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before he died. The latter ſuppoſition muſt now be conſidered as extremely doubtful; for Mr. Tyrwhitt, with great probability, conjectures, that Twelfth Night was written in 1614: grounding his opinion on an alluſion[1], which it ſeems to contain, to thoſe parliamentary undertakers, of whom frequent mention is made in the Journals of the Houſe of Commons for that year[2]; who were ſtigmatized with this invidious name, on account of their having undertaken to manage the elections of knights and burgeſſes in ſuch a manner as to ſecure a majority in parliament for the court. If this alluſion was intended, Twelfth Night, was probably our author’s laſt production; and, we may preſume, was written after he had retired to Stratford. It is obſervable that Mr. Aſhley, a member of the Houſe of Commons, in one of the debates on this ſubject, ſays,
“that the rumour concerning theſe undertakers had ſpread into the country.”
When Shakſpeare quitted London and his profeſſion, for the tranquillity of a rural retirement, it is improbable that ſuch an excurſive genius ſhould have been immediately reconciled to a ſtate of mental inactivity. It is more natural to conceive, that he ſhould have occaſionally bent his thoughts towards the theatre, which his muſe had ſupported, and the intereſt of his aſſociates whom he had left behind him to ſtruggle with the capricious viciſſitudes of publick taſte, and whom, his laſt Will ſhews us, he had not forgotten. To the neceſſity, therefore, of literary amuſement to every cultivated mind, or to the dictates of friendſhip, or to both theſe incentives, we are perhaps indebted for the comedy of Twelfth Night; which bears evident marks of having been compoſed at leiſure, as moſt of the characters that it contains, are finiſhed to a higher degree of dramatick perfection, than is diſcoverable in ſome of our author’s earlier comick performances[3].
In the third act of this comedy, Decker’s Weſtward Hoe ſeems to be alluded to. Weſtward Hoe was printed in 1607,
NOTES.
