_Date._ From the language of this play I feel inclined to place its date near that of Julius Cæsar. It is true that "A Booke called Anthony and Cleopatra," which may have been this play, was entered in the Stationers' Registers, May 20th, 1608; but it seems never to have appeared, and that entry is no proof that the play may not have been acted some years before that date. _Origin._ Life of Antonius in North's Plutarch. KING LEAR. _Edition._ 4to, 1608; 4to, 1608; 4to, 1608; in the folio, 1623. _Date._ Certainly posterior to 1603, in which year appeared Harsnet's Discovery of Popish Impostures, from which Shakespeare evidently took the names of the fiends mentioned by Edgar. There is an entry of it in the Stationers' Registers, November 26th, 1607, in which it is stated that it had been played before the King on the night of St. Stephen's Day in the preceding year. The latest date of its composition, then, that we can suppose is 1606. _Origin._ Hollinshed, Mirror of Magistrates, and an old play on the same subject. The episode of Gloster and his sons was taken from Sidney's Arcadia, ii. 10. MACBETH. _Edition._ Only in the folio, 1623. _Date._ Dr. Forman states in his MS. Diary that he saw this play "at the Globe, 1610, the 20th of April, Saturday;" but it does not follow by any means that it was then a new play. I agree with Mr. Collier in thinking that the mention of "twofold balls and treble sceptres" should induce us to place it not very far from the accession of James I. (Oct. 24, 1604), and therefore in 1605 or 1606. Malone thought there was an allusion (in II. 3) to the state of the corn-market in 1606, and to the conduct of the Jesuit Garnet on his trial in that year; but this is little more than fancy. _Origin._ Hollinshed's Chronicle. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. _Editions._ 4to, 1609; in the folio, 1623.