In 1598 Francis Meres published his " Palladis Tamia, Wit's Treasury," which contains the most important notice of Shakspere of any contemporary writer : "As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latins, so Shakespeare, among the English, is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage for comedy, witness his Gentlemen of Verona,' his 'Errors,' his' Love Labours Lost,' his Love Labours Won,' his Mid-summer's Night Dream,' and his Merchant of Venice;' for tragedy, his ‘Richard II.,'' Richard III.,' 'Henry IV.,' King John,'' Titus Andronicus,' and his Romeo and Juliet.'"

6

This notice fixes the date of thirteen plays, as having been produced up to 1598. But this list can scarcely be supposed to be a complete one. The expression which Meres uses, "for comedy witness," implies that he selects particular examples of excellence. We know that the three Parts of " Henry VI." existed before 1598: we believe that "The Taming of the Shrew was amongst the early plays; and that the original sketch of "Hamlet," had been produced at the very outset of Shakspere's dramatic career. "All's Well that Ends Well," we believe, also, to have been an early play, known to Meres as "Love's Labour's Won." But carry the list of Meres forward two years, and we have to add 'Much Ado about Nothing' and "Henry V."

which were then printed. The account, therefore, stands thus in 1600:

Plays mentioned by Meres, considering "Henry IV.”

20

We have now seventeen plays, including “Pericles," left for the seventeenth century; but some of these have established their claim to an earlier date than has been usually assigned to them. "Twelfth Night" and "Othello were performed in 1602. Under the usual chronological order we are compelled, according to the analysis which we have just given, to crowd twenty plays into ten years. We shall have a still more difficult task to accomplish, if we accept the theory which has been laid down, by an authority which goes further even than Malone, that all "dramatic poets who had written plays prior to the years 1593 may be fairly considered the predecessors of Shakspeare *," assuming that previous to 1593 Shakspere was altogether employed in mending the plays of others. But, putting aside "Titus Andronicus," Meres gives us a list of twelve original plays existing when his book was printed in 1598 twelve plays which we would not exchange for all the contemporary dramatic literature produced in the years between 1592 and *Collier's "Annals of the Stage," vol. i. p. 237.

S

1598. In support of these assertions, and these computations, not the slightest direct evidence has ever been offered. The indirect evidence constantly alleged against Shakspere being a writer before he was twenty-seven years old is that he had obtained no reputation, and is not even mentioned by any contemporary, previously to the satirical notice of him in the last production of Robert Greene, who died in September, 1592, in which he is called "the only Shakescene in the country.” The very terms used by Greene would imply that the successful author of whom he was envious had acquired a reputation. But this is not the usual construction put on the words. The silence of other writers with regard to Shakspere is minutely set forth by Malone; and his opinions, as it appears to us, have been much too implicitly received, times indolently, sometimes for the support of a theory that would recognise Shakspere as a mere actor, or, at most, as the repairer of other men's works, whilst the original genius of Marlowe, and half a dozen inferior writers, was in full activity around him. The omission of all notice of Shakspere by Webbe, Puttenham, Harrington, Sidney, are brought forward by Malone as unquestionable proofs that our poet had not written before 1591 or 1592. He says that in Webbe's "Discourse of English Poetry," published in 1586, we meet with the names of the most celebrated poets of that time, particu

- some

larly those of the dramatic writers Whetstone and Munday; but that we find no trace of Shakspere or of his works. But Malone does not tell us that Webbe makes a general apology for his omissions, saying, “Neither is my abiding in such place where I can with facility get knowledge of their works." "Three years afterwards," continues Malone, "Puttenham printed his Art of English Poesy;' and in that work also we look in vain for the name of Shakspere." The book speaks of the one-and-thirty years' space of Elizabeth's reign; and thus puts the date of the writing a year earlier than the printing. But we here look in vain for some other illustrious names besides that of Shakspere. Malone has not told us that the name of Edmund Spenser is not found in Puttenham; nor, what is still more uncandid, that not one of Shakspere's early dramatic contemporaries is mentioned neither Marlowe, nor Greene, nor Peele, nor Kyd, nor Lyly. The author evidently derives his knowledge of "poets and poesy" from a much earlier period than that in which he publishes.

He

does not mention Spenser by name, but he does "that other gentleman who wrote the late 'Shepherd's Calendar.'' The "Shepherd's Calendar," of Spenser was published in the year 1579. Malone goes on to argue that the omission of Shakspere's name, or any notice of his works, in Sir John Harrington's " Apology of Poetry," printed in 1591, in which " he takes occasion to