Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/351

[ 335 ] mendatory veres on our author’s works, particularly alluded to it, as one of his mot applauded performances. The droll here mentioned, was therefore, probably formed out of Shakpeare’s play: and we may preume that it had been in poeion of the tage at leat a year or two, before it was exhibited in this degraded form. Though the term ‘‘mammets’’, in the paSS undefinedage above quoted, hould be conidered as contemptuouly applied to the children of Paul’s or thoe of the Chapel, (an interpretation which it will commodiouly enough admit) the argument with repect to the date of ‘‘Julius Cæar’’ will till remain in its full force. In the prologue to The Fale One, by Beaumont and Fletcher, this play is alluded to ; but in what year that tragedy was written, is unknown. If the date of The Maid’s Tragedy by the ame authors, were acertained, it might throw ome light on the preent enquiry; the quarreling cene between Melantius and his friend, being manifetly copied from a imilar cene in Julius Cæar. Dryden mentions a tradition (which he might have received from Sir William D’Avenant) that Philater

was