derive from personal allusions. . . have for many years
been lost; and every topic of merriment, or motive of
sorrow, which the modes of artificial life afforded him,
now only obscure the scenes which they once illumin-
ated.' And because we so keenly share Dr. Johnson's
regret we cannot help asking, Must every lost thing re-
main lost? May no corner of the dark curtain of oblivion
be lifted? Or is it possible that materials already at hand
may be put together to make a guide-post to rediscovery
of some part of that lost land?

Let us see what may be done with what we have. To
begin with, Twelfth Night sounds like a comedy written
in the first place for a courtly audience; and authorities
agree that its date must be in or about 1601. Also it is
unique among Shakespeare's plays in having an exact
calendar-date for a title. Twelfth Night is on the Feast
of the Epiphany or the Three Kings, January Sixth. ¹
Crowning the Christmas holidays -- Spenser's Faery
Queen 'kept her annual feast twelve days' -- Twelfth Day
is the last, and held as the greatest day of all.

Another significant fact, noted early in the nineteenth
century, is that Shakespeare's company, the Lord Cham-
berlain's Men, were paid for presenting a play -- title not
recorded -- at Court on Twelfth Night, January 6,
1600/1.

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