saw with the one
now under consideration. It seems that the benchers and members of the
several Inns-of-Court were wont to enrich their convivialities with a
course of wit and poetry. And the forecited notice ascertains that
Shakespeare's _Twelfth Night_ was performed before the members of the
Middle Temple on the old Church festival of the Purification, formerly
called Candlemas;--an important link in the course of festivities that
used to continue from Christmas to Shrovetide. We thus learn that one
of the Poet's sweetest plays was enjoyed by a gathering of his learned
and studious contemporaries, at a time when this annual jubilee had
rendered their minds congenial and apt, and when Christians have so
much cause to be happy and gentle and kind, and therefore to cherish
the convivial delectations whence kindness and happiness naturally
grow.

As to the date of the composition, we have little difficulty in fixing
this somewhere between the time when the play was acted at the Temple,
and the year 1598. In Act iii., scene 2, when Malvolio is at the
height of his ludicrous beatitude, Maria says of him, "He does smile
his face into more lines than are in the new map, with the
augmentation of the Indies." In 1598 was published an English version
of _Linschoten's Discourse of Voyages_, with a map exactly answering
to Maria's description. Nor is any such multilineal map known to have
appeared in England before that time. Besides, that was the first map
of the world, in which the _Eastern Islands_ were included. So that
the allusion can hardly be to any thing else; and the words _new map_
would seem to infer that the passage was written not long after the
appearance of the map in question.

Again: In Act iii., scene 1, the Clown says to Viola, "But, indeed,
words are very rascals, since bonds disgraced them." This may be
fairly understood as referring to an order issued by the Privy Council
in June, 1600, and laying very severe restrictions upon stage
performances. This order prescribes that "there shall be about the
city two houses and no more, allowed to serve for the use of common
stage plays"; that "the two several companies of players, assigned
unto the two houses allowed, may play each of them in their several
houses twice a-week, and no oftener"; and that "they shall forbear
altogether in the time of Lent, and likewise at such time and times as
any extraordinary sickness or infection of disease shall appear to be
in