Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/293

[ 277 ] find no trace of our author, or of any of his works. Three years afterwards, Puttenham printed his Art of Englih Poey; and in that work alo we look in vain for the name of Shakpeare. Sir John Harrington in his Apologie for Poetry, prefixed to the Tranlation of Ariote, (which was entered in the Stationers’ books Feb. 26, 1590—1, in which year, it was printed) takes occaion to peak of the theatre, and mentions ome of the celebrated dramas of that time; but ays not a word of Shakpeare, or of any of his plays. If even Love’s Labour Lot had then appeared, which was probably his firt dramatick compoition, is it imaginable, that Harrington hould have mentioned the Cambridge Pedantius, and The Play of the Cards, (which lat, he tells us was a London comedy) and have paSS undefineded by, unnoticed, the new prodigy of the dramatick world? That Shakpeare had commenced a writer for the tage, and had even excited the jealouy of his contemporaries, before September 1592, is now deciively proved by a paSS undefinedage [S3]