Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/323

[ 307 ] 27 May 1600. To Mr. Roberts.] Allarum to London.

4 Aug.

23 Jan. 1603.

It is extremely probable that this 4th of Augut was of the year 1600; which tanding a little higher on the paper, the clerk of the Stationers’ company might have thought unneceSS undefinedary to be repeated. All the plays which were entered with As You Like It, and are here aid to be staied, were printed in the year 1600 or 1601. The tay or injunction againt the printing appears to have been very peedily taken off; for in ten days afterwards, on the 14th of Augut 1600, King Henry V. was entered, and publihed in the ame year. So, Much Ado about Nothing, was entered Augut 23, 1600, and printed alo in that year: and Every Man in his Humour was publihed in 1601. Shakpeare, it is aid, played the part of Adam in As You Like It. As he was not eminent on the tage, it is probable that he ceaed to act ome years before he retired to the country. His appearance, however, in this comedy, is not inconitent with the date here aSS undefinedigned; for we know that he performed a part in Jonon’s Sejanus in 1603.

The firt ketch of this comedy was printed in 1602. It was entered in the books of the Stationers’ company, on the 18th of January 1601—2, and was therefore probably written in 1601, alter the two parts of K Henry IV. being, it is aid, compoed at the deire of queen Elizabeth, in order to exhibit Faltaff in love, when all the pleaantry which he could afford in any other ituation was exhauted. But it may not be thought o clear, that it was written after K. [U2]