Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/301

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This comedy was not entered on the books of the Stationers’ company till 1623, at which time it was firt printed; but is mentioned by Meres in 1598, and bears trong internal marks of an early compoition.

The Winter’s Tale was, perhaps, entered on the Stationers’ books, May 22, 1594, under the name of A Wynter Nyght’s Patime which might have been the ame play. It is obervable that Shakpeare has two other imilar titles;— Twelfth Night, and A Midummer Night’s Dream: and it appears that the titles of his plays were ometimes changed; thus, All’s Well that Ends Well, we have reaon to think, was called Love’s Labour Won; and Hamlet was ometimes called Hamlet’s, ometimes of Hamlet. However, it mut not be concealed, that The Winter’s Tale is not enumerated among our author’s plays, by Meres, in 1598: a circumtance which, yet, is not deciive to hew that it was not then written; for neither is Hamlet nor King Henry VI mentioned by him. Greene’s Doratus and Fawnia, from which the plot of this play is borrowed, was publihed in 1588. The Winter’s Tale was acted at court in the beginning of the year 1613. It was not printed till 1623. Mr. Walpole thinks, that this play was intended by Shakpeare as an indirect apology for Anne Boleyn; and coniders it as a Second Part to K. Henry VIII. My repect for that very judicious and ingenious writer, the ilence of Meres, and the circumtance of there not being one rhyming couplet throughout this piece, except in the chorus, make me doubt whether it ought not to be acribed to the year 1601, or 1602, rather than that in which it is here placed.

The poetry of this piece, glowing with all the warmth 7