Читать книгу Notes and Queries, Number 15, February 9, 1850 - Various - Страница 2

I regret that my communication (No. 13. p. 194.), on the subject of the authorship of The Taming of a Shrew, was too late to be of any avail for the already-published new edition of Marlowe’s works; and, had I been aware of such being the case, I should have waited until I had had an opportunity of seeing a work whose editor may entertain views in ignorance of which, to my disadvantage, I am still writing. It is, perhaps, a still greater disadvantage that I should appear to depend for proofs upon a bare enumeration of parallel passages; when I know that the space I should require for the purposes of stating the case fully and fairly, and, as I think, conclusively, would be utterly inconsistent with that brevity which must be with you an essential condition; while, at the same time, I know of no medium through which I am so likely to enlist the attention of a “fit audience” as your publication. Premising that my references are to The Taming of a Shrew in “Six Old Plays,” 1799, and to Marlowe’s Works, edit. 1826, I proceed to indicate such passages as a rapid glance through the respective works, aided by some previous acquaintance with the subject, and a not very bad memory, furnished. Some of the parallels will be found identical; in others, the metaphors will be found to be the same, with the expression more or less varied; and in others, again, particular expressions are the same, though the tenor of the phrase be different. It will be observed that the quotations of Marlowe are exclusively from Dr. Faustus and Tamburlaine. Of the longer passages I have given merely the first line for reference; and I have numbered them for the convenience of comparison:—

THE TAMING OF A SHREW

MARLOWE

Leaving the question in this position for the present, I shall be glad of such information from any of your readers as may tend to throw a light on the date of Shakspeare’s Taming of the Shrew. I find Mr. Collier’s opinion expressed in the following words:—

“The great probability is that Hamlet was written at the earliest in 1601, and the Taming of the Shrew perhaps came from the pen of its author not very long afterwards.”

I am anxious to ascertain whether I am acquainted with all the circumstances on which the above opinion is founded; as those which I can, at this moment, recall, are to my mind hardly sufficiently conclusive. Rejecting the supposed allusion to Heywood’s Woman Kill’d with Kindness, which I see, by a note, Mr. Collier gives up as untenable ground, the facts, I believe, remain as follows:—

First: The Taming of the Shrew was not mentioned by Meres in 1598, whereupon it is assumed that “had it been written, he could scarcely have failed to mention it.” And,

Second: it must have been written after Hamlet, because the name Baptista, used incorrectly in that play as a feminine name, is properly applied to a man in this. And these, I believe, are all. Now, the first of these assumptions I answer, by asking, “Does it follow?” Of all Shakspeare’s plays which had then appeared, only three had been published before 1598, and not one comedy. Meres, in all probability, had no list to refer to, nor was he making one: he simply adduced, in evidence of his assertion of Shakspeare’s excellence, both in tragedy and comedy, such plays of both kinds as he could recollect, or the best of those which he did recollect. Let us put the case home; not in reference to any modern dramatist (though Shakspeare in his own day was not the great exception that he stands with us), but to the world-honoured poet himself, who has founded a sort of religion in us: I, for my part, would not be bound not to omit, in a hasty enumeration, and having no books to refer to, more important works than the Taming of the Shrew. In short, the omission by Meres proves no more than that he either did not think of the play, or did not think it necessary to mention it. To the second assumption, I answer that the date of the first Hamlet is “not proven:” it may have been an early play. From the play of Hamlet, in its earlier form, is the name Baptiste, where it is used in conjunction with Albertus, taken; the scene mentioned is Guiana; and there is nothing to lead one to suppose that the name is used as an Italian name at all. Both the date of Hamlet, therefore, and—whichever way decided—the conclusion drawn from the supposed mistake, I regard as open questions. There is yet another circumstance which Mr. Collier thinks may strengthen his conclusion with regard to the date of this play. He refers to the production of Dekker’s Medicine for a Curst Wife, which he thinks was a revival of the old Taming of a Shrew, brought out as a rival to Shakspeare’s play. This is easily answered. In the first place, Katharine, the Shrew, is not a “curst wife:” she becomes a wife, it is true, in the course of the play; but this is a part of the process of taming her. But what seems at once to disprove it is, that, according to Henslow’s account, Dekker was paid 10l. 10s. for the piece in question; as Mr. Collier observes, an “unusually large sum” for a new piece, and not likely to be paid for the bashing up of an old one. I am thus left entirely without a clue, derivable from external evidence, to the date of this play; and shall be glad to know if there is any thing, throwing light upon the point, which I may have overlooked. That more important consequences are involved in this question than appear upon the face of it, I think I shall be able to show in a future communication; and this is my excuse for trespassing so much upon your space and your readers’ patience.

SAMUEL HICKSON.

St. John’s Wood, Jan. 26. 1850.