Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/293

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find no trace of our author, or of any of his works. Three years afterwards, Puttenham printed his Art of Engliſh Poeſy; and in that work alſo we look in vain for the name of Shakſpeare^[1]. Sir John Harrington in his Apologie for Poetry, prefixed to the Tranſlation of Arioſte, (which was entered in the Stationers’ books Feb. 26, 1590—1, in which year, it was printed) takes occaſion to ſpeak of the theatre, and mentions ſome of the celebrated dramas of that time; but ſays not a word of Shakſpeare, or of any of his plays. If even Love’s Labour Loſt had then appeared, which was probably his firſt dramatick compoſition, is it imaginable, that Harrington ſhould have mentioned the Cambridge Pedantius, and The Play of the Cards, (which laſt, he tells us was a London comedy) and have paſſed by, unnoticed, the new prodigy of the dramatick world?
That Shakſpeare had commenced a writer for the ſtage, and had even excited the jealouſy of his contemporaries, before September 1592, is now deciſively proved by a paſſage^[2]

eminent. That malignity which endeavoured to tear a wreath from the brow of Shakſpeare, would, certainly, not ſpare inferior writers.

↑ The thirty-firſt chapter of the firſt book of Puttenham’s Art of Engliſh Poeſy is thus entitled: “ Who in any age have bene the moſt commended writers in our Engliſh Poeſie, and the author’s cenſure given upon them.”
After having enumerated ſeveral authors who were then celebrated for various kinds of compoſition, he gives this ſuccinct account of thoſe who had written for the ſtage: “ Of the later ſort I thinke thus;—that for tragedie, the Lord Buckhurſt and Maiſter Edward Ferrys, for ſuch doings as I have ſene of theirs, do deſerve the hyeſt price; the Earl of Oxford and Maiſter Edwardes of her Majeſtie’s Chappell, for comedie and enterlude.”
↑ See vol. VI. p. ult. where the paſſage is given at large. The paragraph which immediately follows that quoted by Mr. Tyrwhitt, though obſcure, is worth tranſcribing, as it ſeems to allude to Shakſpeare’s country education, and to intimate, that he had not removed to London long before the year 1592.—After having mentioned a perſon who had newly appeared in the double capacity of actor and author, one, “ who is in his owne conceit the only Shake-ſcene in a country,” and exhorted his brother poets to ſeek better maſters than the players, Greene proceeds thus: “ In this I might inſert two more, that both have written againſt theſe buckram gentlemen [the players:] but let their owne worke ſerve to witneſſe

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[2] The thirty-firſt chapter of the firſt book of Puttenham’s Art of Engliſh Poeſy is thus entitled: “ Who in any age have bene the moſt commended writers in our Engliſh Poeſie, and the author’s cenſure given upon them.”
After having enumerated ſeveral authors who were then celebrated for various kinds of compoſition, he gives this ſuccinct account of thoſe who had written for the ſtage: “ Of the later ſort I thinke thus;—that for tragedie, the Lord Buckhurſt and Maiſter Edward Ferrys, for ſuch doings as I have ſene of theirs, do deſerve the hyeſt price; the Earl of Oxford and Maiſter Edwardes of her Majeſtie’s Chappell, for comedie and enterlude.”

[p277-3] See vol. VI. p. ult. where the paſſage is given at large. The paragraph which immediately follows that quoted by Mr. Tyrwhitt, though obſcure, is worth tranſcribing, as it ſeems to allude to Shakſpeare’s country education, and to intimate, that he had not removed to London long before the year 1592.—After having mentioned a perſon who had newly appeared in the double capacity of actor and author, one, “ who is in his owne conceit the only Shake-ſcene in a country,” and exhorted his brother poets to ſeek better maſters than the players, Greene proceeds thus: “ In this I might inſert two more, that both have written againſt theſe buckram gentlemen [the players:] but let their owne worke ſerve to witneſſe

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