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ginally appeared, and its very early publication[1], all incline me to believe that this Was Shakſpeare’s firſt tragedy; for the three parts of K. Henry VI. do not pretend to that title.
“ A new ballad of Romeo and Juliet,” (perhaps our author’s play) was entered on the Stationers’ books Auguſt 5, 1596[2]; and the firſt ſketch of the play was printed in 1597; but it did not appear in its preſent form till two years afterwards.
Few of his plays appear to have been entered at Stationers’ hall, till they had been ſome time in poſſeſſion of the ſtage; on which account it may be conjectured that this tragedy was written in 1595.
If the following paſſage in an old comedy already mentioned, entitled Dr. Dodipoll, which had appeared before 1596, be conſidered as an imitation, it may add ſome weight to the ſuppoſitton that Romeo and Juliet had been exhibited before that year:
“ The glorious parts of fair Lucilia,
“ Take them and join them in the heavenly ſpheres,
“ And fix them there as an eternal light
“ For lovers to adore and wonder at.”
Dr. Dodipoll.
- ↑ There is no edition of any of our author’s genuine plays extant, prior to 1597, when Romeo and Juliet was published.
- ↑ There is no entry in the Stationers’ books relative to the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, antecedent to its publication in 1597, if this does not relate to it. This entry was made by Edward Whyte, and therefore is not likely to have related to the poem called Romeo and Julietta, which was entered in 1582, by Richard Tottel. How vague the deſcription of plays was at this time, may appear from the following entry, which is found in the Stationers’ books an. 1599, and ſeems to relate to Marlowe’s tragedy of Tamburlaine, publiſhed in that year, by Richard Jones.
{gap}}“To Richard Jones] Twoe Commical Diſcourſes of Tamburlein, the Cythian Shepparde.”
In Marlowe’s Tamburlaine, as originally performed, ſeveral comick enterludes were introduced; whence perhaps, the epithet comical was added to the title.—As tragedies were ſometimes entitled diſcourſes, ſo a grave poem or ſad diſcourſe in verſe, (to uſe the language of the times) was frequently denominated a tragedy. All the poems inſerted in the Mirrour for Magiſtrates, and ſome of Drayton’s pieces, are called tragedies, by Meres and other ancient writers. Some of Sir David Lindſay’s poems, though not in a dramatick form, are alſo by their author entitled tragedies.
