CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION TO A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.. I. THE HISTORY OF THE PLAY...... 156445 PAGE I. THE HISTORY OF THE PLAY. The earliest known reference to A Midsummer-Night's Dream is in the Palladis Tamia of Francis Meres, published in 1598.* It is the opinion of the best critics that it was * The passage is as follows: "As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latines, so Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage: for comedy, witnes his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Love Labors Lost, his Love Labours Wonne, his Midsummers Night Dreame, and his Merchant of Venice; for tragedy, his Richard the 2., Richard the 3., Henry the 4., King John, Titus Andronicus, and his Romeo and Juliet." written some years before that date, perhaps as early as 1594. Possibly in ii. 1. 88–117 there is an allusion to the unseasonable weather of that summer, which is thus described in the MS. Diary of Dr. Simon Forman :* "Ther was moch sicknes but lyttle death, moch fruit and many plombs of all sorts this yeare and small nuts, but fewe walnuts this monethes of June and July wer very wet and wonderfull cold like winter, that the 10. dae of Julii many did syt by the fyer, yt was so cold; and soe was yt in Maye and June; and scant too faire dais together all that tyme, but yt rayned every day more or lesse: yf yt did not raine, then was yt cold and cloudye: there were many gret fludes this sommer, and about Michelmas, thorowe the abundaunce of raine that fell sodeinly, the brige of Ware was broken downe, and at Stratford Bowe, the water was never sine so byg as yt was; and in the lattere end of October, the waters burste downe the bridg at Cambridge, and in Barkshire wer many gret waters, wherwith was moch harm done sodenly."† * See our Richard II. p. 13. We give the passage as it appears in Halliwell's folio ed. of Shakespeare. † Stowe, in his Chronicle (quoted by Halliwell), says of the same year : "This year, in the month of May, fell many great showers of rain, but in the months of June and July much more; for it commonly rained every day or night till St. James' day, and two days after together most extremely; all which notwithstanding, in the month of August, there followed a fair harvest, but in the month of September fell great rains, which raised high waters, such as stayed the carriages, and broke down bridges at Cambridge, Ware, and elsewhere in many places." Churchyard, in his Charitie, published in 1595, refers to the preceding year as follows: "A colder time in world was never seene: The skies do lowre, the sun and moone wax dim; Nature thinks scorne to do hir dutie right, Another passage which has been supposed to have a temporary allusion is v. 1. 52: "The thrice three Muses mourning for the death Of Learning, late deceas'd in beggary." Some make this refer to Spenser's Teares of the Muses, 1591; others to Spenser's death (in which case, as that event did not occur until January, 1598-99, the lines must have been an addition to the original text); and others to the death of Robert Greene, in 1592. It is doubtful, however, whether the passage is anything more than an allusion to the general neglect of learning in that day. A Midsummer-Night's Dream was first printed in 1600. The following entry appears on the Register of the Stationers' Company : "8 Oct. 1600 Tho. Fysher] A booke called a Mydsomer nights Dreame." Fisher then brought it out in quarto form, with the following title-page : "A | Midsommer nights | dreame. | As it hath beene sundry times publickely acted, by the Right honourable, the Lord Chamberlaine his | seruants. | Written by William Shakespeare. | Imprinted at London, for Thomas Fisher, and are to be soulde at his shoppe, at the Signe of the White Hart, in Fleetestreete. 1600." In the same year another quarto edition appeared with this title : "A Midsommer nights | dreame. | As it hath beene sundry times publikely acted, by the Right Honourable, the Lord Chamberlaine his | seruants. | VVritten by VVilliam Shakespeare. Printed by Iames Roberts, 1600." This edition appears, from internal evidence, to be a re It is curious that Churchyard, in the preface to his volume, remarks: "A great nobleman told me this last wet sommer, the weather was too colde for poets." Shakespeare did not find it so, if he wrote this play at that time. |