and recent event determined him to call it The Tempest. It appears from Stowe's Chronicle, p. 913, that in the Octo ber, November, and December of the year 1612, a dreadful tempeft happened in England, which did exceeding great damage, with extreame shipwrack throughout the ocean.' "There perished" (fays the hiftorian) above an hundred ships in the space of two houres."-Several pamphlets were publifhed on this occafion, decorated with prints of finking veffels, caftles topling on their warder's heads, the devil overturning fteeples, &c. In one of them, the author, defcribing the appearance of the waves at Dover, fays," the whole feas appeared like a fiery world, all fparkling red." Another of these narratives recounts the efcape of Edmond Pet, a failor; whose preservation appears to have been no lefs marvellous than that of Trinculo or Stephano: and fo great a terror did this tempeft create in the minds of the people, that a form of prayer was ordered on the occafion, which is annexed to one of the publications above-mentioned. There is reafon to believe that fome of our author's dramas obtained their names from the feafons at which they were produced. It is not very easy to account for the title of Twelfth Night, but by fuppofing it to have been firft exhibited in the Christmas holydays *. Neither the title of A Midsummer Night's Dream, nor that of The Winter's Tale, denotes the feafon of the action; the events which are the fubject of the latter, occurring at the time of fheep-fhearing, and the dream, from which the former receives its name, happening on the night preceding Mayday.-Thefe titles, therefore, were probably fuggefted by the feafon at which the plays were exhibited, to which they It was formerly an established cuftom to have plays reprefented at court in the Christmas holydays, and particularly on Twelfth Night. Two of Lilly's comedies (Alexander and Cam pafpe, 1591-and Mydas, 1592) are faid, in their title-pages, to have been played before the queenes majeftie on Twelfib-day at night; and feveral of Ben Jonfon's mafques were prefented at Whitehall, on the fame feftival. Our author's Love's Labour Loft was exhibited before queen Elizabeth in the Christmas holidays; and his King Lear was acted before king James on St. Stephen's night (the night after Christmas-day) belong; A Midsummer Night's Dream, having, we may pre fume, been first reprefented in June, and The Winter's Tale in December. Perhaps, then, it may not be thought a very improbable conjecture, that this comedy was written in the fummer of 1612, and produced on the ftage in the latter end of that year; and that the author availed himself of a circumftance then fresh in the minds of his audience, by affixing a title to it, which was more likely to excite curiofity than any other that he could have chofen, while at the fame time it was fufficiently juftified by the subject of the drama. Mr. Steevens, in his obfervations on this play, has quoted from the tragedy of Darius by the earl of Sterline, first printed in 1603, fome lines fo ftrongly refembling a celebrated paffage in the Tempeft, that one author must, I apprehend, have been indebted to the other. Shakspeare, I imagine, borrowed from lord Sterline. NOTES. "Let greatness of her glaffy scepters vaunt, Thofe golden palaces, thofe gorgeous halls, Those stately courts, thofe fly-encount'ring walls, Evanish all like vapours in the air." "Thefe our actors, Darius, A&t III. Ed. 1603. As I foretold you, were all fpirits, and And, like the bafelefs fabrick of this vifion, Tempeft, A&t IV. Sc. i. Whether we fuppofe Shakspeare to have imitated lord Sterline, or lord Sterline to have borrowed from him, the fourth line above quoted from the tragedy of Darius renders it highly probable that Shakspeare wrote, "Leave not a track behind." * See a note on Julius Cæfar, A& I. Sc. í, VOL. I. [Z] Mr. Mr. Holt conjectured, that the mafque in the fifth act of this comedy was intended by the poet as a compliment to the earl of Effex, on his being united in wedlock, in 1611, to lady Frances Howard, to whom he had been contracted fome years before. However this might have been, the date, which that commentator has affigned to this play (1614), is certainly too late; for it appears from the Mf. of Mr. Vertue, that the Tempest was acted by John Heminge and the reft of the King's Company, before prince Charles, the lady Elizabeth, and the prince Palatine elector, in the beginning of the year 1613. The names of Trinculo and Antonio, two of the characters in this comedy, are likewife found in that of Albumazar; which was first printed in 1614, but is fuppofed by Dryden to have appeared fome years before. 36. TWELFTH NIGHT, 1614, It has been generally believed, that Shakfpcare retired from the theatre, and ceafed to write, about three years before he died. The latter fuppofition must now be confidered as extremely doubtful; for Mr. Tyrwhitt, with great probability, conjectures, that Twelfth Night was written in 1614: grounding his opinion on an allusion, which it feems to contain, to thofe parliamentary undertakers, of whom frequent mention is made in the Journals of the Houfe of Commons for that year; who were ftigmatized with this invidious name, on account of their having undertaken to manage the elections of knights and burgeffes in fuch a nanner as to fecure a majority in parliament for the court. If this allufion was intended, Twelfth Night was probably our author's last production; NOTES. Obfervations on the Tempeft, p. 67. Mr. Holt Imagined, that lord Effex was united to lady Frances Howard in 1610; but he was mistaken: their union did not take place till the next year. b Jan. 5, 1606-7. The ear! continued abroad four years from that time; fo that he did not cohabit with his wife till 1611. "Nay, if you be an undertaker, I am for you. See Twelfth Night, A&t IV. Sc. ui and the note there. Comm. journ. Vol. I. p. 456, 457.470. and, and, we may prefume, was written after he had retired to Stratford. It is obfervable, that Mr. Afhley, a member of the House of Commons, in one of the debates on this fubject, fays, "that the rumour concerning thefe undertakers had fpread into the country." When Shakspeare quitted London and his profeffion, for the tranquillity of a rural retirement, it is improbable that fuch an excurfive genius fhould have been immediately reconciled to a ftate of mental inactivity. It is more natural to conceive, that he should have occafionally bent his thoughts towards the theatre, which his muse had fupported, and the intereft of his affociates whom he had left behind him to ftruggle with the capricious viciffitudes of publick tafte, and whom, his last Will fhews us, he had not forgotten. To the neceffity, therefore, of literary amuse.. ment to every cultivated mind, or to the dictates of friendfhip, or to both thefe incentives, we are perhaps indebted for the comedy of Twelfth Night; which bears evident marks of having been compofed at leifure, as most of the characters that it contains are finished to a higher degree of dramatick perfection, than is difcoverable in fome of our author's earlier comick performances. In the third act of this comedy, Decker's Weftward Hoe feems to be alluded to. Weftward Hoe was printed in 1607, and, from the prologue to Eastward Hoe, appears to have been acted in 1604, or before. Maria, in Twelfth Night, speaking of Malvolio, fays, "he does fimile his face into more lines than the new map with the augmentation of the Indics." I have not been able to learn the date of the map here alluded to; but, as it is fpoken of as a recent publication, it may, when difcovered, ferve to afcertain the date of this play more exactly. The comedy of Vhat you Will, (the fecond title of the play now before us,) which was entered at stationers' hall, Aug. 9. 1607, was probably Marfion's play, as it was printed in that year; and it appears to have been the general practice of the bookfellers at that time, recently before NOTE. The comedies particularly alluded to are, Love's Labour Loft, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and The Comedy of Errors. publication, to enter thofe plays of which they had procured copies. Twelfth Night was not entered on the Stationers' books, nor printed, till 1623. It has beeh thought, that Ben Jonfon intended to ridieule the conduct of this play, in his Every Man out of his Humour, at the end of Act III. Sc. vi. where he makes Mitis fay," That the argument of his comedy might have been of fome other nature, as of a duke to be in love with a countefs, and that countefs to be in love with the duke's fon, and the fon in love with the lady's waiting maid; fome fuch cross wooing, with a clown to their fervingman, better than be thus near and familiarly allied to the time f. I doubt, however, whether Jonfon had here Twelfth Night in contemplation. If an allufion to this comedy were intended, it would ascertain it to have been written before 1599, when Every Man out of his Humour was first acted. But Meres does not mention Twelfth Night in 1598; nor is there any reason to believe that it then ex-ifted. IF the dates here affigned to our author's plays fhould not, in every inftance, carry with them conviction of their propriety, let it be remembered, that this is a fubject on which conviction cannot at this day be obtained; and that the obfervations, now fubmitted to the publick, do not pretend to any higher title than that of "AN ATTEMPT to afcertain the chronology of the dramas of Shakfpeare." Should the errors and deficiencies of this effay invite others to deeper and more fuccessful researches, the end propofed by it will be attained: and he who offers the prefent arrangement of Shakspeare's dramas will be happy to transfer the flender portion of credit that may refult from the novelty of his undertaking, to fome future NOTE. See the first note on Twelfth Night, A&t I. Sc. i. claimant, |