Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/316

[ 300 ] tioners’ books, Augut 23, 1600, and was printed in that year. It was probably written in the latter end of the year 1598, for from the epilogue it appears to have been compoed before K. Henry V. which itelf mut have been written in, or before, 1599. It is obervable that the of K. Henry IV. was entered at Stationers’ hall, in the beginning of the year 1598, by the name of “ A Booke entitled thee Hitorie of Henry the Fourth, &c.” At that time, it is probable, the author had not conceived the idea of exhibiting Falltaff in a econd drama, and therefore that play was not then ditinguihed by the title of The  Part. When the ame piece was entered about a year afterwards, on the 9th of Jan. 1598—9, it was entitled, “ A book called The ''Part of the Life and Reign of K. Henry IV. extending to the end of the firt year of his reign''. The poet having now compoed two plays on this ubject ditinction became neceSS undefinedary. The Part of K. Henry IV. we may, therefore, conclude with certainty, was written in the interval between thee two entries, that is, ome time in the year 1598, probably in the latter part of it; for Meres, who in his Wit’s Treaury, (which was not publihed before September in that year) has enumerated Henry IV. among our author’s plays, does not peak of it as a firt part, nor does he mention it as a play in two parts. His words are thee: “ As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the bet for comedy and tragedy, among the Latines, o Shakepeare, among the Englih, is the mot excellent in both kinds for the tage: for comedy, witnes his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Love’s Labour Lost, his Love’s Labour Wonne, his Midummer Night’s Dream, and his Merchant of Venice; for tragedy, his Richard II. Richard III. K. John, Titus Andronicus, and his Romeo and Juliet .” The following alluion to one of the characters in this play, which is found in Ben Jonon’s Every Man out of his Humour, Act V. Sc. ii. firt acted in 1599, is an additional