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Primufque per avia campi

Ufque procul, (necdum totas lux moverat umbras,)
Nefcio quid vifu dubium, incertumque moveri,
Corporaque ire videt. STATIUS.

Trattando l'ombre come cofa falda. DANTE.

EVERY circumftance that relates to thofe persons

whofe writings we admire, awakens and interests our curiofity. The time and place of their birth, their education and gradual attainments, the dates of their productions and the reception they feverally met with, their habits of life, their private friendships, and even their external form, are all points, which, how little foever they may have been adverted to by their contemporaries, ftrongly engage the attention of pofterity. Not fatisfied with receiving the aggregated wifdom of ages as a free gift, we vifit the manfions where our inftructors are faid to have refided, we contemplate with pleasure

2 The first edition of this Effay was published in January 1778.

the trees under whofe fhade they once repofed, and wish to see and to converfe with those sages, whofe labours have added ftrength to virtue, and efficacy to truth.

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Shakspeare above all writers, fince the days of Homer, has excited this curiofity in the highest degree; as perhaps no poet of any nation was ever more idolized by his countrymen. An ardent defire to understand and explain his works, is, to the honour of the present age, fo much increased within the laft forty years, that more has been done. towards their elucidation, during that period, than in a century before. All the ancient copies of his plays, hitherto discovered, have been collated with the moft fcrupulous accuracy. The meanest books have been carefully examined, only because they were of the age in which he lived, and might happily throw a light on fome forgotten cuftom, or obfolete phrafeology: and, this object being still kept in view, the toil of wading through all fuch reading as was never read has been cheerfully endured, because no labour was thought too great, that might enable us to add one new laurel to the father of our drama. Almoft every circumstance that tradition or hiftory has preserved relative to him or his works, has been investigated, and laid before the publick; and the avidity with which all communications of this kind have been received, fufficiently proves that the time expended in the purfuit has not been wholly mifemployed.

However, after the most diligent inquiries, very

3 Within the period here mentioned, the commentaries of Warburton, Edwards, Heath, Johnfon, Tyrwhitt, Farmer, and Steevens, have been published.

few particulars have been recovered, refpecting his private life or literary hiftory: and while it has been the endeavour of all his editors and commentators to illuftrate his obfcurities, and to regulate and correct his text, no attempt has been made to trace the progrefs and order of his plays. Yet furely it is no incurious fpeculation to mark the gradations by which he rose from mediocrity to

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It is not pretended that a regular fcale of gradual improvement is here prefented to the publick: or that, if even Shakfpeare himself had left us a chronological lift of his dramas, it would exhibit fuch a fcale. All that is meant is, that, as his knowledge increased, and as he became more converfant with the ftage and with life, his performances in general were written. more happily and with greater art; or (to ufe the words of Dr. Johnfon) u that however favoured by nature, he could only impart what he had learned, and as he muft increase his ideas, like other mortals, by gradual acquifition, he, like them, grew wifer as he grew older, could difplay life better as he knew it more, and instruct with more efficacy, as he was himself more amply inftructed." Of this opinion alfo was Mr. Pope. It must be obferved, (fays he,) that when his performances had merited the protection of his prince, and when the encouragement of the court had fucceeded to that of the town, the works of his riper years are manifefly raised above thofe of his former. And I make no doubt that this obfervation would be found true in every inftance, were but editions extant from which we might learn the exact time when every piece was compofed, and whether writ for the town or the court."-From the following lines it appears, that Dryden alfo thought that our author's most imperfect plays were his earlieft dramatick compofitions:

young flight,

"Your Ben and Fletcher in their first
"Did no Volpone, no Arbaces write;
But hopp'd about, and fhort excurfions made
From bough to bough, as if they were afraid;
And each were guilty of fome Slighted Maid.
Shakspeare's own mufe his Pericles first bore;
"The Prince of Tyre was elder than the Moor;
'Tis miracle to fee a firft good play;

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the fummit of excellence; from artlefs and fometimes uninterefting dialogues, to thofe unparalleled compofitions, which have rendered him the delight and wonder of fucceffive ages.

The materials for ascertaining the order in which his plays were written, are indeed fo few, that, it is to be feared, nothing very decifive can be produced on this fubject. In the following attempt to trace the progrefs of his dramatick art, probability alone is pretended to. The filence and inaccuracy of those perfons, who, after his death, had the revifal of his papers, will perhaps for ever prevent our attaining to any thing like proof on this head. Little then remains, but to collect into one view, from his feveral dramas, and from the ancient

"All hawthorns do not bloom on Chriftmas-day.
"A flender poet must have time to grow,

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And fpread and burnish, as his brothers do: "Who ftill looks lean, fure with fome p- is curft, "But no man can be Falftaff fat at firft."

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Prologue to the tragedy of Circe. The plays which Shakspeare produced before the year 1600, are known, and are feventeen or eighteen in number. The reft of his dramas, we may conclude, were compofed between that year and the time of his retiring to the country. It is incumbent on thofe, who differ in opinion from the great authorities abovementioned, who think with Rowe, that" we are not to look for his beginnings in his leaft perfect works," it is incumbent, I fay, on thofe perfons, to enumerate in the former class, that is, among the plays produced before 1600, compofitions of equal merit with Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, The Tempest, and Twelfth Night, which we have reafon to believe were all written in the latter period; and among his late performances, that is among the plays which are fuppofed to have appeared after the year 1600, to point out pieces, as hafty and indigefted, as Love's Labour's Loft, The Comedy of Errors, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which, we know, were among earlier works.

his

tracts in which they are mentioned, or alluded to, all the circumftances that can throw any light on this new and curious inquiry. From thofe circumftances, and from the entries in the books of the Stationers' Company, extracted and published by Mr. Steevens, (to whom every admirer of Shakspeare has the higheft obligations,) it is probable that our author's plays were written nearly in the following fucceffion, which, though it can not at this day be ascertaiued to be their true order, may yet be confidered as approaching nearer to it, than any which has been obferved in the various editions of his works.

Of the twenty-one plays in our author's life-time, believe, late compofitions.

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which were not printed. the majority were, I The following arrange

ment is in fome measure formed on this notion.

They are, King Henry VI. P. I. The Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI. (as he wrote them) The comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, King John, All's well that ends well, As you like it, King Henry VIII. Meafure for Meafure, The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, Macbeth, Julius Cafar, Antony and Cleopatra, Timon of Athens, Coriolanus, Othello, The Tempeft, and Twelfth Night. None of thefe, except Othello, were printed in quarto, but appeared firft in the folio edition publifhed by Heminge and Condell, in 1623. Of thefe plays, feven, viz. The First Part of King Henry VI. (allowing that play to be Shakspeare's,) The Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI. King John, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, were certainly early compofitions, and are an exception to the general truth of this obfervation. One other, viz. All's well that ends well, though fuppofed to have been an early production, was, it must be acknowledged, not published in Shakspeare's life-time; but for the date of this play we rely only on conjecture.

6 This fuppofition is ftrongly confirmed by Meres's lift of our author's plays, in 1598. From that lift, and from other

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