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had been originally entered in 1594, and perhaps ſoon afterwards printed[1], was republiſhed in 1607 by Nich. Ling. As it bore the ſame title with Shakſpeare’s play, (which was not printed till 1623) the hope of getting a ſale for it, under the ſhelter of a celebrated name, was probably the inducement to iſſue it out at that time: and its publication then gives weight to the ſuppoſition that Shakſpeare’s play was written and firſt acted in the latter end of the year 1606. It was entered by John Smythwick, Nov. 19, 1607; from which circumſtance, we may conclude, that he had procured a copy of it, and had then thoughts of publiſhing it. It was not, however, printed by him till 1631, eight years after it had appeared in the edition of the players in folio.
In this play there ſeems to be an alluſion[2] to a comedy of Thomas Heywood’s, entitled a Woman Killed with Kindneſs, which, though not printed till 1617, muſt have been acted before 1604, being mentioned in an old tract called
the Black Book, publiſhed in that year.
36. Julius Cæsar, 1607.
A tragedy on the ſubject, and with the title, of Julius Cæsar, written by Mr. William Alexander, who was afterwards Earl of Sterline, was printed in the year 1607. This, I imagine, was prior to our author’s performance. Shakſpeare, we know, formed ſeven or eight plays on fables that had been unſucceſsfully managed by other poets[3]; but no contemporary writer was daring enough to enter the liſts with him, in his life-time, or to model into a drama a ſubject that had alrieady employed his pen: and it is not likely that Lord Sterline, who was then a very young man, and
NOTES.
- ↑ From a paſſage in a tract written by Sir John Harrington, entitled The Metamorphoſes of Ajax, 1596, this old play appears to have been printed before that year, though no edition of ſo early a date has hitherto been diſcovered. “ Read the booke of Taming a Shrew, which hath made a number of us ſo perfect, that now every one can rule a ſhrew in our country, ſave he that hath hir.”
- ↑ “ This is a way to kill a wife with kindneſs.” The Taming of the Shrew. Act IV. Sc. i.
- ↑ See a note on Julius Cæsar, Act I. Sc. i. in which they are enumerated.
had
