a shepherd; and the King of Bohemia's son married that
wench, and they fled into Sicilia, and by the jewels found about her
she was known to be Leontes' daughter, and was then sixteen years
old."

This clearly identifies the performance seen by Forman as _The
Winter's Tale_ of Shakespeare. It is altogether probable that the play
was then new, and was in its first course of exhibition. For Sir
George Buck became Master of the Revels in October, 1610, and was
succeeded in that office by Sir Henry Herbert in 1623, who passed _The
Winter's Tale_ without examination, on the ground of its being an "old
play formerly allowed by Sir George Buck." As the play had to be
licensed before it could be performed, this ascertains its first
performance to have been after October, 1610. So that _The Winter's
Tale_ was most likely presented for official sanction some time
between that date and the 15th of May following, when Forman saw it
at the Globe. To all this must be added the internal characteristics
of the play itself, which is in the Poet's ripest and most idiomatic
style of art. It is not often that the date of his workmanship can be
so closely remarked. _The Winter's Tale_ was never printed, so far as
we know, till it appeared in the folio of 1623.

* * * * *

In the plot and incidents of this play, Shakespeare followed very
closely the _Pandosto_, or, as it was sometimes called, the _Dorastus
and Fawnia_, of Robert Greene. This novel appears to have been one of
the most popular books of the time; there being no less than fourteen
old editions of it known, the first of which was in 1588. Greene was a
scholar, a man of some genius, Master of Arts in both the
Universities, and had indeed much more of learning than of judgment in
the use and application of it. For it seems as if he could not write
at all without overloading his pages with classical allusion, nor hit
upon any thought so trite and commonplace, but that he must run it
through a series of aphoristic sentences twisted out of Greek and
Roman lore. In this respect, he is apt to remind one of his
fellow-dramatist, Thomas Lodge, whose _Rosalynd_ contributed so much
to the Poet's _As You Like It_: for it was then much the fashion for
authors to prank up their matter with superfluous erudition. Like all
the surviving works of Greene, _Pandosto_ is greatly charged with
learned impertinence, and in the annoyance thence resulting one is apt
to