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brated paſſage in the Tempeſt that one author muſt, I apprehend, have been indebted to the other. Shakſpeare, I imagine, borrowed from lord Sterline[1].
Mr. Holt conjectured[2], that the maſque in the fifth actof this comedy was intended by the poet as a compliment to the earl ot Eſſex, on his being united in wedlock, in 1611, to lady Frances Howard, to whom he had been contracted ſome years before[3]. However this might have been, the date which that commentator has aſſigned to this play (1614) is certainly too late; for it appears from the Mſſ. of Mr. Vertue, that the Tempeſt was acted by John Heminge and the reſt of the King’s Company, before prince Charles, the lady Elizabeth, and the prince Palatine elector, in the beginning of the year 1613.
The names of Trinculo and Antonio, two of the characters in this comedy, are likewiſe found in that of Albumazar; which was firſt printed in 1614, but is ſuppoſed by Dryden to have appeared ſome years before.
43. Twelfth Night, 1614.
It has been generally believed, that Shakſpeare retired from the theatre, and ceaſed to write, about three years
NOTES.
- ↑ See a note on Julius Cæſar, Act I. Sc. i.
- ↑ Obſervations on the Tempeſt, p. 67. Mr. Holt imagined, that lord Eſſex was united to lady Frances Howard in 1610; but he was miſtaken: their union did not take place till the next year.
- ↑ Jan. 5, 1606–7. The earl continued abroad four years from that time; ſo that he did not cohabit with his wife till 1611.
“Theſe our actors,
As I foretold you, were all ſpirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baſeleſs fabrick of this vſion,
The cloud-capt tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces
The ſolemn temples, the great globe itſelf,
Yea, all which it inherit, ſhall diſſolve,
And like this unſubſtantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.Tempeſt, Act IV. Sc. i.
Whether we ſuppoſe Shakſpeare to have imitated lord Sterline, or lord Sterline to have borrowed from him, the fourth line above quoted from the tragedy of Darius, renders it highly probable that Shakſpeare wrote, (as Sir Thomas Hanmer conjectured,)
“Leave not a track behind.”
