PERSONS REPRESENTED. BAPTISTA, a rich gentleman of Padua. VINCENTIO, an old gentleman of Pisa. LUCENTIO, son to Vincentio, in love with Bianca. PETRUCIO, a gentleman of Verona, a suitor to Katharina. PEDANT, an old fellow set up to personate Vincentio. SCENE,-sometimes in PADUA; and sometimes in ، STATE OF THE TEXT, AND CHRONOLOGY, OF THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. entry to "Mr. Ling," of Taminge of a Shrew.' In 1607 Nicholas Ling published a new edition of the play which was printed for "Cuthbert Burbie" in 1594. On the 19th of November, 1607, John Smythick (or Smethwick) entered Hamlet,' Romeo and Juliet,'Love's Labour 's Lost,' and The Taminge of a Shrew.' Smethwick had become, by assignment, the proprietor of Hamlet,' Romeo and Juliet,' and 'Love's Labour 's Lost,' which had previously been published by others; and he ultimately became a proprietor of the first folio. The entry of 1607 might possibly have secured his copyright in Shakspere's Taming of the Shrew,' to which it might have referred, as he enters three others of Shakspere's plays on the same day. But Ling, who did publish the old Taming of a Shrew,' also enters with it 'Love's Labour's Lost,' and 'Romeo and Juliet,' in 1606. The entry of John Smethwick, although not varying from the entry of the preceding year by Ling, of the title of the Taming of a Shrew,' might, as we say, have referred to Shakspere's comedy; but it might also have referred to a transfer of the earlier comedy from Ling. Malone originally assigned 'The Taming of the Shrew' to as late a period as 1606. He was led to this determination by the entry at Stationers' Hall, by Smethwick, in 1607; by the fact that Meres does not mention this play as Shakspere's in his list of 1598; and that the line, "This is the way to kill a wife with kindness," may be taken to allude to the play of Thomas Heywood (of which the second edition appeared in 1607) of A Woman Killed with Kindness.' Malone subsequently assigned this comedy to 1596. Mr. Collier says, Although it is not enumerated by Meres, in 1598, among the plays Shakespeare had then written, and although in Act IV., Scene 1, it contains an allusion to Heywood's Woman Killed with Kindness,' ,'* which was not produced until after 1600, Malone finally fixed upon 1596 as the date when The Taming of the Shrew' was produced. His earlier conjecture of 1606 seems much more probable; and his only reason for changing his mind was that the versification resembled the old comedies antecedent to the time' of Shakespeare, and in this notion he was certainly well-founded."+ Malone's statement, with regard to the internal evidence of the date of this comedy, is somewhat fuller than Mr. *We really doubt whether the line to which Mr. Collier refers can be called an allusion to the title of Heywood's play. It is only the repetition of a common expression, from which expression, we believe, Heywood's play took its title. + History of Dramatic Poetry, p. 78. Collier's quotation:-"I had supposed the piece now under consideration to have been written in the year 1606. On a more attentive perusal of it, and more experience in our author's style and manner, I am persuaded that it was one of his very early productions, and near, in point of time, to 'The Comedy of Errors,' Love's Labour's Lost,' and 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona.' In the old comedies, antecedent to the time of our author's writing for the stage, (if, indeed, they deserve that name,) a kind of doggrel measure is often found, which, as I have already observed, Shakspeare adopted in some of those pieces which were undoubtedly among his early compositions: I mean his 'Errors,' and 'Love's Labour's Lost.' This kind of metre, being found also in the play before us, adds support to the supposition that it was one of his early productions." Mr. Collier, however, doubts whether The Taming of the Shrew' can be treated altogether as one of Shakspere's performances:-" I am satisfied," he says, "that more than one hand (perhaps at distant dates) was concerned in it, and that Shakespeare had little to do with any of the scenes in which Katharine and Petruchio are not engaged." Farmer had previously expressed the same opinion, declaring the Induction to be in our poet's best manner, and a great part of the play in his worst, or even below it. To this Steevens replies "I know not to whom I could impute this comedy, if Shakspeare was not its author. I think his hand is visible in almost every scene, though perhaps not so evidently as in those which pass between Katharine and Petruchio." Mr. Collier judges that "the underplot much resembles the dramatic style of William Haughton, author of an extant comedy, called Englishmen for my Money,' which was produced prior to 1598." We have no hesitation in agreeing with Steevens. It will be necessary for us, in the first instance, to take a connected view of the supposed obligations of the writer of The Taming of the Shrew' to the play which we have already mentioned; and this examination will dispose of that section of our Introductory Notice which we usually give under the head of " Supposed Sources of the Plot." 'The Taming of a Shrew' first appeared in 1594, under the following title:-'A pleasant conceited Historie called the taming of a Shrew. As it was sundry times acted by the Right honourable the Earle of Pembrooke his servants. Printed at London by Peter Short, and are to be sold by Cuthbert Burbie, at his shop at the Royal Exchange, 1594.'* The comedy opens with an Induction, * We copy this title from Mr. Collier's History of Dramatic Poetry.' This |