Weever's lines appear distinctly to refer to some well-known account of these orations; but they are not based on Plutarch, and the inference is that they are based on Shakespeare, unless both he and Shakespeare were familiar with some other narrative of which we know nothing. The presumption therefore is that the play is not later in date than 1601.
(2) At i. 2. 160 are the words, "the eternal devil". Some commentators are of opinion that 'eternal' was substituted for 'infernal' out of deference to the growing strength of the public sentiment against the freedom of language on the stage, which culminated in the act of James I. 'Eternal' seems to have been so substituted for 'infernal' in two other instances both subsequent to 1600, but not before. It is extremely doubtful whether Shakespeare may not have used 'eternal' as the better word; still the alternative possibility points to the play dating about 1600.
(3) The arguments from scansion are discussed in the appendix on prosody, q.v., and entirely bear out the view that the play belongs to the middle period of Shakespeare's workmanship; is earlier than Hamlet, and about the same period as Much Ado, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night; i.e. between 1598 and 1602.
The character of the play itself leads to the same conclusion. Shakespeare seems to have finished all the English historical subjects he cared about with Henry V. in 1599, and it seems improbable that until that was done he would have gone farther afield. (Henry VIII. was written to order later.) Moreover the play constitutes in certain respects a new departure. The earlier tragedies were primarily tragedies of action; this is primarily a tragedy of character. It is more meditative and more complex; the thoughtful note which is characteristic of the comedies named above is prominent, but the philosophic interest does not predominate as in Hamlet, nor is there the same intensity of emotion as in the later tragedies. All of which agrees again with the conclusion that 1600 is the earliest and 1601 the latest date at which we should expect to find the play had been written. Thus the
