Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/77

 9* S. XL JAN. 24, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

69

ESSEX IN IRELAND. Are there any lists extant and available of the English officers and soldiers who accompanied Essex into Ireland ? SIGMA TAU.

Hobart.

" CORROBOREE." In Christmas week I re- ceived from Kyneton, Victoria, a pictorial postcard with a view entitled 'Corroboree by Blacks, 1840.' It shows some weird naked figures encircling a fire, in the attitude of dancing, and holding in their hands what appear to be very simple spears. " Boree " in " corroboree " suggests the same syllables in " jamboree." Will MR. PLATT or some other scholar kindly give the etymology of " corro- boree " ? Tire meaning is given in the ' H.E.D.' ARTHUR MAYALL.

Shanghai.

THE CORONATION TITLE v. THE ASSUMED TITLE. In connexion with the reference which His Majesty, in proroguing Parliament, made to his coronation, the assertion has been made that the title " Edward VII." was not once used in the Coronation service only "King Edward." If this be true and the only reports of the Coronation service to which I am able to refer confirm it what is the meaning and effect of this striking fact ? If the King was not crowned "Edward VII.," whence comes the right to stamp a title by which he was not crowned upon our coins, and insert it in writs and public proclama- tions and oaths of allegiance ? In what re- lation does the title which a king assumes stand to the title by which he is crowned ?

I DAVID MACRAE.

lotel de la Plage, Cannes. SHAKESPEARE V. BACON. (9 th S. ix. 245, 414 ; x. 11, 137, 214, 375, 497.) MY attention has just been drawn to a com- munication on this subject, in reply to one of mine, by MR. YARDLEY at 9 th S. x. 137, which escaped my notice during a holiday in the far north. MR. YARDLEY says, " Shakespeare had nothing to do with Henslowe and Alleyn. He wrote for his own theatre. The play- wrights mentioned were connected with other theatres." My contention was that of Collier, who wrote of Henslowe's 'Diary,' "Recol- lecting that the names of nearly all the other play-poets of the time occur, we cannot but wonder that that of Shakespeare is not met with in any part of the manuscript." MR. YARDLEY says, " Shakespeare had nothing to do with Henslowe." Had he not? Is MR.

YARDLEY ignorant of the fact that from 3 June, 1594, to 18 July, 1596, according to the * Diary,' the Lord Chamberlain's men, for whom Shakespeare wrote and of whom he was one, combined with the Lord Admiral's men, with whom Henslowe was associated, to give performances under Henslowe's management at the theatre in Newington Butts, while the Globe Theatre was in course of construction, and for some time after- wards ? During that period, according to the ' Diary,' no fewer than forty plays were got up and acted, among them a 'Titus Andronicus,' a 'Lear,' a 'Hamlet,' a 'Henry V.,' a ' Henry VI.,' and a ' Taming of a Shrew.' In these Shakespeare, as a Lord Chamber- lain's man, must have acted. In spite of this, and although Henslowe lived till 1616 (the year of Shakespeare's death), and although Alleyn, who was associated with Henslowe in all his enterprises, who was one of his trustees, and who must have known and met Shake- speare, lived till 1626, by neither Henslowe nor Alleyn is Shakespeare mentioned, although they must have been intimately connected with him, as I have shown.

With regard to the plays produced by Henslowe between 1594 and 1596, it is ac- knowledged that the 'Henry VI.' "was no doubt the play which was subsequently known as Shakespeare's ' The First Part of Henry VI.' " (Lee, p. 56). But what about the 'Lear' and the 'Hamlet'? Were they also Shakespeare's? If ' Titus Andronicus ' and 'Henry VI.,' produced by Henslowe (1594-6), were Shakespeare's, why are 'Lear,' 'Hamlet,' and the 'Taming of a Shrew,' mentioned by Henslowe, not attributed to the same pen ? In 1589 Nash refers to a ' Hamlet,' which Staunton believes to be none other than the ' Hamlet ' produced by Hens- lowe in 1594. As no copy of this is extant, and as it would scarcely be politic to claim the Shakespeare ' Hamlet 'of 1603 and 1604 as the work of Shakespeare in 1589 two years after leaving Stratford (1587, according to Mr. Furnivall, who assigns also 'Love's Labour's Lost' to 1588-9, and 'Venus and Adonis,' "the first heire of my invention," necessarily to an earlier date) the authorship of the earlier ' Hamlet ' of 1589 is conveniently shifted on to the shoulders of Thomas Kyd, although Charles Knight says :

"Not a tittle of distinct evidence exists to show that there was any other play of ' Hamlet' but that of Shakspere ; and all the collateral evidence upon which it is inferred that an earlier play of ' Hamlet ' than Shakspere's did exist may, on the other hand, be taken to prove that Shakspere's original sketch of ' Hamlet ' was in repute at an earlier period than is commonly assigned to its date