Page:Twelfth Night (1922) Yale.djvu/124

The earliest definite account of the performance of Twelfth Night is given, under date of February 2, 1601–2, in the diary of John Manningham, of the Middle Temple, London:

'At our feast wee had a play called "Twelue Night, or What you Will," much like the Commedy of Errores, or Menechmi in Plautus, but most like and neere to that in Italian called Inganni. A good practise in it to make the Steward beleeve his lady widowe was in love with him, by counterfeyting a letter as from his Lady in generall termes, telling him what shee liked best in him, and prescribing his gesture in smiling, his apparaile, etc., and then when he came to practise making him beleeue they tooke him to be mad.'

The reference to Olivia as a 'widowe' may be due to Manningham's faulty recollection of the exact cause of her mourning or to possible variations in Shakespeare's original text from that later established in the Folio of 1623. This latter theory may perhaps gain color from the fact that, in Riche's Apolonius and Silla, Julina (Olivia) is represented as in mourning for her deceased husband.

Twelfth Night is not among the plays of Shakespeare listed by Meres in 1598. Manningham's explicit account of the plot points to the probable novelty of the comedy when it was chosen for production at the Middle Temple, though it by no means establishes that performance as actually the earliest. It has been conjectured that Shakespeare himself may have played the part either of Malvolio or of Orsino at the Middle Temple festival. Manning-