accuses Sol of spiting Thames with a 'naked channell' (l. 545) and Sol lays it on the moon (l. 562):
in the yeare
Shee was eclipst, when that the Thames was bare.
Two passages refer to the Queen as on progress. Summer says (l. 125):
Haruest and age haue whit'ned my greene head:
This month haue I layne languishing a bed,
Looking eche hour to yeeld my life and throne;
And dyde I had in deed vnto the earth,
But that Eliza, Englands beauteous Queene,
On whom all seasons prosperously attend,
Forbad the execution of my fate,
Vntill her ioyfull progresse was expir'd.
For her doth Summer liue, and linger here.
And again, at the end of the play (l. 1841):
Vnto Eliza, that most sacred Dame,
Whom none but Saints and Angels ought to name,
All my faire dayes remaining I bequeath,
To waite vpon her till she be returnd.
Autumne, I charge thee, when that I am dead,
Be prest and seruiceable at her beck,
Present her with thy goodliest ripened fruites.
The plague and absence of term from London might fit either 1592 or 1593 (cf. App. E), but I agree with McKerrow, iv. 418, that the earlier year is indicated. In 1593 the plague did not begin in the dog-days, nor did Elizabeth go on progress. And it is on 6 Sept. 1592 that Stowe (1615), 764, records the emptying of Thames. I may add a small confirmatory point. Are not 'the horses lately sworne to be stolne' (l. 250) those stolen by Germans in the train of Count Mompelgard between Reading and Windsor and referred to in Merry Wives, IV. v. 78. The Count came to Windsor on 19 Aug. 1592 (Rye, xcix). Now I part company with Mr. McKerrow, who thinks that, although the play was written in 1592, it may have been revised for performance before Elizabeth in a later year, perhaps at her visit to Whitgift on 14 Aug. 1600. His reasons are three: (a) Sol's reference to the Thames seems to date it in a year earlier than that in which he speaks; (b) the seasonal references suggest August, while Stowe's date necessitates September at earliest, and the want of term points to October; (c) the references to Elizabeth imply her presence. I think there is something in (a), but not much, if the distinction between actual and dramatic time is kept in mind. As to (b), the tone of the references is surely to a summer prolonged beyond its natural expiration for Eliza's benefit, well into autumn, and in such a year the fruits of autumn, which in this country are chiefly apples, will be on the trees until October. As to (c), I cannot find any evidence of the Queen's presence at all. Surely she is on progress elsewhere, and due to 'return' in the future. I may add that Elizabeth was at Croydon in the spring of 1593, and that it would, therefore, have been odd to defer a revival for her
