In Shakespeare’s time there lived in London one Simon Forman, M.D., to whom we are indebted for our earliest notice of THE WINTER’S TALE.  He was rather an odd genius, I should think; being an adept in occult science and the arts of magic, and at the same time an ardent lover of the stage; thus symbolizing at once with the most conservative and the most radical tendencies of the age:  for, strange as it may seem, the Drama then led the van of progress; Shakespeare being even a more audacious innovator in poetry and art than Bacon was in philosophy.  Be this as it may, Forman evidently took great delight in the theatre, and he kept a diary of what he witnessed there.  Not many years ago, the manuscript of this diary was discovered by Mr. Collier in the Ashmolean Museum, and a portion of its contents published.  Forman was at the Globe theatre on Wednesday, the 15th of May, 1611, and under that date he records “how Leontes the King of Sicilia was overcome with jealousy of his wife with the King of Bohemia, his friend that came to see him, and how he contrived his death, and would have had his cup-bearer poison him, who gave the King warning thereof, and fled with him to Bohemia.  Also, how he sent to the oracle of Apollo, and the answer of Apollo was that she was guiltless; and except the child was found again that was lost, the King should die without issue:  for the child was carried into Bohemia, and there laid in a forest, and brought up by a shepherd; and the King of Bohemia’s son married that wench, and they fled into Sicilia, and by the jewels found about her she was known to be Leontes’ daughter, and was then sixteen years old.”

This clearly identifies the performance seen by Forman as The Winter’s Tale of Shakespeare.  It is altogether probable that the play was then new, and was in its first course of exhibition.  For Sir George Buck became Master of the Revels in October, 1610, and was succeeded in that office by Sir Henry Herbert in 1623, who passed The Winter’s Tale without examination, on the ground of its being an “old play formerly allowed by Sir George Buck.”  As the play had to be licensed before it could be performed, this ascertains its first performance to have been after October, 1610.  So that The Winter’s Tale was most likely presented for official sanction some time between that date and the 15th of May following, when Forman saw it at the Globe.  To all this must be added the internal characteristics of the play itself, which is in the Poet’s ripest and most idiomatic style of art.  It is not often that the date of his workmanship can be so closely remarked. The Winter’s Tale was never printed, so far as we know, till it appeared in the folio of 1623.

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