A Midsummer-Night's Dream was first printed in 1600, when quarto editions were brought out by two independent publishers, one of which appears, from internal evidence, to be a reprint of the other. The folio text, the only other early one, followed this second quarto, some of its obvious misprints being copied.

The earliest known reference to the play is in the Palladis Tamia of Francis Meres, published in 1598. The date of its composition has been the subject of much controversy, and the decisions of the critics concerning it have been widely divergent, ranging from 1590 to 1598 and including every year between. There can, however, be no reasonable doubt that it was one of the earliest of the plays, and that it belongs to the first group of Shakespeare's comedies. In its present form it

is the bright consummate flower of this group, but, though no early title-page refers to it as "corrected," the internal evidence indicates that it was begun at a very early period in Shakespeare's career as a writer and not finished until several years later, or was finished very early and revised several years later. It is remarkable that only two or three of the critics have recognized this fact. Verplanck, in his edition of the play (New York, 1847), was, I believe, the first (he says he does "not know that it has appeared so to any one else ") to reckon the play as one of those which "were first written in a comparative immaturity of the author's genius, and afterwards received large alterations and additions." He thinks that "the rhyming dialogue, and the peculiarities of much of the versification in those scenes, the elaborate elegance, the quaint conceits, and artificial refinements of thought in the whole episode (if it may be termed so) of Helena and Hermia and their lovers, certainly partake of the taste and manner of the more juvenile comedies [Love's Labour's Lost, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, etc.], while in other poetic scenes 'the strain we hear is of a higher mood,' and belongs to a period of fuller and more conscious power." He therefore concludes that the play "was originally written in a very different form from that in which we now have it, several years before the date of its present shape," and that it "was subsequently remodeled, after a long interval, with the addition of the heroic personages, and all the dialogue between Oberon and Titania, . . . the rhyming

dialogue and the whole perplexity of the Athenian lovers being retained, with slight change, from the more boyish comedy."

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Grant White, ten years later (1857), says of the play: Although as a whole it is the most exquisite, the daintiest, and most fanciful creation that exists in poetry, and abounds in passages worthy even of Shakespeare in his full maturity, it also contains whole scenes which are hardly worthy of his 'prentice hand that wrought Love's Labour's Lost, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and The Comedy of Errors, and which yet bear the unmistakable marks of his unmistakable pen. These scenes are the various interviews between Demetrius and Lysander, Hermia and Helena, in acts ii. and iii. It is difficult to believe that such lines as

and

'Do not say so, Lysander, say not so.

What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?'

'When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?
Is 't not enough, is 't not enough, young man,
That I did never, no, nor never can,' etc.-

it is difficult to believe that these, and many others of a like character which accompany them, were written by Shakespeare after he had produced even Venus and Adonis and the plays mentioned above, and when he could write the poetry of the other parts of this very comedy. There seems, therefore, warrant for the opinion that this drama was one of the very first conceptions of the young poet; that, living in the rural

district where tales of household fairies were rife among his neighbours, memories of these were blended in his youthful reveries with images of the classic heroes that he found in the books which we know he read so eagerly; that perhaps in some midsummer's night he, in very deed, did dream a dream and see a vision of this comedy, and went from Stratford up to London with it partly written; that, when there, he found it necessary at first to forego the completion of it for labour that would find readier acceptance at the theatre; and that afterward, when he had more freedom of choice, he reverted to his early production, and in 1594 worked it up into the form in which it was produced."

Whether this be in all particulars the history of the composition of the play or not, it seems to me the most satisfactory explanation of its peculiarities and inequalities that has been suggested. The crudeness of the versification in the lines that Grant White quotes has no parallel, or anything approaching to a parallel, anywhere else in Shakespeare's work. It is difficult, indeed, to believe that he could have written them even in his schoolboy days. It would seem that they must date back to a period many years before he touched up the Titus Andronicus (if he had anything to do with that play) or the Henry VI. There is not a line so poor, so thin, so palpably and clumsily padded, in either of those patched-up dramas. If possible, they are worse than the best verses of Francis Bacon.

Though we have reason to believe that the play was

popular, few early notices of its representation are extant. According to a manuscript at Lambeth Palace, it was performed at the Bishop of Lincoln's house on Sunday night, September 27th, 1631; but the name of the play is a forgery in a later hand. Archbishop Laud exerted his influence to punish this profanation of the Sabbath; and the following order is taken from a decree made at the time by a self-constituted court among the Puri

tans:

"Likewise wee doe order, that Mr. Wilson, because he was a speciall plotter and contriver of this business, and did in such a brutishe manner acte the same with an asses head, and therefore hee shall, uppon Tuisday next, from six of the clocke in the morning till six of the clocke at night, sitt in the Porter's Lodge at my Lords Bishopps House, with his feete in the stocks, and attyred with his asse head, and a bottle of hay sette before him, and this subscription on his breast : —

Good people I have played the beast,

And brought ill things to passe:

Bottom seems then to have been considered the chief character in the play; and " "The merry conceited humours of Bottom the Weaver" were made into

1 Some critics doubt whether it was Shakespeare's play, as Mr. Wilson is mentioned as the "contriver" of it; but that may refer either to his being responsible for the representation or to his playing the part of Bottom, for which, as we see, he was punished.