4

attacked for fome deviations from him in the conduct of it: when probably all he knew of the matter was from madam Isabella in the Heptameron of Whetstone. Ariofto is continually quoted for the fable of Much ado about nothing; but I suspect our poet to have been fatisfied with the Geneura of Turberville. As you like it was certainly borrowed, if we believe Dr. Grey, and Mr. Upton, from the Coke's Tale of Gamelyn; which by the way was not printed till a century afterward: when in truth the old bard, who was no hunter of MSS. contented himself folely with Lodge's Rofalynd, or Euphues' Golden Legacye, quarto, 1590. The ftory of All's well that ends well, or, as I fuppofe it to have been fometimes called, Love's Labour Wonne, is originally indeed the property of Boccace, but it came

6

4 Lond. 4to. 1582. She reports in the fourth dayes exercife, the rare Hiftorie of Promos and Caffandra. A marginal note informs us, that Whetstone was the author of the Commedie on that fubject; which likewife might have fallen into the hands of Shakspeare.

"The tale is a pretie comical matter, and hath bin written in English verfe fome few years paft, learnedly and with good grace, by M. George Turberuil. Harrington's Ariofto, fol. 1591. p. 39.

See Meres's Wits Treafure, 1598. p. 282.

7 Our ancient poets are under greater obligations to Boccace, than is generally imagined. Who would fufpect, that Chaucer hath borrowed from an Italian the facetious tale of the Miller of Trumpington?

Mr. Dryden obferves on the epick performance, Palamon and Arcite, a poem little inferior in his opinion to the Iliad or the Eneid, that the name of its author is wholly loft, and Chaucer is now become the original. But he is mistaken: this too was the work of Boccace, and printed at Ferrara in folio, con il commento di Andrea Baffi, 1475. I have seen a

immediately to Shakspeare from Painter's Giletta of Narbon. Mr. Langbaine could not conceive, whence the ftory of Pericles could be taken," not meeting in history with any fuch Prince of Tyre;" yet his legend may be found at large in old Gower, under the name of Appolynus."

Pericles is one of the plays omitted in the latter editions, as well as the early folios, and not improperly; though it was published many years before the death of Shakspeare, with his name in the title-page. Aulus Gellius informs us, that fome plays are afcribed abfolutely to Plautus, which he only re-touched and polished; and this is undoubtedly the cafe with our author likewife. The revival of this performance, which Ben Jonfon calls ftale and mouldy, was probably his earliest attempt in the drama. I know, that another of thefe difcarded pieces, The Yorkshire Tragedy, hath been frequently called fo; but most certainly it was not written by our poet at all: nor indeed was it printed in his life-time. The fact on which it is built, was perpetrated no fooner than 1604: much too late for

copy of it, and a tranflation into modern Greek, in the noble library of the very learned and communicative Dr. Afkew.

It is likewife to be met with in old French, under the title of La Théféide de Jean Boccace, contenant les belles & chaftes amours de deux jeunes Chevaliers Thébains Arcite & Palemon.

8 In the firft Vol. of the Palace of Pleasure, 4to. 1566. 9 Confeffio Amantis, printed by T. Berthelet, fol. 1532. p. 175, &c.

2

"William Caluerley, of Caluerley in Yorkshire, Efquire, murdered two of his owne children in his owne house, then ftabde his wife into the body with full intent to haue killed her, and then inftantlie with like fury went from his house,

fo mean a performance from the hand of Shakspeare.

Sometimes a very little matter detects a forgery. You may remember a play called The Double Falfhood, which Mr. Theobald was defirous of palming upon the world for a pofthumous one of Shakspeare: and I fee it is claffed as fuch in the laft edition of the Bodleian catalogue. Mr. Pope himself, after all the ftrictures of Scriblerus, in à letter to Aaron Hill, supposes it of that age; but a mistaken accent determines it to have been written fince the middle of the laft century:

This late example

Of base Henriquez, bleeding in me now,
From each good aspect takes away my truft."

And in another place,

You have an aspect, fir, of wondrous wifdom."

The word afpect, you perceive, is here accented on the first syllable, which, I am confident, in any fense of it, was never the cafe in the time of Shakspeare; though it may fometimes appear to be fo, when we do not observe a preceding elifion.

to haue flaine his yongeft childe at nurfe, but was preuented. Hee was preft to death in Yorke. the 5 of Auguft, 1604.1 Edm. Howes' Continuation of John Stowe's Summarie, 8vo. 1607, p. 574. The flory appeared before in a 4to. pamphlet, 1605. It is omitted in the folio chronicle, 1631.

3 Thefe, however, he affures Mr. Hill, were the property of Dr. Arbuthnot.

+ Thus a line in Hamlet's defcription of the Player, fhould be printed as in the old folios:

Tears in his eyes, diftraction in's afpéct." agreeably to the accent in a hundred other places.

Some of the profeffed imitators of our old poets have not attended to this and many other minutia : I could point out to you several performances in the refpective ftyles of Chaucer, Spenfer, and Shakspeare, which the imitated bard could not poífibly have either read or conftrued.

This very accent hath troubled the annotators on Milton. Dr. Bentley observes it to be "a tone different from the prefent ufe." Mr. Manwaring, in his Treatife of Harmony and Numbers, very folemnly informs us, that "this verse is defective both in accent and quantity, B. III. v. 266:

His words here ended, but his meek afpéct • Silent yet spake.

Here (fays he) a fyllable is acuted and long, whereas it fhould be short and graved!"

And a ftill more extraordinary gentleman, one Green, who published a specimen of a new verfion of the Paradife Loft, into BLANK verse, by which that amazing work is brought somewhat nearer the fummit of perfection," begins with correcting a blunder in the fourth book, v. 540:

Slowly defcended, and with right aspéct —
Levelĺ'd his evening rays.

Not fo in the new version:

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Enough of fuch commentators.The celebrated Dr. Dee had a fpirit, who would fometimes condefcend to correct him, when peccant in quantity:

and it had been kind of him to have a little affifted the wights abovementioned.-Milton affected the antique; but it may feem more extraordinary, that the old accent should be adopted in Hudibras.

After all, The Double Falfhood is fuperior to Theobald. One paffage, and one only in the whole play, he pretended to have written:

But touch the ftrings with a religious softness :
Teach found to languifh through the night's dull ear,
Till melancholy start from her lazy couch,
And carelessness grow convert to attention.'

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These lines were particularly admired; and his vanity could not refift the opportunity of claiming them: but his claim had been more eafily allowed to any other part of the performance.

To whom then shall we afcribe it ?-Somebody hath told us, who fhould feem to be a noftrummonger by his argument, that, let accents be how they will, it is called an original play of William Shakspeare in the King's Patent prefixed to Mr. Theobald's edition, 1728, and confequently there could be no fraud in the matter. Whilft, on the contrary, the Irish laureat, Mr. Victor, remarks, (and were it true, it would be certainly decifive) that the plot is borrowed from a novel of Cervantes, not published till the year after Shakspeare's death. But unluckily the fame novel appears in a part of Don Quixote, which was printed in Spanish, 1605, and in English by Shelton, 1612.-The fame reafoning however, which exculpated our author from The Yorkshire Tragedy, may be applied on the prefent occafion.