Page:Poet Lore, volume 1, 1889.djvu/146

The Title of the Play.—Meres, in his list of 1598, calls it "his Gētlmē of Verona;" and Halliwell-Phillipps ("Outlines," 7th ed. ii. 284) says: "It is not impossible that [this] was the original designation of the comedy, one by which it was generally known in the profession; and, at a later period, Kirkman, who was intimately connected with the stage, inserts it, with a similar title, in a catalogue which first appeared in 1661." Ward ("Hist, of Eng. Dram. Lit.," i. 376) remarks: "The title of the play may have been suggested by the second title of Munday's 'Fidele and Fortunatus' (entered at Stationers' Hall, 1584): 'Two Italian Gentlemen.'"

The Date of the Play.—1. What external evidence as to the date? [In Meres's list the play is the first of the six comedies mentioned. No other allusion to it, prior to its publication in the folio of 1623, has been discovered.]

2. What internal evidence? Sundry supposed allusions to historical events, etc., have been pointed out; but these are all more or less doubtful, and differently interpreted by the critics who cite them. The very general reference to Elizabethan times in i. 3. 8, 9—

has been connected with Essex (1591), Lancaster, Hawkins, and Gilbert (1594), Raleigh (1595), et al. The expression (ii. i. 20), "like one that hath the pestilence," has been supposed to refer to the plague of 1583 and to that of 1593. The allusions to Hero and