MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

"Jesters do oft prove prophets."-King Lear.

"Let's see: come, if it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles."

King Lear.

This play is generally supposed to have been written in the year 1599 or in the succeeding year; for while it is not mentioned by Meres in 1598 (unless it be granted to Mr. A. E. Brae that it is a revision of Love's Labour Won), it was twice entered in the Register at Stationers' Hall, in August, 1600, and a quarto edition appeared in the same year. The title-page of the quarto states that the play had been "sundrie times publikely acted;" but as the same statement is prefixed to almost every edition of Shakespeare's plays which appeared in, or after, 1600, nothing very definite can be deduced from the remark.

This date receives support from the following considerations:

The allusion in the opening scene to a circumstance attending the campaign of the Earl of Essex in Ireland, during the summer of 1599, seems corroborated by the testimony of Camden and Moryson; see Chalmers's Suppl. Apol., p. 381.

The character "Amorphus, or the one Deformed,” in Cynthia's Revels, 1600, may be compared with "the one Deformed, a vile thief this seven year," referred to in our comedy (iii. 3, 34-38, 181-185).

The lines, iii. I, 9—11,

"Like favorites

Made proud by princes, that advance their pride
Against that power that bred it,"

are certainly very striking and rather forced. The case of Essex, from the latter part of 1599 till his death, should of

course be compared; though Mr. Simpson (Academy, Sept. 25th, 1875) would refer the words to Cecil.

Turning to the sources of the play, it may be first stated that the story of the interrupted marriage, &c., may be traced to Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, and that this had been done into English by Beverly in 1565 [a second edition appearing in 1600] and again by Harrington in 1591. Shakespeare, however, was probably indebted to Belleforest's translation (1594) of a tale by the Italian novelist Bandello; though it should be added that there are several indications that he may have consulted some old drama, or other work, on the same subject; it has been pointed out, for instance, by Cohn, that Jacob Ayrer's Beautiful Phænicia is also founded upon Bandello's tale, while it has, in common with Much Ado About Nothing, some points not met with in the story. Professor Ward (u. s., p. 403) says: “As the date of Ayrer's piece is not known-it may have been written before or after 1600-and as that of Shakspere's is similarly uncertain, it is impossible to decide as to their relative priority. That, however, Ayrer did not copy from Shakspere seems, as Simrock points out, clear from the names of the characters in his play which follow Bandello, while Shakspere has changed all the names except those of Don Pedro and old Leonato."

Steevens thought that the instructions which Dogberry and Verges give to the watch might "be intended as a burlesque on The Statutes of the Streets, imprinted by Wolfe, in 1595;" I may add that Dogberry calls them "the Statues." There is no doubt an allusion to these celebrated characters in the following extract from the Induction to Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair (1614): "I am an ass! I! ... as though it had cost him nothing! and then a substantial watch to have stolen in upon them, and taken them away, with mistaking words, as the fashion is in the stage practice;" though it should be added that the watch-men were a favourite object of ridicule then-a-days.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, 1599-1600.

77

It has been conjectured that this play may have some reference to the difficulty of inducing the Earl of Pembroke to "marry and settle.”

The assumed date is confirmed if we observe the advance upon some of the earlier comedies; notice the brilliancy and polish of the wit of the ladies and gentlemen introduced, and contrast Beatrice and Benedick with Rosaline and Birowne; mark, too, how, while the clown, or fool, is avoided, the most delightful fun is caused by the introduction of the incomparable watchmen. Again, the mixture of comedy and tragedy is managed with fine effect; "Perhaps," says Hazlitt, "the middle point of comedy was never more nicely hit, in which the ludicrous blends with the tender, and our follies, turning round against themselves, in support of our affections, retain nothing but their humanity;" whilst, it may be added, as to the tragical catastrophe (which in less skilful hands might easily have been too severe) the edge is taken off by our foreknowledge of the heroine's innocence.

As to the style, it may be remarked that while at times it has the appearance of comparatively early manner (see, for instance, Act v., Sc. 3; though this may be due to the fact that the company, at the time of the production of this drama, evidently had a good musician or two), at other times the diction is of the highest order (see, for instance, Act iv., Sc. 1, lines 226-232, than which Shakespeare never wrote anything finer).

The metrical tests tell the same tale; the double endings place it comparatively early, the rhymes put it later; while the classical allusion test gives doubtful results.

AS YOU LIKE IT.

"The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind,
And make a chequered shadow on the ground.'

Titus Andronicus.

There can scarcely be a doubt that this play was produced in the year 1599, as the following remarks will show :—

It is not mentioned by Meres in 1598; it was entered (with a proviso) on the Stationers' Register on August 4th, 1600 (the year of the entry is not given, but there can be no doubt about it). In iv. 1, 154, 155, we have the expression "I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain;" as Malone pointed out, this doubtless refers to a statue mentioned by Stowe, in the first edition of his Survey of London, 1598, as set up in that year in Cheapside; in the second edition of the same work in 1603, he tells us that the statue of Diana was then decayed; the allusion would of course be "telling" in 1599. Malone also pointed out the lines, iii. 5, 82, 8

"Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might,
'Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?'”

83:

The line quoted in this extract is from Marlowe's Hero and
Leander, where we find :

"Where both deliberate, the love is slight.

Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?"

Hero and Leander was first printed (as completed by Chapman) in 1598, five years after Marlowe's death.

In reference to the celebrated lines, in Act ii. Sc. 7, beginning "All the world's a stage," it may be remarked that the sentence "Totus mundus agit histrionem” is said to have been inscribed over the Globe Theatre, and it might almost be imagined that the opening of that house in the end of 1599 was quickly followed by the play containing these appropriate lines.

A tradition says that Shakespeare supported a character (Adam) in this drama; now as the only definite records of his acting [viz.: in Every Man in His Humour (1598) and Sejanus (1603)] give just the same limits as those in the remarks on the sentence "like Diana in the Fountain," we may make somewhat the same deduction.

The plot of this play is taken from a novel by Thomas Lodge, entitled Rosalynde, Euphues' Golden Legacie, &c. Mr. Collier has noticed that the editions, which appeared between 1592 and 1598, have not the name Rosalynde on the title-page; whilst in the 1598 and in subsequent editions it reappears; the reason he assigns is that the success of Rosalind in As You Like It caused the reproduction of what would be an attractive title. But is it not more probable, considering the remarks made above upon the date, that Shakespeare was using one of the new editions? It is perhaps reasoning in a circle to say it, but this seems to add another proof of the correctness of the ordinarily received date.

Touchstone, in Act v. Sc. 4, in his remarks upon quarrels and lies, apparently refers to Saviolo's Treatise on Honour and Honourable Quarrels, 1595; some "books for good manners" (to which the same "rare fellow" perhaps alludes a little further on in the scene) have also been pointed out of a somewhat earlier date.

Tieck thought the title of this comedy might be due to the last line in the epilogue to Cynthia's Revels (1600); this would, however, clash with the date assumed above, as well as with an endeavour made, in the Appendix (p. 177), to show that Ben Jonson in writing that epilogue had our author in view. The title may be due, as Simrock thinks, to Lodge's prefatory remark "If you like it, so;" or to a remark, in Shakespeare's own epilogue, "like as much of this play as please you."

Tieck also thought that Jacques was akin to Asper, Ben Jonson's portrait of himself in Every Man Out of Hi Humour, 1599.