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ances he ſeems to have been extremely fond, its imperfect verſification, its artleſs and deſultory dialogue, and the irregularity of the compoſition, may be all urged in ſupport of this conjecture.
Love’s Labour Loſt was not entered at Stationers’ hall till the 23d of January 1606, but is mentioned by Francis Meres[1] in his Wit’s Treaſury, or the Second Part of Wit’s Commonwealth[2], in 1598, and was printed in that year. In the title page of this edition, (the oldeſt hitherto diſcovered) this piece is ſaid to have been preſented before her highneſs [Queen Elizabeth] the laſt Chriſtmas [1597], and to be newly corrected and augmented: from which it ſhould ſeem, that there had been a former impreſſion.
Mr. Gildon, in his obſervations on Love’s Labour Loſt ſays, “ he cannot ſee why the author gave it this name.”—The following lines exhibit the train of thoughts, which probably ſuggeſted to Shakſpeare this title, as well as that which anciently was affixed to another of his comedies—Love’s Labour Won.
“ To be in love where ſcorn is bought with groans,
Coy looks with heart-ſore ſighs; one fading moment’s mirth
With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights:
If haply won, perhaps a hapleſs gain;
If loſt, why then a grievous labour won.”
- ↑ This writer, to whoſe liſt of our author’s plays we are ſo much indebted, appears, from the following paſſage of the work here mentioned, to have been perſonally acquainted with Shakſpeare:
“ As the ſoul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, ſo the ſweet witty ſoul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakeſpeare. Witneſs his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his ſugred Sonnets among his private friends, &c.” Wit’s Treafury, p. 282. There is no edition of Shakſpeare’s Sonnets now extant, of ſo early a date as 1598, when Meres’s book was printed; ſo that we may conclude, he was one of thoſe friends to whom they were privately recited, before their publication. - ↑ This book was probably publiſhed in the latter end of the year 1598; for it was not entered at Stationers’ hall till September in that year.
be but a fallible criterion; for the Three Parts of K. Henry VI. which appear to have been among our author’s earlieſt compoſitions, do not abound in rhymes.
