Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/310

[ 294 ] tween 1597, (when the tatute alluded to,—39 Eliz. ch. 4—was enacted) and that year. Hamlet Sadler was one of the witneSS undefinedes to Shakpeare’s Will. He was probably born oon after the firt exhibition of this play; and, according to this date, was twenty years old at the time of his attetation. If this tragedy had not appeared till ome years after the date here aSS undefinedigned, he would not have been at the time of Shakpeare’s death above ixteen or eventeen years old; at which age he carcely would have been choen as a witnes to o olemn an act. The following paSS undefinedage, in An Epitle to the Gentlemen Students of the Two Univerities by Thomas Nahe, prefixed to Greene’s Arcadia, (which has no date) has been thought to allude to this play.—“ I will turn back to my firt text of tudies of delight, and talk a little in friendhip with a few of our trivial tranlators. It is a common practice now adays, among a ort of hifting companions, that runne through every art, and thrive by none, to leave the trade of Noverint, whereto they were born, and buie themelves with the endevors of art, that could carcely latinize their neckvere if they hould have neede; yet Englih Seneca, read by candle light, yeelds many good entences, as Bloud is a beggar, and o forth: and if you intreat him faire in a froty morning he will affoord you whole hamlets, I hould ay, handfuls of tragical peeches. But O grief! Tempus edax rerum—what is that will lat always? The ea exhaled by drops will in continuance be drie; and Seneca, let bloud line by line and page by page, at length mut needes die to our tage.” This paSS undefinedage does not, in my apprehenion, deciively prove that our author’s Hamlet was written o early as 1591; (in which year Dr. Farmer, on good grounds, conjectures