Injured Princess or the Fatal Wager, 4to, 1682, supposed to have been given the same year at the Theatre Royal, subsequently Drury Lane. This is a mere version of Cymbeline, with alterations in dialogue, characters, and story. Posthumus becomes Ursaces, Shatillion (a Frenchman) replaces Iachimo, and Imogen is lost in Eugenia. Pisanio, the friend of Ursaces, is the father of Clarina, who becomes the confidante of the Princess. The part of Guiderius

is given to Arviragus, and the second young prince is called Palladour. The cast with which this wretched adaptation was first given does not survive. In his epilogue D'Urfey says that the piece, which he calls a comedy, was written nine years previously. The scene lies in Ludstown, otherwise London. Its running title is The Unequal Match or the Fatal Wager. D'Urfey has assigned it as a prologue the same verses that had previously served as epilogue to his own The Fool Turned Critic, 4to, 1678. Those who care to follow D'Urfey in his mournful task of mutilation will find in Genest, Account of the English Stage, vol. iv. pp. 331, et seq. a full account of the strange web of cloth of gold and cloth of frieze. While lenient in his general judgment upon D'Urfey's work Genest is severe upon the introduction into an early English play of such allusions to his own time as:

The full-fed city-dame would sin in fear The divine's daughter slight the amorous cringe Of her tall lover; the close salacious Puritan Forget th' appointment with her canting brother. Even more remarkable than the transference of the Puritan to early Britain is the direction given by Ursaces in the third act:

Fly, sirrah, with this to the packet-boat.

On 7th Jan. 1720, under the title of Cymbeline or the Fatal Wager, D'Urfey's piece was revived at Lincoln's Inn Fields with the following cast: