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dundancy, &c. obſerved by this critick, Mr. Steevens thinks (a remark, which, having omitted to introduce in its proper place, he deſires me to inſert here) “ was rather the effect of chance, than of deſign in the author; and might have ariſen either from the negligence of Shakſpeare, who in this play has borrowed whole ſcenes and ſpeeches from Holinſhed, whoſe words he was probably in too much haſte to compreſs into verſification ſtrictly regular and harmonious; or from the interpolations of Ben Jonſon, whoſe hand Dr. Farmer thinks he occaſionally perceives in the dialogue.”
Whether Mr. Roderick’s poſition be well founded, is hardly worth a conteſt; but the peculiarities which he has animadverted on, (if ſuch there be) add probability to the conjecture that the piece underwent ſome alterations, after it had paſſed out of the hands of Shakſpeare.
Our author had produced ſo many plays in the proceding years, that it is not likely that K. Henry VIII. was written before 1601. It might perhaps with equal propriety be aſcribed to 1602, and it is not eaſy to determine in which of thoſe years it was compoſed; but it is extremely probable that it was written in one of them. K. Henry VIII. was not printed till 1623.
“ A book or poem, called the Life and Death of Thomas Woolſey Cardinall,” which was entered on the books of the Stationers’ oompany, in the year 1599, perhaps ſuggeſted this ſubject to Shakſpeare.
28. The Life and Death of Lord Cromwell, 1602.
Entered at Stationers’ hall, Auguſt, 1602. Printed in 1613, with the letters W. S. only, in the title page.
29. Troilus and Cressida, 1602.
Troilus and Cressida was entered at Stationers’ hall Feb. 7. 1602—3, by J. Roberts, the printer of Hamlet, the Merchant of Venice, and A Midſummer Night’s Dream. It was therefore, probably, written in 1602. It was printed in 1609, with a preface by the editor, who ſpeaks of it as if it had not been then acted. But it is entered in 1602—3, “ as acted by my Lord Chamberlain’s men.” The players at the Globe theatre, to which Shakſpeare belonged, were called the Lord Chamberlain’s ſervants, till the year 1603. In that
