writer "at our feast” (Candlemas), on the second of February 1601-02. Manningham, who must not always be trusted, writes as if the play were recent.

These are the two leading facts on which any attempt to discover the date of Twelfth Night must be based. But several minor items of evidence remain to be considered, and most of them are both interesting and instructive. We may begin with the Palladis Tamia of Francis Meres, 1598. In his reference to Shakespeare's works, he mentions twelve plays as extant, but Twelfth Night is not among them. We are not sure, however, that the list furnished by Meres is complete; and 1598 as a superior limit for the date of the play, though it allows Shakespeare time enough for the composition of Twelfth Night, affords him a narrow interval for the production of Henry V., Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It, and The Merry Wives of Windsor, which the best authorities would assign to this period or thereabout.

But some will ask whether the ingenuity devoted by commentators to a discovery of the chronological order of Shakespeare's plays has not altogether been misplaced; and they will be inclined to condemn the space allotted to the subject in this Introduction. To such I make answerand I seize the opportunity most gladly—“ every added item of knowledge makes possible another item of enjoyment"; we must not neglect a single fact that may help us towards both the understanding and the appreciation of any work of literary art, much less of the marvellous creations of Shakespeare. Beyond taking the liberty of repeating a reflection which occurs elsewhere in these pages, I need only offer one brief illustration; I will put it bluntly; if you tell me that Twelfth Night was written in 1600 and The Tempest in 1611, I shall be able to tell you that the poet's views of love in the earlier play will contrast most strikingly with his treatment of the same subject in the later play; and if the Latin were not somewhat overworn, I might perhaps be pardoned for adding ex uno disce omnes. Besides, a discussion of date implies much more than items of mere chronology.

Next to Meres as evidence, I am inclined to bring

forward the Parismus of Part I. of this Introduction. Again, remembering what was undoubtedly the usual practice of Shakespeare, to glean from all the fields of literature, and from every corner in those fields, I see no reason whatever for doubting that he pondered over the Viola incident as it is presented in this play, and that it suited his purpose to adopt the name Olivia and adapt the name Violetta. The contingency that Ford copied from Shakespeare is scarcely worth considering.

The same year, 1598, produced the translation of Linschoten's Voyages, which contained the map that Steevens identified with the one referred to in III. ii. 82; but, as will be more fully explained in the notes, a better date for the "New Map" is 1599, in which year a map, answering more exactly to Shakespeare's description, and designed by one Emmerie Molineux, was published in England, and was sometimes bound up with copies of Hakluyt. Also, in 1599, Sir Robert Shirley returned from his embassy to the Shah-or Sophy-of Persia, and gave point to the reference in II. v. 186 (see note ad loc.). Moreover, in the same year was printed the first edition of Morley's Consort Lessons, which contained the song (II. iii. 40-53), "O mistress mine, where are you roaming?" but here we are not dealing with an item of direct evidence; a popular song from Twelfth Night may have gained easy admission to Morley's collection. In fact, the stanzas are good enough and characteristic enough to be Shakespeare's own work, though whether composed expressly for Twelfth Night it is impossible to say. Still less trustworthy as evidence is the fact that Sir Toby, in II. iii. 105, trolls the first line of the ballad Corydon's Farewell to Phyllis, which was first published in the Booke of Ayres by Robert Jones, 1601. Fast as Shakespeare sometimes wrote, the year is a very late one for Twelfth Night, nor is any proof forthcoming that Jones was the author of the ballad; on the contrary, he annotates thus: "If the ditties dislike thee, 'tis my fault that was so bold to publish the private contentments of divers gentlemen without their consents, though, I hope, not against their wills."

The year 1600 is late enough for this matter of supplying points of interest that might be seized upon by the poet of Twelfth Night; but some have thought that the puritanical injunction issued in the course of that year by the Privy Council may have provoked the seeming attack upon Puritanism1 made by Shakespeare in his sketch of Malvolio.

In the earlier and more plausible year 1599, another motive for attacking the Puritans was made available to the dramatist who might care to accept it; for at this date Dr. Harsnet printed his Discovery of the Fraudulent Practises of John Darrel, etc. John Darrell professed to drive out devils, and his "practises" were carried on at the house of a Nicholas Starkey or Starchy. When a Bible was brought in to them, Starkey's children, who were "possessed,” shouted in a scoffing manner, " Bible-bable, Bible-bable," continuing this cry for some time. This of course suggests comparison with Twelfth Night, IV. ii. 99-101: "thy wits the heavens restore! endeavour thyself to sleep, and leave thy vain bibble-babble" (elsewhere in Harsnet "bibble-babble" is thus spelt). The possible connection between "Starchy" and "the Lady of the Strachy" will be examined in the notes.

Finally, it was thought by Steevens that Ben Jonson had Twelfth Night in view when he wrote the following in his Every Man out of his Humour, which was acted in 1599: "That the argument of his comedy might have been of some other nature, as of a duke to be in love with a countess, and that countess to be in love with the duke's son, and the son to love the lady's waiting-maid; some such cross-wooing, with a clown to their serving-man, better to be thus near, and familiarly allied to the time." "Some such cross-wooing" may be discovered not only in Twelfth Night, but also in others of Shakespeare's earlier plays and in contemporary plays that were not Shakespeare's. Moreover, such evidence as this of Steevens might be dismissed on other grounds.

It will be noticed that all the foregoing items of evidence tend to show that this one of Shakespeare's comedies 1 See note on III. ii. 31.

was composed not later than 1602. But before the discovery of Manningham's Diary, commentators who were in quest of a date for Twelfth Night were accustomed to quote from the play certain passages that referred to years latersometimes considerably later-than 1602. Chalmers, for example, was confident that the farcical combat between Cesario and Sir Andrew was intended to throw ridicule on the practice of duelling, and that it corresponded to the "Edict and Censure against Private Combats" issued by King James in 1613; and Tyrrwhit added yet another year; he felt confident that Twelfth Night was written in 1614, because of its undoubted allusion ("Nay, if you be an undertaker," III. iv. 332) to the outcry raised against Undertakers in the Parliament of that year.

To these guesses of Chalmers and Tyrrwhit, and yet others who might be mentioned, I am not disposed to give the usual contemptuous dismissal; at the very worst, if there are tares in the sheaf of the reaper, we should not forget to be grateful for the sheaf. But even these conjectures, wide of the mark as they seem, are worthy of some consideration; topical allusion,1 if not actually abundant, is nevertheless to be met with frequently in plays that show "the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure"; and it is certainly not absent from the pages of Twelfth Night. Now we are pretty certain that the play was first printed in 1623, and we regard the text as exceptionally pure; but we are not certain of the state of the author's manuscript, nor of that of the acting copies of the drama; and it is quite possible-we know it was sometimes the case that alterations or additions were made on occasion, whether by Shakespeare or some other hand, in these unprinted copies. I will give one example of such a probable interpolation in the case of Twelfth Night. The following is the Folio reading of III. ii. 45-50:—“ taunt him with the license of Inke: if thou thou'st him some thrice, it shall not be amisse, and as many Lyes, as will lye on thy sheete of paper, although the sheete were bigge enough for the bedde of Ware in England, set 'em downe, go about it."

1 See note on v. 5.

Here we notice that the comma after "amisse," seems an error; we should expect a colon; but if we omit "if thou thou'st him some thrice, it shall not be amisse,” we may retain the comma, and then by placing a colon after "paper," we have what would appear to have been the text before the interpolation, namely, " taunt him with the license of Inke, and as many Lyes as will lye in thy sheete of paper: although the sheete were bigge enough for the bedde of Ware in England, set 'em downe, go about it." Thus we are able to account for the fact that a very pertinent allusion to the trial of Raleigh is possible in the text of Twelfth Night, although the incident in question belongs to the year 1603. I refer, of course, to the insulting language addressed to Raleigh by Coke, which must have attracted attention: "All that he did was by thy instigation, thou viper; for I thou thee, thou traitor, I will prove thee the rankest traitor in all England." In this passage we have the thrice-repeated "thou." But fuller particulars relating to this and to all the foregoing allusions will be found in the notes.1

Among other items later than 1602 we may notice some performances of Twelfth Night; one is recorded in the following entry in a MS. preserved at the Audit Office: -"To John Heminges. . . upon a warrant dated 20 April, 1618, for presenting twoe severall Playes before his Majesty, on Easter Monday, Twelfte night, the play soe called, and on Easter Tuesday, the Winter's Tale, xxli." And again, in Herbert's Diary, 1622-23, we read, "At Candlemas, Malvolio was acted at court by the King's servants." I have mentioned on a former page that, as in the foregoing entry, the word Malvolio was sometimes chosen as the title of Twelfth Night.

2

As a matter partly of external and partly of internal evidence, we may here examine Fleay's theory that the plot and the underplot of Twelfth Night were composed separately, having years between them. He assigns the "Viola story" to various dates-1593, 1594, or 1595; and the whole play to 1602.

1 See, for example, notes on 1. iii. 128, 111. ii. 46 and v. 5; also p. 196, A. 2 See also notes on I. ii. 24, I. v. 171, and II. iv. I.