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THE

DRAMATICK WRITINGS

Q F

a

WILL. SHAKSPERE,

With the Notes of all the various Commentators;

PRINTED COMPLETE FROM THE BEST EDITIONS OF

SAM. JOHNSON and GEO. STEEVENS.

Wolume the Eighth.

CONTAINING

TAMING of the SHREW.

ALL's WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

LONDON:

Printed for, and under the Direction of,

JOHN BELL, British Library, STRAND,
Bookseller to His Royal Highness the PRINCE of WALES.

M DCC LXXXVIII.

TAMING of the SHREW,

BY

WILL. SHAKSPERE:

Printed Complete from the TEXT of

SAM. JOHNSON and GEO. STEEVENS,
And revised from the last Editions.

When Learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foes
First rear'd the Stage, immortal SHAKSPERE rose;
Each change of many-colour'd life he drew,
Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new:
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
And panting Time toil'd after him in vain:
His pow'rful strokes presiding Truth confess'd,
And unresisted Passion storm'd the breast.

DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

LONDON:

Printed for, and under the direction of,

JOHN BELL, British-Library, STRAND, Bookseller to his Royal Highness the PRINCE of WALES.

MDCCLXXXV.

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ON THE Fable AND Composition OF THE

TAMING of the SHREW.

We have hitherto supposed Shakspere the author of the Taming of the Shrew, but his property in it is extremely disputable. I will give my opinion, and the reasons on which it is founded. I suppose then the present play not originally the work of Shakspere, but restored by him to the stage, with the whole induction of the Tinker; and some other occasional improvements; especially in the character of Petruchio. It is very obvious that the Induction and the Play were either the works of different hands, or written at a great interval of time. The former is in our author's best manner, and a great part of the latter in his worst, or even below it. Dr. Warburton declares it to be certainly spurious; and without doubt supposing it to have been written by Shakspere, it must have been one of his earliest productions. Yet it is not mentioned in the list of his works by Meres, in 1598.

I have met with a facetious piece of Sir John Harrington, printed in 1596 (and possibly there may be an earlier edition), called The Metamorphoses of Ajax, where I suspect an allusion to the old play; "Read the Booke of Taming a Shrew, which hath made a number of us so perfect, that now every one can rule a shrew in our countrey, save he that hath hir.”—I am

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