Mr. Steevens's intimate acquaintance with the writings of Shak fpeare renders him fo well qualified to decide upon this queftion, that it is not without fome diftruft of my own judgement that I exprefs my diffent from his decifion; but as all the pofitions that he has endeavoured to eftablish in his ingenious difquifition on the merits and authenticity of Pericles do not appear to me to have equal weight, I fhall fhortly ftate the reasons why I cannot subscribe to his opinion with regard to this long-contefted piece.

The imperfect imitation of the language and numbers of Gower, which is found in the choruses of this play, is not in my apprehenfion a proof that they were not written by Shakspeare. To fummon a perfon from the grave, and to introduce him by way of Chorus to the drama, appears to have been no uncommon practice with our author's contemporaries. Marlowe, before the time of Shakspeare, had in this way introduced Machiavel in his Jew of Malta; and his countryman Guicciardine is brought upon the stage in an ancient tragedy called The Devil's Charter. In the fame manner Rainulph, the monk of Chefter, appears in The Mayor of Quinborough, written by Thomas Middleton. Yet it never has been objected to the authors of the two former pieces, as a breach of decorum, that the Italians whom they have brought into the scene do not speak the language of their own country; or to the writer of the latter, that the monk whom he has introduced does not use the English dialect of the age in which he lived.-But it may be faid, "nothing of this kind is attempted by these poets; the author of Pericles, on the other hand, has endeavoured to copy the verfification of Gower, and has failed in the attempt: had this piece been the compofition of Shakspeare, he would have fucceeded."

I fhall very readily acknowledge, that Shakspeare, if he had thought fit, could have exhibited a tolerably accurate imitation of the language of Gower; for there can be little doubt, that what has been effected by much inferior writers, he with no great difficulty could have accomplished. But that, because these choruses do not exhibit fuch an imitation, they were therefore not his performance, does not appear to me a neceffary conclufion; for he might not think such an imitation proper for a popular audience. Gower, like the perfons above mentioned, would probably have been fuffered to fpeak the fame language as the other characters in this piece, had he not written a poem containing the very story on which the play is formed. Like Guicciardine and the monk of Chefter, he is called up to fuperintend a relation found in one of his own performances. Hence, Shakspeare feems to have thought it proper (not, to copy his verfification, for that does not appear to have been at all in his thoughts, but) to throw a certain air of antiquity over the monologues which he has attributed to the venerable bard. Had he imitated the diction of the Confessia Amantis

with accuracy, he well knew that it would have been as unintelligible to the greater part of his audience as the Italian of Guicciar dine or the Latin of Rainulph; for, I fuppofe, there can be no doubt, that the language of Gower (which is almost as far removed from that of Hooker and Fairfax, as it is from the profe of Addison or the poetry of Pope,) was understood by none but scholars,* even in the time of queen Elizabeth. Having determined to introduce the contemporary of Chaucer in the fcene, it was not his business to exhibit fo perfect an imitation of his diétion as perhaps with affiduity and ftudy he might have accomplished, but fuch an antiquated ftyle as might be understood by the people before whom his play was to be reprefented.+

As the language of these choruses is, in my opinion, infufficient to prove that they were not the production of Shakspeare, so alfo is the inequality of metre which may be obferved in different parts of them; for the fame inequality is found in the lyrical parts of Macbeth and The Midfummer Night's Dream. It may likewife be remarked, that as in Pericles, fo in many of our author's early performances, alternate rhymes frequently occur; a practice which I have not observed in any other dramatick performances of that age, intended for publick reprefentation.

Before I quit the subject of the choruses introduced in this piece, let me add, that, like many other parts of this play, they contain fome marked expreffions, certain ardentia verba, that are alfo found in the undisputed works of our great poet; which any one who will take the trouble to compare them with the choruses in King Henry V. and The Winter's Tale, will readily perceive. If, in order to account for the fimilitude, it shall be said, that though Shakfpeare did not compofe thefe declamations of Gower, he might have retouched them, as that is a point which never can be afcer tained, fo no anfwer can be given to it.

That the play of Pericles was originally written by another poet, and afterwards improved by Shakspeare, I do not fee fufficient rea

Perhaps not by all of them. The treasures of Greece and Rome had not long been difcovered, and to the study of ancient languages almost every Englishman that afpired to literary reputation applied his talents and his time, while his native tongue was neglected. Even the learned Afcham was but little acquainted with the language of the age immediately preceding his own. If fcholars were defective in this refpect, the people, we may be fure, were much more fo.

If I am warranted in fuppofing that the language of the Confeffio Amantis would have been unintelligible to the audience, this furely was a fufficient reafon for departing from it.

See p. 390, of n. 5.

The plays of Lord Sterline are entirely in alternate rhymes; but thefe feem not to have been intended for the ftage, nor were they, I believe, ever per. formed in any theatre.

fon to believe. It may be true, that all which the improver of a dramatick piece originally ill-conftructed can do, is, to polish the language, and to add a few fplendid paffages; but that this play was the work of another, which Shakspeare from his friendship for the author revifed and corrected, is the very point in question, and therefore cannot be adduced as a medium to prove that point. It appears to me equally improbable that Pericles was formed on an unfuccefsful drama of a preceding period; and that all the weaker fcenes are taken from thence. We know indeed that it was a frequent practice of our author to avail himself of the labours of others, and to conftruct a new drama upon an old foundation; but the pieces that he has thus imitated are yet extant. We have an original Taming of a Shrew, a King John, a Promos and Caffandra, a King Leir, &c. but where is this old play of Pericles?* or how comes it to pafs that no memorial of fuch a drama remains? Even if it could be proved that fuch a piece once exifted, it would not warrant us in fuppofing that the lefs vigorous parts of the performance in queftion were taken from thence; for though Shakspeare borrowed the fables of the ancient dramas juft now enumerated, he does not appear to have tranfcribed a fingle scene from any one of them.

Still however it may be urged, if Shakspeare was the original author of this play, and this was one of his earliest productions, he would fcarcely, in a fubfequent period, have introduced in his Winter's Tale fome incidents and expreffions which bear a strong refemblance to the latter part of Pericles: on the other hand, he might not fcruple to copy the performance of a preceding poet.

Before we acquiefce in the juftice of this reafoning, let us examine what has been his practice in thofe dramas concerning the authenticity of which there is no doubt. Is it true that Shakspeare has rigidly abstained from introducing incidents or characters fimilar to those which he had before brought upon the ftage? Or rather, is not the contrary notorious? In Much Ado about Nothing the two principal perfons of the drama frequently remind us of two other characters that had been exhibited in an early production,-Love's Labour's Loft. In All's well that ends well and Measure for Measure we find the fame artifice twice employed; and in many other of his plays the action is embarraffed, and the denouement affected, by contrivances that bear a ftriking fimilitude to each other.

The conduct of Pericles and The Winter's Tale, which have feveral events common to both, gives additional weight to the fuppofition that the two pieces proceeded from the fame hand. In the latter our author has thrown the difcovery of Perdita into narration, as

When Ben Jonfon calls Pericles a mouldy tale, he alludes, I apprehend, not to the remote date of the play, but to the antiquity of the story on which it is

if through consciousness of having already exhaufted, in the bufi nefs of Marina, all that could render fuch an incident affecting on the stage. Leontes too fays but little to Hermione, when he finds her; their mutual fituations having been likewife anticipated by the Prince of Tyre and Thaifa, who had before amply expreffed the transports natural to unexpected meeting after long and painful feparation.

All the objections which are founded on the want of liaison between the different parts of this piece, on the numerous characters introduced in it, not fufficiently connected with each other, on the various and diftant countries in which the fcene is laid,-may, I think, be answered, by faying that the author purfued the ftory exactly as he found it either in the Confeffio Amantis* or fome profe tranflation of the Gefta Romanorum; a practice which Shakspeare is known to have followed in many plays, and to which most of the faults that have been urged againft his dramas may be imputed.+ -If while we travel in Antony and Cleopatra ‡ from one country to another with no less rapidity than in the prefent piece, the ob jects prefented to us are more beautiful, and the profpect more diverfified, let it be remembered at the fame time, that between the compofition of these two plays there was probably an interval of at least fifteen years; that even Shakspeare himself must have gra

Here alfo were found the names of the greater part of the characters introduced in this play; for of the feventeen perfons reprefented, fix of the names only were the invention of the poet.

The fame quantity not being uniformly obferved in fome of thefe names, is mentioned by Mr. Steevens as a proof that this piece was the production of two hands. We find however Thaifa and Thaisa in the fifth act, in two fucceeding lines. Is it to be imagined, that this play was written like French Bouts rimées, and that as foon as one verfe was compofed by one of this fuppofed duumvirate, the next was written by his affociate?

In the conduct of Measure for Measure his judgement has been arraigned for certain deviations from the Italian of Cinthio, in one of whofe novels the ftory on which the play is built, may be read. But, on examination, it has been found, that the faults of the piece are to be attributed not to Shakspeare's departing from, but too closely pursuing bis original, which, as Dr. Farmer has obferved, was not Cinthio's novel, but the Heptameron of Whetstone. In like manner the catastrophe of Romeo and Juliet is rendered lefs affecting than it might have been made, by the author's having implicitly followed the poem of Romeus and Juliet, on which his play appears to have been formed. In The Winter's Tale, Bohemia, fituated nearly in the center of Europe, is defcribed as a maritime country, because it had been already defcribed as fuch by Robert Greene in his Doraftus and Faunia; and in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Protheus goes from one inland town to another by fea; a voyage that in fome novel he had probably taken before. Many fimilar inftances might be added.

It is obfervable that the two plays of Pericles and Antony and Cleopatra were entered together at Stationers' Hali in the year 1608, by Edward Blount, a bookfeller of eminence, and one of the printers of the first folio edition of our author's works,

dually acquired information like other mortals, and in that period must have gained a knowledge of many characters, and various modes of life, with which in his earlier years he was unacquainted.

If this play had come down to us in the ftate in which the poet left it, its numerous ellipfes might fairly be urged to invalidate Shakspeare's claim to the whole or to any part of it. But the argument that is founded in thefe irregularities of the ftyle lofes much of its weight, when it is confidered, that the earliest printed copy appears in fo imperfect a form, that there is scarcely a fingle page of it undisfigured by the groffeft corruptions. As many words have been inferted, inconfiftent not only with the author's meaning, but with any meaning whatfoever, as many verfes appear to have been tranfpofed, and fome paffages are appropriated to characters to whom manifeftly they do not belong, fo there is great reafon to believe that many words and even lines were omitted at the prefs; and it is highly probable that the printer is answerable for more of these ellipfes than the poet. The fame obfervation may be extended to the metre, which might have been originally fufficiently smooth and harmonious, though now, notwithstanding the editor's best care, it is feared it will be found in many places rugged and defective.

On the appearance of Shakspeare's name in the title-page of the original edition of Pericles, it is acknowledged no great ftrefs can be laid; for by the knavery of printers or bookfellers it has been likewife affixed to two pieces, of which it may be doubted whether a fingle line was written by our author. However, though the name of Shakspeare may not alone authenticate this play, it is not in the fcale of evidence entirely infignificant; nor is it a fair conclufion, that, because we are not to confide in the title-pages of two dramas which are proved by the whole colour of the ftyle and many other confiderations not to have been the compofition of Shak fpeare, we are therefore to give no credit to the title of a piece, which we are led by very strong internal proof, and by many corroborating circumftances, to attribute to him. Though the titlepages of The London Prodigal and Sir John Oldcastle should clearly appear to be forgeries, thofe of Henry IV. and Othello will ftill remain unimpeached.

The non-enumeration of Pericles in Meres's Catalogue of our author's plays, printed in 1598, is undecifive with respect to the authenticity of this piece; for neither are the three parts of King Henry VI. nor Hamlet mentioned in that lift; though it is certain they were written, and had been publickly performed, before his book was published.

Why this drama was omitted in the first edition of Shakspeare's works, it is impoffible now to afcertain. But if we shall allow the omillion to be a decifive proof that it was not the composition of