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LOVES LABOURS LOST.
INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.
STATE or run Tcxr-, AND CIIRONOLOGY or Lovr:’s LAl30UR'S Losr.“
Triis play was one of the fifteen published in Sl'iakspe1'8'5 lifetime-
The first edition appeared in 1598, under the following title’: “A
pleasant conceited cometlie, called Loues Labors Lost. AS It W3-5
presented before her Highness this last Christina:. Newly corrected
and augmented by W. Shakespere." No subsequent edition appeared
in a separate form till 1631. In the first collected edition of Shak-
spere's plays, the folio of 1623, the text can scarcely be said to differ,
except by accident, from the original quarto. The editors of the
fllst folio without doubt took the quarto as their copy. The manifold
errors of the press in the Latin words of the first edition have not
been corrected in the second. We have still Dt':ti.rz'zIzzz for Dicifymm,
and [ionic for bone. Steevens, in a note to Henry V., observes : “ It is
very certain that authors, in the time of Shakspere, did not correct
the press for themselves. I hardly ever saw, in one of the old plays,
a sentence of either Latin, Italian, or French without the most
ridiculous blunders.” This neglect on the part of dramatic authors
may be accounted for by the fact that the press was not their medium of
publication; but it is remarkable that such errors should have been
perpetuated through four of the collected editions of Shal<spere’s works,
and not have been corrected till the time of Rowe and Theobald.
We have seen, from the title of the first edition of Love’s Labourls
Lost, that when it was presented before Queen Elizabeth, at the
Christmas of 1597, it had been “newly corrected and augmented.”
As no edition of the comedy, before it was corrected and augmented,
is known to exist (though, as in the case of the unique Hamlet of 1603,
one may some day be discovered), we have no proof that the few
allusions to temporary circuinstances, which are supposed in some
degree to fix the date of the play, may not apply to the augmented
copy only. Thus, when Moth refers to “the dancing horse” who
was to teach Arinado how to reckon what “deuce-ace amounts to,”
the fact that Banks’s horse (See Illustrations to Act 1. Scene II.) first
appeared in London in 1589 does not prove that the original play
might not have been written before 1589. This date gives it an
earlier appearance than Malone would assign to it, who first settled
it as x5i;r, and afterwards as 1594. A supposed allusion to
“The Metamorphosis of Ajax,” by Sir John Harrington, printed in
1596, is equally unimportant with reference to the original compo.
sition of the play. The “finished representation of colloquial excel.
Ieirce”1- in the beginning of the fifth act is supposed to be an
imitation of a passage in Sidney's “Arcadia,” first
The passage might have been introduced in the
say nothing of the fact that the “ Arcadia”
printed in 1590.
augmented copy; to
l . was known in manuscript
before it was printed. Lastly, the masque in the fifth act where the
,
King and his-lords appear in Russian habits, and the allusion to
Muscovites which this masque produces, are supposed by Vvarbui-ton
to have been suggested by the public concern for the settlement gfa
treaty of commerce with Russia, in r 591. But the learned coin-
rnentator overlooks a passage in Hall's "‘ Chronicles,” which shews
.r l,ziLmir‘: Last. The title or this
: "lam: Labirur‘: I.o.n‘.“ The mode '
edition, and in the earlier copies, lcadsus
call his play H Love's Labour is Lost."
or the gcniihc case in these instances-“ 21:: [Lima
i’t'.';lit.r g)I!!1Nl,”e(S0 primed). But when the verb
J
that amasque of Muscovites was a court recreation in the time at
Henry VIII.t
there is nothing whatever to disprove the theory which we entertain,
that before it had been “ corrected and augmented,” Love’s Labour's
Lost was one of the plays produced by Shaksperc about 1589, when,
being only twenty-five years of age, he was a joint proprietor in the
Bl:1cl:friars Theatre. The r'7zlrz7z:i: evidence appears to us entirely '
to support this opinion ; and as this evidence involves several curious
particulars of literary history, we have to request the reader’sindi.il-
gence whilst we examine it somewhat in detail.
drama ’%“a young author’s iirst work ”-says: “The characters in
this play are either impersonated out of Shaksperc‘s own niultiformiiy
by imaginative selfposition, or 011! of wt]: as a totmlry-Iorrm and It
rrlzoollwyh‘ ob.rcrzvalio1z mzgrlzt .ru[51>ly.’$ For this production, Shak-
spere, it is presumed, found neither characters nor plot in any
previous romance or drama. “ I have not hitherto discovered," says
Steevens, “any novel on which this comedy appears to have been
founded; and yet the story of it has most of the features of an
ancient romance." Steevens might have more correctly said that die
story has most of the features which would be derived from an
acquaintance with the ancient romances. The action of the comedy,
and the higher actors, are the creations of one who was imbued with
the romantic spirit of the middle ages-who was conversant “ with
their Courts of Love and all that lighter drapery of chivalry which
engaged even mighty kings with a sort of serio-comic interest, and
may well be supposed to. have occupied more completely the
smaller princes.”[[ Our poet himself, in this play, alludes to the
Spanish romances of chivalry :- ’
With these materials, and out of his own “
might Slllkspere have readily produced the King and Princess, the
lords and ladies,
tone of the Court of Elizabeth,
forced attempts to say and d
contact with the society which was accessible to him after his fame
conferred distinction even u
patron. The more ludicrou
tionably within the range of ‘
The historical events which 31-
“ Monastery ” must have hap
authorit;7?)f the unhappy Qu
foot '3)’ Murray and her reb
personal liberty,
the apostrophe is in“.
"“'5el"'e5 Justified. therefore, in
Labours Lost,”
In the extrinsic evidence, therefore, which this comedy supplies,
Coleridge, who always speaks of this comedy as a. “juvenile
“ This child of fancy that Armada higlit,
For interim to our studies, shall relate
In high-born words the worth of many a knight
From tawny Spain, lost in the world's debate." '
imaginative self-position,"
of this comedy ;-eand he might have caught the
-the wit, the play upon words, the
o clever things,-without any actual
pon the highest and most accomplished
5 characters of the drama were unques-
‘ a schoolboy‘s observation."
And ‘list: Of Don Armado, whom Scott calls “the Euplrnistfii
e interwoven with the plot of Scott?
pened about 1562 or r563, before the 5
ellious lords; and she had at least the
if not the free will, of :1 supreme ruler. Our great
oduced, as in “Alli: well Ilia! end: will.” “’e do not iliiiil:
printing either “ Lovc‘s Labour Lost," or “ UM.‘
as some 11 -
T Johnson. me mcomniensdgdi - 7
5 Limmry Remains, VOL ii P 10; ee Illustrations to Act V.
ll Coleridge, Literary Rcmnin
11 Introduction to the Monasts’ ml‘ M. p. I04.
cry.
