Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/337

[ 321 ] dramas, we may preume that he was not idle during any one year of that time.

This play was perhaps alluded to, in an old comedy called The Return from ParnaSS undefinedus:

“ Frame as well we might, with eay train, “ With far more praie, and with as little pain, “ Stories of love, where ’fore the wond’ring bench “ The liping gallant might enjoy his wench; “ Or make ome fire acknowledge his lot on , “ Found, when the weary act is almot done.”

If the author of this piece had Cymbeline in contemplation, it mut have been more ancient than it is here uppoed; for from everal paSS undefinedages in the Return from ParnaSS undefinedus, that comedy appears to have been written before the death of queen Elizabeth, which happened on the 24th of March 1603.

Mr. Steevens has oberved, that there is a paSS undefinedage in B. and Fletcher’s Philater which bears a trong reemblance to a peech of Jachimo in Cymbeline:

“ I hear the tread of people: I am hurt; “ The Gods take part againt me: could this boar “ Have held me thus, ele?” Philater, Act IV. Sc. i. “ I have bely’d a lady “ The princes of this country; and the air of’t “ Revengingly enfeebles me; or could this carle, “ A very drudge of nature, have ubdu’d me, “ In my profeSS undefinedion?” Cymbeline, Act V. Sc. ii.

Philater is uppoed to have appeared on the tage about 1609; being mentioned by John Davies of Hereford, in his Epigrams, which have no date, but were printed, according to Oldys, in or about that year.

One edition of the tract called Wetward for Smelts, from which part of the fable of Cymbeline is borrowed, was publihed in 1603.

Vol. I.