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8. The Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1593.
This comedy was not entered on the books of the Stationers’ company till 1623, at which time it was firſt printed; but is mentioned by Meres in 1598, and bears ſtrong internal marks of an early compoſition.
9. The Winter’s Tale, 1594.
The Winter’s Tale was, perhaps, entered on the Stationers’ books, May 22, 1594, under the name of A Wynter Nyght’s Paſtime which might have been the ſame play. It is obſervable that Shakſpeare has two other ſimilar titles;— Twelfth Night, and A Midſummer Night’s Dream: and it appears that the titles of his plays were ſometimes changed; thus, All’s Well that Ends Well, we have reaſon to think, was called Love’s Labour Won; and Hamlet was ſometimes called Hamlet’s Revenge, ſometimes The History of Hamlet. However, it muſt not be concealed, that The Winter’s Tale is not enumerated among our author’s plays, by Meres, in 1598: a circumſtance which, yet, is not deciſive to ſhew that it was not then written; for neither is Hamlet nor King Henry VI mentioned by him.
Greene’s Doraſtus and Fawnia, from which the plot of this play is borrowed, was publiſhed in 1588.
The Winter’s Tale was acted at court in the beginning of the year 1613[1]. It was not printed till 1623.
Mr. Walpole thinks, that this play was intended by Shakſpeare as an indirect apology for Anne Boleyn; and conſiders it as a Second Part to K. Henry VIII[2]. My reſpect for that very judicious and ingenious writer, the ſilence of Meres, and the circumſtance of there not being one rhyming couplet throughout this piece, except in the chorus, make me doubt whether it ought not to be aſcribed to the year 1601, or 1602, rather than that in which it is here placed.
10. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1595.
The poetry of this piece, glowing with all the warmth
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