Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/353

[ 337 ] have had an interet alo in Titus Andronicus, in Pericles, The Puritan, and Sir John Oldcatle; and whoe name is not prefixed to any one of Shakpeare’s undiputed performances, except K. Henry V. and two parts of K. Henry VI. of which plays he printed copies manifetly purious and imperfect.

38., 1608.

Antony and Cleopatra was entered on the Stationers’ books, May 2, 1608; but was not printed till 1623.

In Ben Jonon’s Silent Woman, Act IV. Sc. iv, 1609, this play eems to be alluded to:

“Moroe. Nay, I would fit out a play that were nothing but fights at ea, drum, trumpet and target.”

39., 1609. 40., 1610.

Thee two plays, which were neither entered in the books of the Stationers’ company, nor printed, till 1623, are claed here only on the principle mentioned in a preceding article. Shakpeare, in the coure of about twenty years, produced, if the rejected plays and Titus Andronicus were his, forty-three dramas; if they were purious, thirty-five. Mot of his other plays have been attributed, on plauible grounds at lead, to former years. As we have no proof to acertain when thee were written, it eems reaonable to acribe them to that period, to which we are not led by any particular circumtance to attribute any other of his works; at which, it is uppoed, he had not ceaed to write; which yet, unles thee pieces were then composed, mut, for aught that now appears, have been unemployed. When once he had availed himelf of North’s Plutarch, and had thrown any one of the lives into a dramatick form, he probably found it o eay as to induce him to proceed, till he had exhauted all the ubjects which he imagined that book would afford. Hence the four plays of Julius Cæar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Timon, are uppoed to have been written in ucceion.