a new drama on the subject; perhaps in the preceding year: and this circumftance may add fome weight to the date now affigned to the play before us. 9. ROMEO AND JULIET, 1595. It has been already obferved, that our author in his early plays appears to have been much addicted to rhyming; a practice from which he gradually departed, though he never wholly deferted it. In this piece more rhymes, I believe, are found, than in any other of his plays, Love's Labour's Loft and A Midsummer Nights Dream only excepted. This circumstance, the ftory on which it is founded, fo likely to captivate a young poet, the imperfect form in which it originally appeared, and its very early publication, all incline me to believe that this was Shakspeare's firft tragedy; for the three parts of King Henry VI. do not pretend to that title. 2 "A new ballad of Romeo and Juliet" (perhaps our author's play,) was entered on the Stationers' books, August 5, 1596, and the first sketch of the play was printed in 1597; but it did not appear in its prefent form till two years afterwards. There is no edition of any of our author's genuine plays" extant, prior to 1597, when Romeo and Juliet was published. 2 There is no entry in the Stationers' books relative to the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, antecedent to its publication in 1597, if this does not relate to it. This entry was made by Edward Whyte, and therefore is not likely to have related to the poem called Romeo and Juletta, which was entered in 1582, by Richard Tottel. How vague the defcription of This tragedy was originally reprefented by the fervants of Lord Hunfdon, who was appointed Lord Chamberlain to Queen Elizabeth in 1585, and died in July 1596. As it appears from the title-page of the 'original edition in 1597, that Romeo and Juliet had been often acted by the fervants of that nobleman, it probably had been reprefented in the preding year. In the third act the first and fecond caufe are mentioned that paffage therefore was probably written after the publication of Saviolo's Book on Honour and honourable quarrels; which appeared in 1595. From several paffages in the fifth act of this tragedy it is manifeft, I think, that Shakspeare had recently read, and remembered, fome of the lines in Daniel's Complaint of Rofamond, which, I believe, was printed in 1592: 3 the earlieft edition, however, that I have seen of that piece is dated in 1594. plays was at this time, may appear from the following entry, which is found in the Stationers' books, an. 1590, and feems to relate to Marlowe's tragedy of Tamburlaine, published in that year, by Richard Jones. "To Richard Jones] Twoe Commical Difcourfes of Tamburlein, the Cythian Shepparde. In Marlowe's Tamburlaine, as originally performed, feveral comick interludes were introduced; whence perhaps, the epithet comical was added to the title. As tragedies were fometimes entitled difcourfes, fo a grave poem or fad difcourfe, in verfe, (to ufe the language of the time) was frequently denominated a tragedy. All the poems inferted in the Mirrour for Magifirates, and fome of Drayton's pieces, are called tragedies, by Meres and other ancient writers, Some of Sir David Lindfay's poems, though not in a dramatick form, are alfo by their author entitled tragedies. 3 "A booke called Delia, containynge diverfe fonates with the Complainte of Rofamonde, "was entered at Stationers "And nought-refpealing death, the laft of paines, "Plac'd his pale colours, (the enfign of his might,) .. Upon his new-got fpoil," &c. Complaint of Rofamond. "Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks, 66 Romeo and Juliet. Decayed rofes of difcolour'd cheeks Complaint of Rofamond. "Death that hath fuck'd the honey of thy breath, Romeo and Juliet. If the following paffage in an old comedy already mentioned, entitled Doctor Dodipoll, which had appeared before 1596, be confidered as an imitation, it may add some weight to the fuppofition that Romeo and Juliet had been exhibited before "The glorious parts of fair Lucilia, "Take them and join them in the heavenly spheres, "For lovers to adore and wonder at. งา Dr. Dodipoll. "Take him and cut him out in little ftars, Romeo and Juliet. hall by Simon Waterfon in Feb. 1591-2, and the latter. piece is commended by Nafhe in a tract entitled Pierce Pennileffe his Supplication to the Divell, publifhed in 1592. In the fifth act of this tragedy mention is made of the practice of fealing up the doors of thofe, ́houfes in which "the infectious peftilence did reign. "Shakspeare probably had himself feen this practifed in the plague which raged in London in 1593. 4 From a fpeech of the Nurse in this play, which contains these words "It is now fince the earthquake eleven years, &c. Mr. Tyrwhitt conjectured, that Romeo and Juliet, or at leaft part of it, was written in 1591; the novels from which Shakspeare may be fuppofed to have drawn his ftory, not mentioning any fuch circumftance; while on the other hand, there actually was an earthquake in England on the 6th of April 1580, which he might here have had in view. It formerly feemed improbable to me that Shakspeare, when he was writing this tragedy, fhould have adverted, with fuch precifion, to the date of an earthquake which had been felt in his youth. The paffage quoted ftruck me, as only displaying one of thofe characteriflical traits which diftinguifh old people of the lower clafs; who delight in enumerating a multitude of minute circumftances that have no relation to the business immediately under their confideration, and are particularly fond of computing time from extraordinary events, fuch as battles, comets, plagues, and earthquakes. This feature of their character our author See Romeo and Juliet, Act I. fc. iii. 5 Thus Mrs. Quickly in King Henry IV. reminds Falftaff, that he "fwore on a parcel-gilt goblet, to marry her, fitting in her dolphin chamber, at a round table, by a fea-coal fire, on Wednesday in Whitfun-week, when the prince broke his head for likening his father to a finging man of Windfor. has in various places flrongly marked. Thus (to mention one of many inftances,) the Grave-digger in Hamlet fays that he came to his employment," of all the days i'the year, that day that the laft king o'ercame Fortinbras, that very day that young Hamlet was born." A more attentive perufal, however, of our poet's works, and his frequent allufions to the manners and ufages of England, and to the events of his own time, which he has defcribed as taking place wherever his fcene happens, to lie, have fhewn me that Mr. Tyrrwhitt's conjecture is not fo improbable as I once fuppofed it. Shakspeare might have laid the foundation of this play in 1591, and finifhed it at a fubfequènt period. The paffage alluded to is in the first act. If the earthquake which happened in England in 1580, was in his thoughts, when he compofed the first part of this play, and induced him to ftate the earthquake at Verona as happening on the day on which Juliet was weaned, and eleven years before the commencement of the piece, it has led him into a contradiction; for according to the Nurfe's account Juliet was within a fortnight and odd days of completing her fourteenth year; and yet according to the computation made fhe could not well be much more than twelve years old. Whether indeed the English earthquake was, or was not, in his thoughts, the nurfe's account is inconfiflent, and contradictory. Perhaps Shakspeare was more careful to mark the garrulity, than the precifion, of the old womanor perhaps, he meant this very incorrectnefs as a trait of her character:-or, without having recourse to either of thefe fuppofitions, fhall we |