In this comedy there is more attempt at delineation of character than in either The Comedy of Errors or A Midfummer Night's Dream; a circumflance which inclines me to think that it was written fubfequently to thofe plays. Biron and Catharine, as Mr. Steevens, I think, has obferved, are faint prototypes of Benedick and Beatrice. The doggrel verfes in this piece, like thofe in The Comedy of Errors, are longer and more hobling than those which have been quoted from The Taming of the Shrew: You two are bookmen; can you tell by your wit What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet?". "O' my truth moft fweet jefts! moft incony vulgar wit, "When it comes fo fmoothly off, fo obfcenely as it were, fo fit," &c. This play is mentioned in a mean poem intitled Alba, the Months Minde of a melancholy Lover, by R. T. Gentleman, printed in 1598: "Love's Labour Loft I once did fee, a play Whate'er it be,- horfe, as you have, I would do more than that. faid Bankes, to pleafe him, I will charge him to do it. faies Tarlton, charge him to bring me the veryeft whore-mafter in the company. He hall, faies Bankes. Signior, saies he, bring Mafter Tarlton the veryeft whore-mafter in the company. The horie leads his mafter to him. Then God-a-mercy, horfe, indeed faies Tarlton. The people had much ado to keep peace: but Bankes and Tarlton had like to have fquared, and the horfe by, to give aime. But ever after it was a by word thorow London, God-a-mercy, horfe! and is to this day." Tarlton's Jefts, 4to. 1611.--Tarlton died in 1589. Each actor plaid in cunning wife his part, Mr. Gildon, in his obfervations on Love's Labour's Loft, fays, he "cannot fee why the author gave it this name."-The following lines exhibit the train of thoughts which probably fuggefted to Shakspeare this title, as well as that which anciently was affixed to another of his comedies,Love's Labour Won: 66 To be in love, where fcorn is bought with groans, mirth With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights: If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain; "If loft, why then a grievous labour won." Two Gentlemen of Verona. A&t I. fc. i. 8. Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA, 1595. This comedy was not entered on the books of the Stationers' Company till 1623, at which time it was first printed; but is mentioned by Meres in 1598, and bears ftrong internal marks of an early compofition. The comick parts of it are of the fame colour with the comick parts of Love's Labour's Loft, The Comedy of Errors, and A Midfummer Night's Dream; and the ferious fcenes are eminently dif-" tinguished by that elegant and paftoral fimplicity which might be expected from the early effufions of such a mind as Shakspeare's, when employed in defcribing the effects of love. In this piece alfo, as in The Comedy of Errors and Love's Labour's Loft, fome alternate verfes are found! Sir William Blackstone concurs with me in opinion on this fubject; obferving, that "one of the great faults of The Two Gentlemen of Verona is the haftening too abruptly and without preparation to the denouement, which fhews that it was one of Shakspeare's very early performances.” The following lines in Act I. fc. iii. have induced me to afcribe this play to the year 1595: 66 He wonder'd, that your lordship "Would fuffer him to fpend his youth at home, Shakspeare, as has been often observed, gives to almost every country the manners of his own: and though the fpeaker is here a Veronefe, the poet, when he wrote the laft, two lines, was thinking of England; where voyages for the purpose of difcovering iflands far away were at this time much profecuted. In 1595, Sir Walter Rawleigh undertook a voyage to the ifland of Trinidado; from which he made an expedition up the river Oronoque, to discover Guiana. Sir Humphry Gilbert had gone on a fimilar voyage of difcovery the preceding year. The particular fituation of England in 1595 may have fuggefted the line above quoted: "Some to 4 the wars, &c. In that year it was generally believed that the Spaniards meditated a second inva fion of England with a much more powerful and better appointed Armada than that which had been defeated in 1588. Soldiers were levied with great 'diligence, and placed on the fea-coafts, and two great fleets were equipped; one to encounter the enemy in the British feas; the other to fail to the Weft-Indies, under the command of Hawkins and · Drake, to attack the Spaniards in their own territories. About the fame time alfo Elizabeth fent a confiderable body of troops to the affiflance of King Henry IV. of France, who had entered into an offenfive and defenfive alliance with the English Queen, and had newly declared war against Spain. Our author therefore, we fee, had abundant reafon for both the lines before us : "Some to the wars, to try their fortunes there, Among the marks of love, Speed in this play (A&t II. fc. i.) enumerates the walking alone, "like one that had the peftilence." In the year 1593 there had been a great plague, which carried off near eleven thoufand perfons in London. Shakfpeare was undoubtedly there at that time, and his own recollection probably furnifhed him with this image. There had not been a great plague in the ́ metropolis, if I remember right, fince that of 1564, of which our poet could have no perfonal knowledge, having been born in that year. Valentinus putting himself at the head of a band of outlaws in this piece, has been fuppofed to be copied from Sydney's Arcadia, where Pylades heads The firft edition of the Arcadia was the Helots. in 1590. In The Two Gentlemen of Verona there are two allufions to the ftory of Hero and Leander, which I fufpect Shakspeare had read recently before he compofed this play. Marlowe's poem on that subject was entered at Stationer's hall, Sept. 18, 1593, and I believe was published in that or the following year, though I have met with no copy earlier than that printed in quarto in 1598. Though that fhould have been the first edition, Shakspeare might yet have read this poem foon after the author's death in 1593: for Marlowe's fame was defervedly fo high, that a piece left by him for publication. was probably handed about in manufcript among his theatrical acquaintances antecedent to its being iffued from the press. In the following lines of this play, 66 Why, Phaeton, (for thou art Merops' fon,) "Wilt thou afpire to guide the heavenly car, And with thy daring folly burn the world?” the poet, as Mr. Steevens has obferved, might have been furnished with his mythology by the old play of King John, in two parts, 4to. 1591: 66 66 as fometimes Phaeton, Miftrufting filly Merops for his fire." If I am right in fuppofing our author's King John to have been written in 1596, it is not improbable that he read the old play with particular attention antecedently, to his fitting down to compofe |