Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/327

[ 311 ] 4. If the queen had been dead when our author wrote this play, he would have been acquainted with the particular circumtances attending her death, the ituation of the kingdom at that time, and of foreign tates, &c. and as archbihop Cranmer is uppoed to have had the gift of prophecy, Shakpeare, probably, would have made him mention ome of thoe circumtances. Whereas the prediction as it tands at preent, is quite general, and uch as might, without any hazard of error, have been pronounced in the life-time of her majety; for the principal fads that it foretells, are, that he hould die aged, and a virgin. Of the former, uppoing this piece to have been written in 1601, the author was ufficiently ecure; for he was then near eventy years old. The latter may perhaps be thought too delicate a ubject, to have been mentioned while he was yet living. But, we may preume, it was far from being an ungrateful topick; for very early after her acceSS undefinedion to the throne, he appears to have been proud of her maiden character; declaring that he was wedded to her people, and that he deired no other incription on her tomb, than—Here lyeth Elizabeth, who reigned and died a virgin. Beides, if Shakepeare knew, as probably mot people at that time did, that he became very olicitous about the reputation of virginity, when her title to it was at leat equivocal, this would be an additional inducement to him to compliment her on that head.

5. Granting that the latter part of the panegyrick on Elizabeth implies that he was dead when it was compoed, it would not prove that this play was written in the time of king James; for thee latter lines in praie of the queen, as well as the whole of the compliment to the king, might have been added after his acceSS undefinedion to the throne, in order to bring the peaker back to the object immediately before him, the infant Elizabeth. And this Mr. Theobald conjectured to have been the cae. I do not, however, ee any neceSS undefinedity for this uppoition; as there is nothing, in my apprehen- [U4]