Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/361

[ 345 ] and from the prologue to Eatward Hoe appears to have been acted in 1604, or before. Maria, in Twelfth Night, peaking of Malvolio, ays, “he does mile his face into more lines than the new map with the augmentation of the Indies.” I have not been able to learn the date of the map here alluded to; but, as it is poken of as a recent publication, it may, when dicovered, erve to acertain the date of this play more exactly. The comedy of What you Will, (the econd title of the play now before us) which was entered at Stationers’ hall, Aug. 9, 1607, was probably Marton’s play, as it was printed in that year; and it appears to have been the general practice of the bookellers at that time, recently before publication, to enter thoe plays of which they had procured copies. Twelfth Night was not regitered on the Stationers’ books, nor printed, till 1623. It has been thought, that Ben Jonon intended to ridicule the conduct of this play, in his Every Man out of his Humour, at the end of Act III. Sc. vi. where he makes Mitis ay,—“That the argument of his comedy might have been of ome other nature, as of a duke to be in love with a countes, and that countes to be in love with the duke’s on, and the on in love with the lady’s waiting maid: ome uch cros wooing, with a clown to their erving man, better than be thus near and familiarly allied to the time. I doubt, however, whether Jonon had here Twelfth Night in contemplation. If an alluion to this comedy were intended, it would acertain it to have been written before 1599, when Every Man out of his Humour was firt acted. But Meres does not mention Twelfth Night in 1598, nor is there any reaon to believe that it then exited. I know not whether this paage is found in the quarto copy of Every Man out of his Humour, publihed in 1600. Perhaps it firt appeared in the folio edition of Jonon’s