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27 May 1600.
To Mr. Roberts.] Allarum to London.
4 Aug.
| As You Like It, a book. | to be ſtaied. | |
| Henry the Fift, a book. | ||
| Every Man in his Humour, a book. | ||
| Comedy of Much Ado about Nothing. |
23 Jan. 1603.
| To Thomas Thorpe, | This to be their copy, &c. | |
| and William Aſpley |
It is extremely probable that this 4th of Auguſt was of the year 1600; which ſtanding a little higher on the paper, the clerk of the Stationers’ company might have thought unneceſſary to be repeated. All the plays which were entered with As You Like It, and are here ſaid to be staied, were printed in the year 1600 or 1601. The ſtay or injunction againſt the printing appears to have been very ſpeedily taken off; for in ten days afterwards, on the 14th of Auguſt 1600, King Henry V. was entered, and publiſhed in the ſame year. So, Much Ado about Nothing, was entered Auguſt 23, 1600, and printed alſo in that year: and Every Man in his Humour was publiſhed in 1601.
Shakſpeare, it is ſaid, played the part of Adam in As You Like It. As he was not eminent on the ſtage, it is probable that he ceaſed to act ſome years before he retired to the country. His appearance, however, in this comedy, is not inconſiſtent with the date here aſſigned; for we know that he performed a part in Jonſon’s Sejanus in 1603.
26. Merry Wives of Windsor, 1601
The firſt ſketch of this comedy was printed in 1602. It was entered in the books of the Stationers’ company, on the 18th of January 1601—2, and was therefore probably written in 1601, alter the two parts of K Henry IV. being, it is ſaid, compoſed at the deſire of queen Elizabeth, in order to exhibit Falſtaff in love, when all the pleaſantry which he could afford in any other ſituation was exhauſted. But it may not be thought ſo clear, that it was written after K.
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