A foolish thing was but a toy,

For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came to man's eftate,
With hey, ho, &c.

Gainft knaves and thieves, men fhut their gate,
For the rain, &c.

But when I came, alas! to wive,
With hey, ho, &c.

By fwaggering could I never thrive,
For the rain, &c.

But when I came unto my beds
With hey, ho, &c.

With tofs-pots ftill had drunken heads,
For the rain, &c.

A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, &c.

But that's all one, our play is done,

And we'll strive to please you every day. [Exit.

regarded: but when I came to manhood, men shut their gates against me, as a knave and a thief.

Sir Tho. Hanmer rightly reduces the fubfequent words, beds and beads, to the fingular number: and a little alteration is ftill wanting at the beginning of fome of the ftanzas.

Mr. Steevens obferves in a note at the end of Much ado about Nothing, that the play had formerly paffed under the name of Benedict and Beatrix. It feems to have been the court-fashion to alter the titles. A very ingenious lady, with whom I have the honour to be acquainted, Mrs. Afkew of Queen's Square, has a fine copy of the fecond folio edition of Shakespeare, which formerly belonged to king Charles I. and was a prefent from him to his Master of the Revels, fir Thomas Herbert. Sir Thomas has altered five titles in the lift of the plays, to 66 Benedick and Betrice, -Pyramus and Thifty,-Rofalinde,-Mr. Paroles, and Malvolio.

It is lamentable to fee how far party and prejudice will carry the wifeft men, even against their own practice and opinions. Milton, in his Exovozás cenfures king Charles for reading, "one, whom," fays he, "we well knew was the closet companion of his folitudes, William Shakespeare." FARMER.

Dr. Farmer might have obferved, that the alterations of the titles are in his majesty's own hand-writing, materially differing

from

1

from fir Thomas Herbert's, of which the fame volume affords more than one specimen. I learn from another manuscript note in it, that John Lowine acted K. Hen. VIII. and John Taylor the part of Hamlet. The book is now in my poffeffion.

To the concluding remark of Dr. Farmer, may be added the following paffage from An Appeal to all rational Men concerning King Charles's Trial, by John Cooke, 1649: "Had he but ftudied fcripture half fo much as Ben Jonson or Shakespeare, he might have learnt that when Amaziah was fettled in the kingdom, he fuddenly did justice upon those fervants which killed his father Joath, &c." With this quotation I was furnished by Mr. Malone.

A quarto volume of plays attributed to Shakespeare, with his majesty's cypher on the back of it, is preferved in Mr. Garrick's collection. STEEVENS.

This play is in the graver part elegant and eafy, and in fome of the lighter fcenes exquifitely humorous. Ague-cheek is drawn with great propriety, but his character is, in a great measure, that of natural fatuity, and is therefore not the proper prey of a fatirist. The foliloquy of Malvolio is truly comic; he is betrayed to ridicule merely by his pride. The marriage of Olivia, and the fucceeding perplexity, though well enough contrived to divert on the stage, wants credibility, and fails to produce the proper inftruction re quired in the drama, as it exhibits no juft picture of life.

JOHNSON.

WINTER's

WINTE WIN TE R's

TAL E.

Perfons

Another Sicilian Lord.

Archidamus, a Bohemian Lord.

Rogero, a Sicilian Gentleman.

An Attendant on the young Prince Mamillius.
Officers of a Court of Judicature.

Old Shepherd, reputed Father of Perdita.
Clown, his Son.

A Mariner.

Gaoler.

Servant to the old Shepherd.

Autolycus, a Rogue.

Time, as Chorus.

Hermione, Queen to Leontes.

Perdita, Daughter to Leontes aud Hermione.
Paulina, Wife to Antigonus.

Emilia, a Lady.

Two other Ladies.

Satyrs for a dance, Shepherds, Shepherdeffes, Guards, and

Attendants.

SCENE, fometimes in Sicilia; fometimes in Bohemia.

A C T I. SCENE I.

An antichamber in Leontes' palace.

Enter Camillo, and Archidamus.

Arch. If you fhall chance, Camillo, to vifit Bohemia, on the like occafion whereon my fervices are

now

'The Winter's Tale.] This play, throughout, is written in the very fpirit of its author. And in telling this homely and fimple, though agreeable, country tale,

Our fweeteft Shakespeare, fancy's child,

Warbles his native wood-notes wild.

This was neceffary to obferve in mere justice to the play; as the meannefs of the fable, and the extravagant conduct of it, had mifled fome of great name into a wrong judgment of its merit; which, as far as it regards fentiment and character, is scarce inferior to any in the whole collection. WARBURTON.

At Stationers' Hall, May 22. 1594, Edward White entered "A booke entitled A Wynter Nyght's Paftime." STEEVENS. The story of this play is taken from the Pleasant Hiftory of Doraftus and Fawnia, written by Robert Greene. JoHNSON.

In this novel, the king of Sicilia whom Shakespeare names Leontes, is called

Egiftus.

Polixenes K. of Bohemia

Pandofto.

The parts of Antigonus, Paulina, and Autolycus, are of the

poet's own invention; but many circumftances of the novel are

omitted in the play. STEEVENS.

VOL. IV.

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