An entry in the Office Book of Sir George Buck, Master of the Revels, recording the performance of The Winter's Tale at Court on the 5th of November, 1611, has also been discovered by Mr. Peter Cunningham.* The farther limit of the period during which it was produced is indicated, though, perhaps, hardly established beyond question, by Malone's discovery that it was licensed by Sir Henry Herbert in 1623, without a fee and without examination, because it had been "formerly allowed of by Sir George Buck," and Mr. Hemminge (one of the player editors of the folio) gave his word that "there was nothing prophane added or reformed."+ Now Sir George Buck, having obtained a reversionary grant of the Office of Master of the Revels in 1603, succeeded to it in the autumn of 1610; and The Winter's Tale was therefore produced between that time and the spring of 1611, when Dr. Forman saw it; unless, indeed, it was licensed by Sir George before he obtained his office.. For Buck succeeded Edmund Tilney, who was his maternal uncle; and if we can rely upon Chalmers' quotations from the Stationers' Register, the nephew was allowed to share the official labors of the uncle, and licensed twenty-seven plays between May, 1606, and October, 1608. But it should be remarked that these plays, among which The Winter's Tale is not named, were licensed for publication only; and although the censorship was sometimes vicariously exercised, it is very improbable that licenses for representation, by far the more important, were granted in any other name than that of the Master of the Revels himself. It may therefore be safely assumed that The Winter's Tale was produced under the official sanction of Sir George Buck, and probably in the early part of 1611. §

This play was first published in the folio of 1623, and is there printed with unusual care; the very punctuation, which throughout that volume is extremely irregular and careless, being in a great measure reliable. The corruptions of the text are therefore comparatively few, far fewer than we might reasonably expect from the style of the play, which is more open to the charge of obscurity than any other of Shakespeare's works. It abounds

*Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels at Court. 1842. Shakespeare Society.

† Boswell's Malone, Vol. II. p. 463, and Vol. III. p. 229.

Supplemental Apology for the Believers, &c., pp. 200, 201.

See note upon Apollo's Oracle, Act III. Sc. 2, as to another point of evidence.

in elliptical passages in which the gap to be bridged is unprecedentedly great; parentheses within parentheses, even to the third and fourth degree, require sustained attention and a clear head to unravel their involutions; and thoughts incompletely stated, or only suggested, tantalize and bewilder the untrained or superficial reader. Under such circumstances, it is rather surprising that the text has come down to us in so pure a state; and the absolute incomprehensibility of one or two passages may safely be attributed to the attempt, on the part of the printers, to correct that which they thought corrupt in their copy, but which was only obscure.

There are indications in the folio that its publishers did not at first expect this play to appear in that volume. Twelfth Night ends upon page 275, and according to custom, which is observed in that volume, The Winter's Tale should begin on page 276; but that page is left entirely blank, and is unpaged; this play beginning upon the following recto, page 277.* The signature marks also, which change at this part of the volume, being peculiar to this play, show that it was not put in type in its regular order. It is possible that in gathering the plays together, Heminge and Condell forgot this one until the folio was nearly in type; but it is more probable that, finding it no more tragical in its course or its catastrophe than Cymbeline, they at first intended to class it with the Tragedies, and after it was ready to be struck off restored it to its proper place among the Comedies. A similar uncertainty, shown in a similar manner, seems to have attended the introduction of Troilus and Cressida into the folio.

As to the period of the action and the costume of this Tale, they are as absolutely indeterminable as those of the Dream which it so much resembles in its entire disregard of the probabilities, not to say the unitíes, of time and place. Any attempt to reduce its material conditions into harmony with chronology, will succeed only in destroying in some measure the romantic and fantastic character which was stamped upon it by the time in which it was written, no less than by the man who wrote it.

*The reverse of the page upon which The Winter's Tale ends is also left blank; but as the next play begins a new division, Histories, with a new paging, no conclusion can be based on this fact.

†They begin A a; and this double lettering ceases with The Winter's Tale; the first page of King John being signature a, and the single lower case or small letter marking being continued regularly until the alphabet is exhausted.

An old Shepherd, reputed Father of Perdita.
Clown, his Son.

AUTOLYCUS, a Rogue.

Time, as Chorus.

HERMIONE, Queen to Leontes.

PERDITA, Daughter to Leontes and Hermione.
PAULINA, Wife to Antigonus.

EMILIA, a Lady attending on the Queen.

MOPSA,
DORCAS,

}

Shepherdesses.

Lords, Ladies, Gentlemen, and Attendants, Satyrs, Shepherds,

Shepherdesses, Guards, &c.

SCENE: Sometimes in Sicilia; sometimes in Bohemia.

(276)

THE WINTER'S TALE.

АСТ I.

SCENE I.-Sicilia. An Antechamber in LEONTES' Palace.

Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS.

ARCHIDAMUS.

IF shall chann, Cemon' my services are now

F you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on

on foot, you shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia.

Camillo. I think, this coming summer, the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.

Arch. Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be justified in our loves: for, indeed, – Cam. 'Beseech you,

Arch. Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge: we cannot with such magnificence in so rare -I know not what to say. - We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience, may, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse us.

Cam. You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely.

Arch. Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me, and as mine honesty puts it to utter

ance.

Cam. Sicilia cannot shew himself over-kind to Bohemia. They were train'd together in their childhoods; and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection which cannot choose but branch now. Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities made separation of their society, their encounters, though not personal, have been royally attorneyed, with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies; that they have seem'd to be together, though absent; shook hands, as over a vast; and embrac'd, as it were, from the ends of opposed winds. The Heavens continue their loves!

Arch. I think there is not in the world either malice or matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort of your young Prince Mamillius; it is a gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came into my note.

Cam. I very well agree with you in the hopes of him. It is a gallant child; one that, indeed, physics the subject, makes old hearts fresh; they that went on crutches ere he was born, desire yet their life to see him a man.

Arch. Would they else be content to die?

Cam. Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live.

Arch. If the King had no son, they would desire to live on crutches till he had one.

[Exeunt.