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King James was ſo much offended by the untaught, and, we may add, undeſerved, gratulations of his ſubjects, on his entry into England, that he iſſued a proclamation, forbidding the people to reſort to him.—“ Afterwards,” ſays the hiſtorian of his reign, “ in his publick appearances, eſpecially in his ſports, the acceſſes of the people made him ſo impatient, that he often diſpersed them with frowns, that we may not ſay with curſes[1].”
That Meaſure for Meaſurewas written before 1607, may be fairly concluded from the following paſſage in a poem publiſhed in that year, which we have good ground to believe was copied from a ſimilar thought in this play, as the author, at the end of his piece, profeſſes a perſonal regard for Shakſpeare, and highly praiſes his Venus and Adonis:
“ So play the fooliſh throngs with one ſwoons;
Come all to help him, and ſo ſtop the air
By which he would revive.”
Meaſ. for Meaſ. Act. II. Sc. ii.
“ And like as when ſome ſudden axtaſie
Seizeth the nature of a ſicklie man;
When he’s diſcern’d to ſwoune, ſtraite by and by
Folke to his helpe confuſedly have ran,
And ſeeking with their art to fetch him backe,
So many throng that he the ayre doth lacke.”
Myrrha the Mother of Adonis, or Luſte’s Prodigies, by William Barkſted, a poem, 1607.
31. Cymbeline, 1604.
Cymbeline was not entered on the Stationers’ books, nor printed, till 1623. It ſtands the laſt in the earlieſt folio edition; but nothing can be collected from thence, for the folio editors manifeſtly paid no attention to chronological arrangement. Not containing any intrinſick evidence by which its date might be aſcertained, it is attributed to this year, chiefly becauſe there is no proof that any other play was written by Shakſpeare in 1604. And as in the courſe of ſomewhat more than twenty years, he produced, according to ſome, forty-three, in the opinion of others, thirty-five
- ↑ Wilſon’s Hiſt. of K. James, ad ann. 1603.
