'Tis ten to one, this play can never please All that are here: Some come to take their ease, And fleep an act or two; but those, we fear, We have frighted with our trumpets; so, 'tis clear, They'll say, 'tis naught: others, to hear the city Abus'd extremely, and to cry, that's witty! Which we have not done neither: that, I fear, All the expected good we are like to hear For this play at this time, is only in The merciful construction of good women; For fuch a one we show'd them; If they smile, And say, 'twill do, I know, within a while

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s-fuch a one we show'd them;) In the character of Katharine. JOHNSON.

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If they smile, &c.] This thought is too much hackney'd. It had been used already in the Epilogues to As you like it, and the second part of King Henry IV. STEEVENS.

Though it is very difficult to decide whether short pieces be genuine or fpurious, yet I cannot restrain myself from expreffing my fufpicion that neither the Prologue nor Epilogue to this play is the work of Shakspeare; non vultus, non color. It appears to me very likely that they were supplied by the friendship or officioufness of Jonson, whose manner they will be perhaps found exactly to resemble. There is yet another fuppofition poffible: the Prologue and Epilogue may have been written after Shakspeare's departure from the stage, upon some accidental revival of the play, and there will then be reason for imagining that the writer, whoever he was, intended no great kindness to him, this play being recommended by a fubtle and covert cenfure of his other works. There is in Shakspeare so much of fool and fight;

the fellow,

" In a long motley coat, guarded with yellow," appears so often in his drama, that I think it not very likely that he would have animadverted so severely on himself. All this, however, must be received as very dubious, since we know not the exact date of this or the other plays, and cannot tell how our author might have changed his practice or opinions. JOHNSON.

All the best men are ours; for 'tis ill hap,
If they hold, when their ladies bid them clap.

Dr. Johnson's conjecture, thus cautioufly stated, has been fince strongly confirmed by Mr. Tyrwhitt's note, p. 5, by which it appears that this play was revived in 1613, at which time without doubt the Prologue and Epilogue were added by Ben Jonfon, or fome other person. On the subject of every one of our author's historical pieces, except this, I believe a play had been written, before he commenced a dramatick poet. See the Essay at the end of the third part of King Henry VI. MALONE.

I entirely agree in opinion with Dr. Johnson, that Ben Jonfon wrote the Prologue and Epilogue to this play. Shakspeare had a little before affifted him in his Sejanus; and Ben was too proud to receive assistance without returning it. It is probable, that he drew up the directions for the parade at the chriftening, &c. which his employment at court would teach him, and Shakspeare must be ignorant of. I think, I now and then perceive his hand in the dialogue.

It appears from Stowe, that Robert Green wrote somewhat on this subject. FARMER.

See the first scene of this play, p. 3. MALONE.

In fupport of Dr. Johnson's opinion, it may not be amiss to quote the following lines from old Ben's prologue to his Every Man in his Humour:

"To make a child new swaddled, to proceed
"Man, and then shoot up, in one beard and weed,
Past threefcore years : or with three rufty swords,
"And help of some few foot-and-half-foot words,
Fight over York and Lancaster's long wars,
" And in the tyring-house," &c. STEEVENS.

The historical dramas are now concluded, of which the two parts of Henry the Fourth, and Henry the Fifth, are among the happiest of our author's compofitions; and King John, Richard the Third, and Henry the Eighth, deservedly stand in the second class. Those whose curiosity would refer the historical scenes to their original, may consult Holinshed, and sometimes Hall: from Holinshed, Shakspeare has often inserted whole speeches, with no more alteration than was necessary to the numbers of his verse. To tranfcribe them into the margin was unnecessary, because the original is easily examined, and they are seldom less perfpicuous in the poet than in the historian.

To play hiftories, or to exhibit a succession of events by action and dialogue, was a common entertainment among our rude anceftors upon great festivities. The parish clerks once performed at Clerkenwell a play which lasted three days, containing The History of the World. JOHNSON.

It appears from more than one MS. in the British Museum, that the tradesmen of Chester were three days employed in the representation of their twenty-four Whitsun plays or mysteries. The like performances at Coventry must have taken up a longer time, as they are no less than forty in number. The exhibition of them began on Corpus Chrifti day, which was (according to Dugdale) one of their ancient fairs. See the Harleian MSS. No. 2013, 2124, 2125, and MS. Cott. Vefp. D. VIII. and Dugdale's Warwickshire, p. 116. STEEVENS.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.*

* TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.] The story was originally written by Lollius, an old Lombard author, and fince by Chaucer. POPE.

Mr. Pope (after Dryden) informs us, that the story of Troilus and Creffida was originally the work of one Lollius, a Lombard; (of whom Gafcoigne speaks in Dan Bartholmewe his first Triumph: " Since Lollius and Chaucer both, make doubt upon that glose,") but Dryden goes yet further. He declares it to have been written in Latin verse, and that Chaucer tranflated it. Lollius was a historiographer of Urbino in Italy. Shakspeare received the greatest part of his materials for the structure of this play from the Troye Boke of Lydgate. Lydgate was not much more than a tranflator of Guido of Columpna, who was of Messina in Sicily, and wrote his History of Troy in Latin, after Dictys Cretenfis, and Dares Phrygius, in 1287. On these, as Mr. Warton observes, he engrafted many new romantic inventions, which the taste of his age dictated, and which the connection between Grecian and Gothic fiction easily admitted; at the fame time comprehending in his plan the Theban and Argonautic stories from Ovid, Statius, and Valerius Flaccus. Guido's work was published at Cologne in 1477, again 1480: at Strasburgh, 1486, and ibidem, 1489. It appears to have been tranflated by Raoul le Feure, at Cologne, into French, from whom Caxton rendered it into English in 1471, under the title of his Recuyel, &c. so that there must have been yet fome earlier edition of Guido's performance than I have hitherto seen or heard of, unless his first tranflator had recourse to a manufcript.

Guido of Columpna is referred to as an authority by our own chronicler Grafton. Chaucer had made the loves of Troilus and Creffida famous, which very probably might have been Shakspeare's inducement to try their fortune on the stage. -Lydgate's Troye Boke was printed by Pynson, 1513. In the books of the Stationers' company, anno 1581, is entered "A proper ballad, dialoguewife, between Troilus and Creffida." Again, Feb. 7, 1602: "The booke of Troilus and Creffida, as it is acted by my Lo. Chamberlain's men." The first of these entries is in the name of Edward White, the fecond in that of M. Roberts. Again, Jan. 28, 1608, entered by Rich. Bonian and Hen. Whalley, "A booke called the hiftory of Troilus and Cressida." STEEVENS.

The entry in 1608-9 was made by the bookfellers for whom this play was published in 1609. It was written, I conceive, in 1602. See An Attempt to afcertain the Order of Shakspeare's Plays, Vol. I. MALONE.

Before this play of Troilus and Creffida, printed in 1609, is a bookfeller's preface, showing that first impreffion to have been be