to that in Italian, called Inganni. A good practice in it to make the steward believe," &c. The beginning of 1602 is thus an undoubted terminus ad quem; while in the other direction a limit is supplied as well by the non-mention in Meres, as by the allusion in the following passage in the play: "He does smile his face into more lines that is in the new map with the augmentation of the Indies" (iii. 2, 84-86); there is here, as Steevens pointed out, a clear reference to a map engraved for Linschoten's Voyages, an English translation of which was published in 1598. This map is multilineal in the extreme, and is the first in which the East Indies are included." Mr. Hunter, in his New Illustrations, &c., was of opinion that the treatment of Malvolio, in Act iv. Sc. 2, was founded upon the exposure of the exorcism practised by the Puritans (who, by the by, are held up to so much ridicule in this comedy) by Dr. Harsnet, in his tract A Discovery of the Fraudulent Practices of John Darrel, 1599. It should be remembered that Shakespeare undoubtedly consulted another of this writer's tracts, when, a few years after, he was preparing his Lear. But, again, the following passage from the end of Act iii. Sc. 1, of Ben Jonson's Every Man Out of His Humour, 1599, has been supposed to furnish another posterior limit for the date : "The argument of his comedy might have been of some other nature, as of a duke to be in love with a countess, and that countess to be in love with the duke's son, and the son to love the lady's waiting-maid; some such cross wooing, with a clown to be their serving-man, better than to be thus near, and familiarly allied to the time.” This could scarcely, however, refer to our play, if we consider the time and the place of the performance of Ben Jonson's piece, as well as the generality of the remarks on the one hand, and the want of agreement in detail (with Twelfth Night) on the other. We have above remarked that the Puritans are held up to some ridicule in this play (and the same may be said of the nearly contemporary All's Well that Ends Well). Now it has been pointed out that in 1600 the puritánical city magistrates obtained an order from the Privy Council restricting stage performances. In these passages then, and in the character of Malvolio, we may have some good-humoured and gentle retaliation (see W. W. Lloyd, Essays, &c., p. 155, 156). In Act iii. Sc. 2, Sir Toby Belch, when urging Sir Andrew to send a challenge to Viola, says: "if thou thou'st some thrice, it shall not be amiss ;" Theobald and others see in this advice, which, by the by, Aguecheek follows, an allusion to Cooke's insulting remarks at Raleigh's trial: “at thy instigation, thou viper, for I thou thee, thou traitor;" but the reference is in itself unlikely, and is of course put out of court by Manningham's memorandum. The line, i. 5, 275: “With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire,” may be intended to satirize a passage in Lodge's Rosalynde, (which we know Shakespeare had so lately used) :: "The winds of my deep sighs That thunder still for nought." Guided by some of these allusions, and especially by Manningham's detailed description of what was apparently a comparatively new play in the beginning of 1602, the play will here be assigned to the year 1601; a conclusion which we shall find is supported by a consideration of the style and versification. It should, however, be here remarked that Mr. Fleay, in his paper on Certain Plays of Shakespeare of which portions were written at different periods of his life" (N. S. S. Trans., 1874, vol. ii.) has included this comedy, parts of which he assigns to the year 1593-4, chiefly on account of the freshness of style they exhibit. These views are combated in the Transactions referred to; and we may quote the following extract from a letter to the Academy of June 20th, 1874, by Mr. C. Eliot Browne, who supplied fresh evidence that no part of Twelfth Night was written before 1598. "Shakspeare was, probably, indebted for the names of the heroines of Twelfth Night to the first part of Emanuel Forde's Parismus, the Renowned Prince of Bohemia, Lond. 1598, for neither Olivia nor Viola occurs in the Ingannati from which Shakspeare is believed to have borrowed the plot. In the romance, Olivia is Queen of Thessaly; and Violetta, the name of a lady, who unknown to her lover, disguises herself as a page to follow him, and she also, like Viola, is shipwrecked. If this conjecture be correct, the negative evidence that Twelfth Night was written after 1598 afforded by its omission in Meres's list is confirmed." Mr. Browne then gives one or two other reasons for thinking that Shakespeare was acquainted with the romance in question. The reasons which Mr. Fleay brings forward in favour of an early date for parts of this play, will probably, apart from considerations urged above, convince us that the very late date formerly assigned must be wrong; whilst, on the other hand, the opinion of those commentators, in so far as it was grounded upon a study of the style, will favour the date assumed in a former part of this section. In a play which presents so much difficulty as this, it is perhaps best to commence by stating simply the external evidence, which bears, or is supposed to bear, upon the subject. H . 1599. From entries in Henslowe's Diary, it appears that Dekker and Chettle were preparing a drama, which was at first called Troyelles and Cresseda,' but afterwards The Tragedy of Agamemnon. This was licensed by the Master of the Revels, on June 3rd, 1599. 1603. Feb. 3rd. The Stationers' Register has the following entry : "Mr. Roberts]. The booke of Troilus and Cresseda, as yt is acted by my Lo. Chamberlens men." 1609. Jan. 28th. The same source supplies us with the following record: 66 Rich. Bonion and Hen. Whalleys] entered, &c., a booke called, the History of Troylus and Cressula." 1609. In the same year there appeared two quartos; the difference of the title-pages should be noticed : Q1 "The Famous Historie of Troylus and Cresseid. Excellently expressing the beginning of their Loves, with the conceited wooing of Pandarus, Prince of Lucia. Written by William Shakespeare. Imprinted by G. Eld, for R. Bonian and H. Walley, 1609." [This Quarto contains a very remarkable Preface, which says, among other things, "You have here a new play, never staled with the stage, never clapper-clawed with the palms of the vulgar, and yet passing full of the palm comical Refuse not, nor like this the less for not being sullied with the smoky breath of the multitude; but thank fortune for the scope it hath had amongst you, since by the grand possessors' wills I believe you should have prayed for them rather than been prayed."] Q2 [Same title as Q1, but the word Famous is omitted, while the following is added, " As it was acted by the King's Majesties Servants at the Globe."] No other edition appeared until the folio came out in 1623. 1 Mr. Fleay says, Dekker and Chettle's Troylus and Cressida was written in 1592, and reproduced in a revised form as Agamemnou in 1599. But he does not give his authority for the statement. The position, pagination, and title of the play in this volume deserve notice; on inspection it will be noticed that the last page but one of Romeo and Juliet, among the tragedies, is numbered 76, and that the last page is numbered 79. Now, as Knight pointed out, Troilus and Cressida (although still styled "a tragedy") is placed at the end of the histories, and is not paged at all, with the exception of the second and third pages which are numbered 79 and 80. This seems to show that it had been intended to follow Romeo and Juliet, which it would exactly do, if the last page of that play had been correctly1 numbered; and it has been suggested that the difficulty of classing the play led to the rearrangement; [it may be added, to show the complete perplexity on this point, that the writer of the remarkable preface to the first quarto seems to regard it almost entirely as a "comedy;" and that in the catalogue of the folio it is not mentioned at all]. Amongst the external evidence must also be classed the following undoubted allusion to an incident in Troilus and Cressida; the passage is taken from a play, entitled Histriomastix, or the Player Whipt, (the date of which is not known, though it was certainly produced before the death of Queen Elizabeth) : 66 Troy. Come, Cressida, my cresset light, "Cres. Thy face doth shine both day and night. Thy knight his valiant elbow wears, May lay him down in death to snort." O knight, with valour in thy face, Therewith to make thy enemies lame." There is no greater instance of the carelessness of the first folio editors than the fact that in the volume, containing the tragedies, page 257 succeeds page 156, the intervening 100 numbers being omitted. 2 There seems to be an allusion to it as well-known in Ben Jonson's Every Man Out of his Humour (iii. 1), 1599. |