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dramas, we may preſume that he was not idle during any one year of that time.
This play was perhaps alluded to, in an old comedy called The Return from Parnaſſus:
“ Frame as well we might, with eaſy ſtrain,
“ With far more praiſe, and with as little pain,
“ Stories of love, where ’fore the wond’ring bench
“ The liſping gallant might enjoy his wench;
“ Or make ſome fire acknowledge his loſt ſon[1],
“ Found, when the weary act is almoſt done.”
If the author of this piece had Cymbeline in contemplation, it muſt have been more ancient than it is here ſuppoſed; for from ſeveral paſſages in the Return from Parnaſſus, that comedy appears to have been written before the death of queen Elizabeth, which happened on the 24th of March 1603.
Mr. Steevens has obſerved, that there is a paſſage in B. and Fletcher’s Philaſter which bears a ſtrong reſemblance to a ſpeech of Jachimo in Cymbeline:
“ I hear the tread of people: I am hurt;
“ The Gods take part againſt me: could this boar
“ Have held me thus, elſe?”
“ I have bely’d a lady
“ The princeſs of this country; and the air of’t
“ Revengingly enfeebles me; or could this carle,
“ A very drudge of nature, have ſubdu’d me,
“ In my profeſſion?”
Philaſter is ſuppoſed to have appeared on the ſtage about 1609; being mentioned by John Davies of Hereford, in his Epigrams, which have no date, but were printed, according to Oldys, in or about that year[2].
One edition of the tract called Weſtward for Smelts, from which part of the fable of Cymbeline is borrowed, was publiſhed in 1603.
