publication, but was locked up from the press under a "stay." _The
Merry Wives of Windsor_ was probably then in being also, though not
printed till 1602. And a recent discovery ascertains that _Twelfth
Night_ was played in February, 1602. The original form of _Hamlet_,
too, is known to have been written before 1603. Adding, then, the six
plays now heard of for the first time, to the eighteen mentioned
before, we have twenty-four plays written before the Poet had finished
his thirty-eighth year.

The great Queen died on the 24th of March, 1603. We have abundant
proof that she was, both by her presence and her purse, a frequent and
steady patron of the Drama, especially as its interests were
represented by "the Lord Chamberlain's servants." Everybody, no doubt,
has heard the tradition of her having been so taken with Falstaff in
_King Henry the Fourth_, that she requested the Poet to continue the
character through another play, and to represent him in love;
whereupon he wrote _The Merry Wives of Windsor_. Whatever
embellishments may have been added, there is nothing incredible in the
substance of the tradition; while the approved taste and judgment of
this female king, in matters of literature and art, give it strong
likelihoods of truth.

Elizabeth knew how to unbend in such noble delectations without
abating her dignity as a queen, or forgetting her duty as the mother
of her people. If the patronage of King James fell below hers in
wisdom, it was certainly not lacking in warmth. One of his first acts,
after reaching London, was to order out a warrant from the Privy Seal
for the issuing, of a patent under the Great Seal, whereby the Lord
Chamberlain's players were taken into his immediate patronage under
the title of "The King's Servants." The instrument names nine players,