P. 106. Full of strange shapes, of habits, and of forms. — The old copies have "Full of straying shapes," - an erratum hardly calling for notice. Corrected by Capell. P. 106. Those heavenly eyes, that look into these faults, copies. Suggested us to make them. Here them is wanting in the old P. 107. -- - But more devout than this in our respects Have we not been. The old copies are without in, the folio having are instead. Corrected by Hanmer. P. 107. Then, at the expiration of the year, Come challenge, challenge me by these deserts. repeat me, "Come challenge me, challenge me." P. 108. Hence ever, then, my heart is in thy breast. - After this line, again, the old copies have a passage which is repeated and amplified into much better shape a little further on. See the long note on page 122. I subjoin the omitted lines : Ber. And what to me, my Love, and what to me? You are attaint with faults and perjurie : A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest, And seeke the wearie beds of people sicke. P. 108. Dum. But what to me, my love? but what to me? A wife? Cath. A beard, fair health, and honesty. — So Dyce and the Cambridge Editors. The old copies make A wife? the beginning of Catharine's speech. P. 109. Will hear your idle scorns, continue them.- So Collier's second folio. The old text has then instead of them. Tu-who. So Capell. The old editions omit Tu-who both here and in the corresponding part of the next stanza. THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. TOT mentioned by Meres in 1598, though undoubtedly written before that time; nor ever printed, that we know of, till in the folio of 1623. The date of the writing has not been definitively settled, nor is it likely to be. Malone gave it as his final judgment that this play was one of the Poet's "very early productions, and near, in point of time, to The Comedy of Errors, Love's Labours Lost, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona." This judgment has not, I think, been successfully impugned since Malone's day. Another play, called The Taming of a Shrew, was first printed in 1594, again in 1596, and a third time in 1607. In the titlepage of 1594 we have the words, "As it was sundry times acted by the right-honourable the Earl of Pembroke's Servants." This play and Shakespeare's agree in having substantially the same plot, order, and incidents, so far as regards the Lord, the Tinker, Petruchio, Catharine, and the whole taming process. The scene of the former is at Athens, of the latter at Padua, both of which are represented as famous seats of learning. In The Taming of a Shrew, Alphonsus, an Athenian merchant, has three daughters, Kate, Emelia, and Phylema. Aurelius, son to the Duke of Sestos, goes in quest of Phylema, Polidor of Emelia: as for Kate, she is such a terrible shrew that nobody seems likely to want her; which puts the father upon taking an oath not to admit any suitors to the younger two till the elder is disposed of. Presently Ferando, hearing of her fame, offers himself as her lover, and proceeds to carry her by storm. The wooing, the marriage, the entertainment of the bride at Ferando's country house, the passages with the Tailor and Haberdasher, the trip to her father's, and Kate's subdued and pliant behaviour, all follow in much the same style and strain as in Shakespeare's play. The underplot, however, is quite different. Aurelius and Polidor do not carry on their suits in disguise; though the former brings in a merchant to personate his father, who arrives in time to discover the trick, and lets off plenty of indignation thereat. All the parties being at length married, the play winds up with a wager between the three husbands respecting the obedience of their several wives; and the tamed Kate reads her sisters a lecture on the virtue and sweetness of wifely submission. The persons and proceedings of the Induction, also, are much the same in both plays, save that, in The Taming of a Shrew, Sly continues his remarks from time to time throughout the performance; and finally, having drunk himself back into insensibility, is left where he was found, and upon awaking regards it all as a glorious dream; whereas in The Taming of the Shrew this part is not carried beyond the first Act. It is commonly supposed that Shakespeare's play was written. later than the other, and founded upon it; and in what follows I shall take for granted that such was the case, though it does not seem to me to have been proved. It is certain, indeed, that one of the plays must have been in a great measure borrowed from the other; but I think no slight argument might be made for reversing the alleged order. The common opinion, however, being admitted to be right, the close similarity of title, matter, and interest shows that the Poet had no thought of disguising his obligations: rather it looks as if he meant to turn the popularity of the other play to the advantage of his own company. Nevertheless, except in a very few lines and phrases adopted or imitated, the dialogue, language, and poetry of Shakespeare's play are, for the most part, of quite a different race from those of the other the characters, even when partly borrowed, are wrought out into a much more distinct and determinate individuality; and the texture and style of the workmanship lift it immeasurably above its model. Still the other play must be owned to have considerable merit; probably few English dramas then in being should take rank much before it: it has occasional blushes of genuine poetry, some force and skill of characterization, and a good deal of sound stage-effect; though, upon the whole, the style is very stiff, frigid, pedantic, and artificial; and often, in setting out to be humorous, it runs into flat vulgarity or vapid commonplace. It is uncertain when or by whom The Taming of a Shrew was written. Malone conjectured it to be the work of Robert Greene, who died September 3, 1592. The weight of probability bears strongly in favour of that conjecture. An argument of no mean force has been drawn from the Orlando Furioso, which was undoubtedly the work of Greene. Both were anonymous, were issued the same year, and by the same publishers; and both are called Histories. Knight, after stating this point, adds the following: "It is impossible, we think, not to be struck with the resemblance of these performances, in the structure of the verse, the excess of mythological allusion, the laboured finery intermixed with feebleness, and the occasional outpouring of a rich and gorgeous fancy." 66 This view has been strengthened by an anonymous writer of our own country, who has pointed out a number of passages in The Taming of a Shrew that were evidently copied from Marlowe's Faustus and Tamburlaine. From these the writer himself infers the play to have been by Marlowe. Against this, Dyce gives his verdict as follows: I find enough in The Taming of a Shrew to convince me that it was the work of some one who had closely studied Marlowe's writings, and who frequently could not resist the temptation to adopt the very words of his favourite dramatist. It is quite possible that he was not always conscious of his plagiarisms from Marlowe; recollections of whose phraseology may have mingled imperceptibly with the current of his thoughts." Marlowe died June 1, 1593. Of his Faustus the earliest known edition was in 1604. All the notices we have of it seem to infer that it had not been printed in 1594, when The Taming of a Shrew first came out. So that the author of the latter play, whoever he might be, must have had access to the manuscript of Faustus. As this was probably written as early as 1589, there appears no reason but that the forecited plagiarisms from it may have been made several years before The Taming of a Shrew came from the press. The question, then, rises, who would be more likely |