Th as being the most probable date. second in the list of Shakespeare's pla Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia, or completed for the press about June an Stationers' Register in September, 1598 follows: "As Plautus and Seneca are a for comedy and Tragedy among the L speare among the English is the most exce for the stage; for comedy, witness his G his Errors, his Love Labors Lost, his Lov his Midsummers Night Dream, and his M for tragedy, his Richard the 2, Richard King John, Titus Andronicus, and his Meres here gives us the true title of the pla The Errors. The play then was clearly 1598. Further, it is highly probable t referred to by Meres, is identical with Errors" mentioned in a somewhat rare Grayorum; or the History of Henry, P printed by Nichols in Progresses of Queer (ed. 1823). "Prince Henry" was Henry man of Norfolk, the Lord of Misrule at the revels of 1594, and his full style is "The High and Mighty Prince Henry, Arch Duke of Stapulia and Bernardia, Nether Holborn, Marquis of St. Gile Count Palatine of Bloomesbury and Cler of the Cantons of Islington, Kentish To Knights-Bridge, Knight of the Most He Helmet, and Sovereign of the same: wh Errors stands s mentioned by Wit's Treasurie, entered on the He writes as counted the best tines, so Shakeent in both kinds Etleme of Verona, Labours Wonne, erchant of Venice; he 3, Henry the 4, Romeo and Juliet." y, which is simply n existence before hat "his Errors," the "Comedy of book called Gesta Prince of Purpoole; Elizabeth, iii. 362 ✔ Helmes, a gentleGray's Inn during s quaintly given as Prince of Purpoole, Duke of High and es and Tottenham, kenwell, Great Lord Own, Paddington and Teroical Order of the who reigned and died A.D. 1594." This volume contains a contemporary account of the performance of The Errors. The particular references are as follows: "Besides the daily Revels and such like Sports, which were usual, there were intended divers Grand nights for the Entertainment of strangers." On the second grand night, 28th December, the players came over from Shoreditch to entertain the guests, but the spectators were too numerous to allow of proper space for the performance. The guests from the Temple retired "discontented and displeased. After their departure the throngs and tumults did somewhat cease, although so much of them continued as was able to disorder and confound any good Inventions whatsoever. In regard whereof, as also for that the sports intended were especially for the gracing the Templarians, it was thought good not to offer anything of Account saving Dancing and Revelling with Gentlewomen; and after such sports, a Comedy of Errors (like to Plautus his Menechmus) was played by the Players; so that night was begun and continued to the end, in nothing but Confusion and Errors; whereupon it was ever afterwards called The Night of Errors." The expression "played by the Players" must have reference to a performance by the Chamberlain's servants, which was on the 28th December, the "servants' most probably including Shakespeare himself; and it is somewhat singular, as Fleay points out, in his Life and Works of Shakespeare, p. 125, that this performance should also have been given apparently by the same company as that which we know played before the Queen at Greenwich 1886. 1 See Gray's Inn, its History and Associations, by W. R. Douthwaite, b xvi on the same date and possibly in the same ece. It would int of view, be not to change supposition as le scope of the The Comedy of t was obviously William Shake But while put sential that the ion and to the an audience of -re suitable than ounded as it was the unities and . If this be so, early anterior to easure confirmed tests, viz., the Theobald, to the nce. Dromio of kitchen-wench to replying to the dy he had found I reverted, making on heir and hair is e of this with an -France had apessor; and in 1593 ance as Henry IV. In 1591 Elizabeth had sent an expedition under Sir John Norris and the Earl of Essex to Henry's aid-a step undoubtedly dictated by the popular enthusiasm in England for the Protestant cause. The jest in the play would have fallen flat after July, 1593, when peace was made; and the reference, to have any striking dramatic point, must have been penned sometime between 1589 and 1593; most probably in the autumn or winter of 1591-2, shortly after the expedition was sent, and when the event was still fresh in men's minds. Dr. Johnson emphasises the other, and ribald, side of the quibble, when he says, "Our author, in my opinion, only sports with an allusion, in which he takes too much delight, and means that his mistress had the French disease. The ideas are rather too offensive to be dilated. By a forehead armed, he means covered with incrusted eruptions: by reverted, he means having the hair turning backward." The reader may be left to judge for himself of the correctness and propriety of this explanation. The reference (III. ii. 140) to Spain sending "whole armadoes of caracks" naturally follows on the preceding reference to the civil war in France, and may well refer to the great Armada of 1588; and also tends to support an early date such as 1591-2. Shakespeare, as in the case of the MidsummerNight's Dream and other plays, was undoubtedly quick to discern and apply current events for his special dramatic purposes. In order, therefore, that this undoubted reference may have the necessary dramatic point, we must perforce hold that the play was written and produced shortly after the expedition of Norris and Essex in 1591. With reference to the anterior limit, 1589, it may be pointed out that Shakespeare's use of the name Menapho "That most famous warrior, Duke Mena renowned uncle," may possibly be a remin rived from the title of Greene's Mena published in 1589. Or Shakespeare may name directly from Menaphon, one of the in Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great. The popularity of Shakespeare's pla standing, if we may judge from another int to it in legal circles. A barrister nam describing certain revels at the Middle T written in February, 1601-2, refers thus to Shakespeare's Twelfth Night: "At our fe called Twelve Night, or what you will, m medy of Errores, or Menechmi in Plautus, neere to that in Italian called Inganni." Further, internal evidence shows that, g the play is marked by all the characteristic This appears from t earliest manner. timid and shadowy nature of his deline in The Errors as contrasted with the characterisation of his later period; from rhymed verse and euphuistic conceits; a ding luxuriance of poetic fancy which is earlier plays, Love's Labour's Lost, The Verona, Romeo and Juliet, and AM Quatrains of alternate rhymes and rh introduced into The Errors, notably i passages of Act III., as in other early pla |