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ty, has been thought to allude to the death of Spenſer[1], is not inconſiſtent with the early appearance of this comedy; for it might have been inſerted between the time of the poet’s death, and the year 1600, when the play was publiſhed. And indeed, if the alluſion was intended, the paſſage muſt have been added in that interval; for A Midſummer Night’s Dream was certainly written in, or before, 1598, and Spenſer, we are told by Sir James Ware, (whoſe teſtimony with reſpect to this controverted point muſt have great weight) did not die till 1599: “ others, (he adds) have it wrongly, 1598[2].” So careful a ſearcher into antiquity, who lived ſo near the time, is not likely to have been miſtaken in a fact, concerning which he appears to have made particular enquiries.
11. Romeo and Juliet, 1595.
It has been already obſerved, that our author, in his early plays appears to have been much addicted to rhyming; a practice from which he gradually departed, though he never wholly deſerted it. In this piece more rhymes, I believe, are found, than in any other of his plays. Love’s Labour Lost and A Midſummer Night’s Dream only excepted. This circumſtance, the ſtory on which it is founded, ſo likely to captivate a young poet, the imperfect form in which it ori-
- ↑ “The thrice three muſes mourning for the death
Of learning, late deceas’d in beggary. - ↑ Preface to Spenſer’s View of the State of Ireland. Dublin, fol. 1633. This treatiſe was written, according to Sir James Ware, in 1596. The teſtiony of that hiſtorian, relative to the time of Spenſer’s death, is confirmed by a dact related by Ben Jonſon to Mr. Drummond of Hawthornden, and recorded by that writer. When Spenſer and his wife were forced in great diſtreſs to fly from their houſe, which was burnt in the Iriſh Rebellion, the Earl of Eſſex ſent him twenty pieces; but he refuſed them; telling the perſon that brought them, he was ſure he had no time to ſpend them. He died ſoon after, according to Ben Jonſon’s account, in King Street [Dublin.] Lord Eſſex was not in Ireland in 1598, and was there from April to September in the following year.—If Spenſer had died in London, as Camden ſays he did, his death would probably have been mentioned by Rowland Whyte, in his letters to Sir Robert Sydney, (brother to the poet’s great patron) which are ſtill extant, and contain a minute detail of moſt of the memorable occurrences of that time.
