[ 301 ]
authority for ſuppoſing the Second Part of K. Henry IV. to have been written in 1598.
“ Savi. What’s he, gentle Monſ. Briſk? Not that gentleman?
“ Faſt. No, Lady; this is a kinſman to Juſtice Silence.”
22. K. Henry V. 1599.
Mr. Pope thought that this hiſtorical drama was one of our author’s lateſt compoſitions; but he was evidently miſtaken; King Henry V. was entered on the Stationers’ books, Auguſt 14, 1600, and printed in the ſame year. It was written after the Second Part of K. Henry IV. being promiſed in the epilogue of that play; and while the Earl of Eſſex was in Ireland[1]. Lord Eſſex went to Ireland April 15, 1599, and returned to London on the 28th of September in the ſame year. So that this play (unleſs the paſſage relative to him was inferted after the piece was finiſhed) muſt have been compoſed between April and September, 1599. Suppoſing that paſſage a ſubſequent inſertion, the play was probably not written long before; for it is not mentioned by Meres in 1598.
The prologue[2] to Ben Jonſon’s Every Man in his Humour ſeems clearly to allude to this play; and, if we were ſure that it was written at the ſame time with the piece itſelf, might induce us, notwithſtanding she ſilence of Meres, to place King Henry V. a year or two earlier; for Every Man in his Humour is ſaid to have been acted in 1598. But I ſuſpect that the prologue which now appears before it was not writ
- ↑ See the Chorus to the fifth act of King Henry V.
- ↑ “ He rather prays you will be pleaſed to ſee
“ One ſuch, to-day, as other plays ſhould be;
“Where neither Chorus waſts you o’er the ſeas, &c.”
Prologue to Every Man in his Humour.
These lines formerly appeared to me ſo deciſive with respect to the date of this piece, that I have quoted them, in a note on K. Henry V. to ſhew that this hiſtorical drama muſt have been written before 1598; an opinion from which, for the reaſons above stated, I am now diſpoſed to recede.
