Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/299

[ 283 ] tage, and have his bones new embalmed with the tears of ten thouand pectators at leat (at everal times), who, in the tragedian that repreents his peron, imagine they behold him freh bleeding.” In a tract already mentioned, entitled Greene’s Groatworth of Witte, &c. which was written before the end of the year 1592, there is, as Mr. Tyrwhitt has oberved, a parody on a line in the Third Part of K. Henry VI. and an alluion to the name of Shakpeare. Thee two hitorical dramas were entered on the books of the Stationers’ company, March 12, 1593—4, but were not printed till the year 1600. In their econd titles they are called— of the Contention of the two famous Houes of Yorke and Lancater; but in reality they are In the lat chorus of King Henry V. Shakpeare alludes to the Second Part, perhaps to all the parts of K. Henry VI. as popular performances, that had frequently been exhibited on the tage; and expreSS undefinedes a hope, that K. Henry V. may, for their ake, meet with a favourable reception: a plea, which he carcely would have urged, if he had not been their author.

There is reaon to believe that Pericles, whoever was the writer of it, was compoed about this time. The poet introduces John Gower by way of chorus to it, as Middleton introduces Rainulph, the monk of Cheter, in his Mayor of Quinborough, and as Thomas Heywood does Skelton and Fryar Tuck, in his Robert of Huntingdon: performances nearly of this date. Ben Johnon, in his ode on the ill reception of his New Inn, peaks of Pericles as a play of great antiquity, calling it a mouldy tale. It was not entered on the books of the Stationers’ company till May 2, 1608, nor printed till 1609; but the following tanza, in a metrical