264 SMYTH — PERICLES AND APOLLONIUS. [Oct. 7, 



portant differences. The changes are chiefly in spelling and in 

 punctuation. 



The fourth quarto (1619) was probably published in consequence 

 of the revival of interest in Pericles owing to the performance of 

 the play at court. 



No Shakespearian play, save one or two Histories, was so many 

 times printed in quarto. Sir William Davenant's company acted 

 the play between 1660 and 167 1, and, according to Downes, 

 ''Roscius Anglicanus," Pericles was a favorite part with Better- 

 ton. 



Why did not John Heminge and Henry Condell see fit to 

 include Pericles in the first folio ? The attempt to answer the 

 question opens the whole problem of Shakespeare's part in the 

 authorship of the play. Its first appearance in folio is in 1664, 

 and the editors of that edition seem to have used the quarto of 

 1635 (this is the opinion of the Cambridge editors). 



Three theories concerning the authorship of Pericles have 

 received the critical attention of Shakespearian scholars. Accord- 

 ing to the first theory, Shakespeare is the sole author of Pe^-icles 

 but the play combines two periods of his life. In other words, it 

 was taken up, as Staunton believed, soon after its appearance in 

 1590 and experimented upon by Shakespeare in his youth; then 

 from some inexplicable cause it was cast aside, only to be resumed 

 and completed after a lapse of twenty years. Malone, who ad- 

 vanced this hypothesis, afterwards abandoned it. Charles Knight 

 restated it, but, in defiance of the contemporary accounts of it as a 

 ^' new play " in 1 608, insisted upon its having been acted at the outset 

 of Shakespeare's career. If it had been played so early would 

 Meres have forgotten to mention it when he named Shakespeare's 

 plays in 1598? Prof. Paul Stapfer, the learned author of 6'/;^/C^j;/!'<?/'<? 

 et V Antiquiie, a work crowned by the French Academy, is a be- 

 liever in this theory, drawn to it, I think, by his friend Hugo the 

 Younger whose opinion he quotes. 



Now can we hazard a conjecture as to why Shakespeare in his 

 age dipped his arm into his wallet and fumbled about after this 

 relic of his immaturity? Gervinus suggests that Shakespeare may 

 have chosen it in order to give his friend Burbage the admirable 

 title role. But Burbage's time of flourishing is identical with 

 Shakespeare's maturity, and Gervinus could not believe that at that 

 period Shakespeare could have written a play so faulty both in plot 



