commencing in August, Sir George, as his destined successor, might officiate for him.

We learn from Mr. Vertue's manuscripts, that The Winter's Tale was acted at court in 1613, a circumstance which, though it may lead us to infer that its popularity on the public stage had been considerable, by no means necessarily warrants the supposition which Mr. Malone is inclined to make, that it had passed through all its stages of composition, public performance, and court exhibition, during the same year.

Instead, therefore, of conjecturing with Mr. Malone that this play was written in 1594, or 1602, or 1604, or 1613, for such has been the vacillation of this gentleman in his chronology of the piece, or, with Mr. Chalmers, in 1601, we believe it to have been written, for the reasons which we have already assigned, and which will receive additional corroboration from the arguments to be adduced under the next head, towards the close of 1610, and to have been licensed and performed during the succeeding year.

"The observation by Dr. Warburton," remarks Mr. Douce," that The Winter's Tale, with all its absurdities, is very entertaining, though stated by Dr. Johnson to be just, must be allowed at the same time to be extremely frigid." Certainly had Warburton said this, or nothing but this, he had merited the epithet; but Mr. Douce has been misled by Dr. Johnson, for most assuredly Warburton has not said this, but, on the contrary, has spoken of the play not only with taste and feeling, but in a tone of enthusiasm. "This play, throughout," says he," is written in the very spirit of its author. And in telling this homely and simple, though agreeable country-tale,

"Our sweetest Shakspeare, fancy's child,

Warbles his native wood-notes wild."

"This was necessary to observe in mere justice to the play: as

* It appears, from Mr. Malone, that the copy of The Winter's Tale, licensed by Sir George Buck, had been lost.-Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 326. note.

the meanness of the fable, and the extravagant conduct of it, had misled some of great name into a wrong judgment of its merit; which, as far as it regards sentiment and character, is scarce inferior to any in the whole collection."* This, indeed, is all that Warburton has said on the general character of The Winter's Tale, but it is high praise, and coincides in almost every respect with what Mr. Douce has himself very justly declared on the same subject, when, in the passage immediately following that which we have already quoted from his Illustrations, he adds, "In point of fine writing it may be ranked among Shakspeare's best efforts. The absurdities pointed at by Warburton, together with the whimsical anachronisms of Whitson pastorals, Christian burial, an emperor of Russia, and an Italian painter of the fifteenth century, are no real drawbacks on the superlative merits of this charming drama. The character of Perdita will remain for ages unrivalled; for where shall such language be found as she is made to utter?"†

As Shakspeare was indebted for the story of The Winter's Tale to the Dorastus and Fawnia of Robert Greene, which was published in 1588, so it is probable that he was under a similar obligation for its name to "A booke entitled A Wynter Nyght's Pastime," which was entered at Stationers' Hall on May the 22d, 1594. It is, also, not unlikely that the adoption of the title might influence the nature of the composition; for, as Schlegel has remarked, "The Winter's Tale is as appropriately named as The Midsummer-Night's Dream. It is one of those tales which are peculiarly calculated to beguile the dreary leisure of a long winter evening, which are even attractive and intelligible to childhood, and which, animated by fervent truth in the delineation of character and passion, invested with the decoration of a poetry lowering itself, as it were, to the simplicity of the subject, transport even manhood back to the golden age of imagination." +

* Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 209.

+ Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol, i. p. 364.

Lectures on Dramatic Literature, vol. ii. p. 181.-That Shakspeare considered the romantic incidents of this play as properly designated by the appellation of an old tale, is

Such indeed is the character of the latter and more interesting part of this drama, which, separated by a chasm of sixteen years from the business of the three preceding acts, may be said, in some measure, to constitute a distinct play. The fourth act, especially, is a pastoral of the most fascinating description, in which Perdita,

pure as

"the fann'd snow

That's bolted by the northern blasts twice o'er," *

ignorant of her splendid origin, yet, under the appearance of a shepherd's daughter, acting with such an intuitive nobleness of mind, that

-

"nothing she does, or seems,

But smacks of something greater than herself," +

exhibits a portrait fresh from nature's loveliest pencil, where simplicity, artless affection, and the most generous resignation are sweetly blended with a fortitude at once spirited and tender. Thus, when Polixenes, discovering himself at the sheep-shearing, interdicts the contract between Perdita and his son, and threatens the former with a cruel death, if she persist in encouraging the attachment, the reply which she gives is a most beautiful developement of the qualities of mind and heart which we have just enumerated :

evident from his own application of the phrase to several parts of the plot. Thus, in the second scene of the fifth act, we find it used in the following passages:

"How goes it now, sir? this news, which is called true, is so like an old tale." "2d Gent. What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried hence the child? 3d Gent. Like an old tale still."

And again, in the next scene:

"Paul.

That she is living,

Were it but told, you should be hooted at,
Like an old tale."

* Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 362. Act iv. sc. 3.

+ Ibid. vol. ix. p. 343. Act iv. sc. 3.

"Per.

Even here undone?
I was not much afeard: for once, or twice,
I was about to speak; and tell him plainly,
The selfsame sun, that shines upon his court,
Hides not his visage from our cottage, but
Looks on alike. -Will't please you, sir, be gone?
I told you, what would come of this: 'Beseech you,
Of your own state take care: this dream of mine,
Being now awake, I'll queen it no inch further,
But milk my ewes, and weep."

(to Florizel.

The comic characters of this play, which are nearly confined to the last two acts, form a striking contrast and relief to the native delicacy and elegance of manners which distinguish every sentiment and action of the modest and unaffected Perdita; her reputed father and brother and the witty rogue Autolycus being drawn with those strong but natural strokes of broad humour which Shakspeare delighted to display in his characterisation of the lower orders of society. That snapper up of unconsidered trifles," his frolic pedlar, is one of the most entertaining specimens of wicked ingenuity that want and opportunity ever generated.

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33. THE TEMPEST: 1611. The dates assigned by the two chronologers, for the composition of this drama, seem to be inferred from premises highly inconclusive and improbable. Mr. Malone conceives it to have been written in 1612, because its title appears to him to have been derived from the circumstance of a dreadful tem

66 neces

pest occurring in the October, November, and December of the year 1612; and Mr. Chalmers has exchanged this epoch for 1613, because there happened "a great tempest of thunder and lightning, on Christmas day, 1612." † "This intimation," he subjoins, sarily carries the writing of The Tempest into the subsequent year, since there is little probability, that our poet would write this enchanting drama, in the midst of the tempest, which overthrew so many mansions, and wrecked so many ships." +

* Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. pp. 366, 367. Act iv. sc. 3. + Winwood's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 422.

Supplemental Apology, pp. 438, 439.

It is very extraordinary that, when all the circumstances which could lead to the suggestion of the title of The Tempest, are to be found in books, to which, from his allusions, we know our author must have had recourse, and in events which took place, during the two years immediately preceding the period that we have fixed upon, and at the very spot referred to in the play, these critics should have imagined that a series of stormy weather occurring at home, or a single storm on Christmas day, could have operated with the poet in his choice of a name.

It is scarcely possible to avoid smiling at the objection which Mr. Chalmers so seriously brings forward against the conjecture of his predecessor, founded on the improbability of the poet's writing his Tempest in the midst of a tempest; a mode of refutation which could only have been adopted one would think under the supposition, that Shakspeare, during these three stormy months, had wanted the protection of a roof. The inference, however, which he draws from his own storm, on Christmas day, namely, that The Tempest must necessarily have been written in 1613, is still less tenable than the position of Mr. Malone; for we are told, on the authority of Mr. Vertue's Manuscripts, "that the Tempest was acted by John Heminge and the rest of the King's company, before Prince Charles, the Lady Elizabeth, and the Prince Palatine elector, in the beginning of the year 1613." * Now we learn from Wilson the historian, that the Prince Palatine was married to the Lady Elizabeth in February, 1613, her brother Prince Charles leading her to church; and on this occasion, no doubt, it was, that The Tempest, having been received the preceding season with great favour and popularity, was reperformed; for Wilson tells us, that in consequence of these nuptials, "the feastings, maskings, and other Royall formalities, were as troublesome ('tis presum'd) to the Lovers, as the relation of

* Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 363.