or the law which separates those who lie side by side. So in the story of Sigurd and Gunnar, of Amicus and Amelius, &c., where it is the duty towards his friend and step-brother which separates Sigurd, &c.; in the shape of a naked sword from Brunhilda, &c. In the friendship-story, this law is regarded; for the sense of this story is, that love itself, otherwise the mightiest of all passions, cannot move the friend to falsehood against his friend. In the love-story, on the contrary, it is set aside, like every other obstacle, and serves only to blind the good-natured Mark, who now trusts fully in their innocence and continence. We are authorized in making this emblematic application of the sword to the separating influence of moral causes, as we have already applied the wall and the stream in the foregoing stories, since the uniting influence, love, appears emblematized in the love potion which Tristan drinks with Isolde. This symbolical application of the obstacle in the sword is supported by the circumstance that Tristan's end is produced by a wound, though, as the story now stands, this has no farther relation with the incident in the cavern; but at his death are found all the peculiarities, answering to the main idea, which we have already noticed in the preceding stories. For Tristan, in a combat, had been struck in the old wound, which Isolde has once healed, and Isolde only can heal again. He sends a messenger to her with a ring, as a token, bidding him hoist a white sail if he brings her back, and a black one, if she remains behind. Isolde follows the messenger; the white sail waves from the ship; but the other Isolde, named the whitehanded, brings to Tristan, through jealousy, the false report that a black sail is mounted. At this news, Tristan sinks back in despair, his heart breaks, and his beloved, who had been hastening to him, falls senseless upon his corpse.1 Both

her chastity. A burlesque allusion to the custom occurs in the old play of the "Jovial Crew."-ED.

1

See the metrical version of Sir Tristrem, edited by Sir W. Scott, p. 315, and the notes to that curious poem.-ED.

were laid together in one grave, and over Tristan's body was planted a vine, over Isolde's a rose-bush, and these grew one into the other, and could not again be separated. Here, also, love would have conquered all impediments, had not chance or malice had the power to create an error with regard to the beloved object; and hereby the lovers perished, not so much by means of the external world as by means of themselves. The coincidence of this with the preceding stories, already considered, is self-evident: the sail may be compared with the extinguished torch in Hero and Leander; and the whitehanded Isolde with the "lewd nun who blows out the candles in the German ballad. The story of Tristan and Isolde has also this external resemblance with that of Romeo and Juliet, that Isolde, like Juliet, dies of grief on the body of her lover, while Thisbe and Hero put an end to their existence by suicide. But this is wholly accidental, for, in truth, distress destroys both Thisbe and Hero, as it had already slain the lovers entangled in the unhappy error, Romeo, Tristan, Pyramus, and (if our formerly mentioned theory as to the extinguished torch be tenable) Leander also, though some of them anticipated its effect by suicide.

How popular, also, and universally prevalent is the story which expresses the above thought,' is shown (among other proofs) by a tolerably widely-circulated "people's book," entitled "The remarkable history of the Imperial Austrian officer, Herr von Friesland, and of the Lady Theresa von Hartenstein, which happened at Prague in the year 1819— Berlin, Zürngibel," where the same result is found, without any visible external derivation.

1 This subject might be extended to an indefinite length, and illustrated by references to English stories; but not being quite as enthusiastic as the author, or so well able of bearing in mind the remote connexion between the tales and Shakespeare's drama, perhaps it will be better to pass them over with the remark that English readers will, in general, fail to see the utility of tracing out these very remote resemblances.-ED.

C

If the above analysis, however, has shown the coincidence of the four best known love-stories in their most essential points, we must not, on that account, refer them to the same original, nor suspect an external operation of one upon the other. We must rather explain the common features from the idea previously mentioned, which binds all these stories. Doubtless, an unprejudiced consideration of related stories would lead, in the greater number of cases, to a similar result, and would far oftener show an inward connexion, through a common thought, than an outward one, through tradition and relation; though this last case may often occur, and not unfrequently both may act in concert.

With regard to Shakespeare, the comparison we have instituted shows that the story handed down to him, though it was represented simply and unworthily enough in the state in which he received it, yet had in itself an infinitely high value; for it expressed an imperishable true thought, in a highly poetical manner. That Shakespeare's treatment first gave full right to this story, and surrounded it with the lustre in which it deserved to shine, redounds so much to the praise of the poet, that we need not have recourse to improbable conjectures to palliate his close adherence in his tragedy to the material already provided. For instance, according to A. W. von Schlegel, Shakespeare knew only Arthur Brooke's wretched metrical version of our story, ("The tragical history of Romeus and Juliet, 1562," newly published, 1582; reprinted in the edition of Johnson and Steevens); according to others, only this and the translation of Painter, in the second volume of "The Palace of Pleasure." Arthur Brooke,

1 Mr. Collier, who has reprinted this poem in his Shakespeare's Library, has a very different opinion of its value as a literary composition. He says it is a production of singular beauty for the time, full of appropriate and graceful imagery. The only notice of the edition of 1582 or 1583 is found in the Registers of the Stationers' Company. No copy bearing that date appears to be known.-ED.

like Painter, took his materials from Boisteau's work, continued by Belleforest, Histoires Tragiques, extraites de [sic] œuvres Italiennes du Bandel; and Boisteau again, as the title of his work intimates, copied from Bandello, but he made many variations from his original. Though Shakespeare has most of these variations, in common with Painter, a list of which would only fatigue the reader, (Eschenberg has collected them all) yet we must not conclude, with Dunlop and others, that Shakespeare was unacquainted with the works of Bandello; he might have given the preference to these variations from reasons of art, as Schlegel has shown from this very circumstance. Above all things, we have been lately compelled to give up the English notion of Shakespeare's ignorance. If he was no man of learning, (and he would have mistaken his calling had he sought to become such) yet he lived in a time and at a court where literary cultivation and knowledge of languages were much extended, and a spirit like his, so surrounded, could not remain behind. Even at this day, he would have passed for a well-educated man. He knew Latin currently; was not wholly unacquainted with Greek; and was fully versed in Italian, (at the court of Queen Elizabeth, this was unavoidable); and of his knowledge of French, which was then a rarity, no one can doubt, who has read his Henry V. We do not know how it was with Spanish, but it is probable that he understood this language also. We could bring proof for this conjecture, but we leave this for a more able hand, referring our readers to Ludwig Tieck's anxiously expected work on Shakespeare and the old English theatre. To give only a small proof of Shakespeare's

1 One of the comedies of Lopez de Vega, Los Castelvies y Monteses, was founded upon the same story as Romeo and Juliet; but the Spanish dramatist has evidently borrowed his tale from Bandello, and has changed the names of the characters. The catastrophe, also, is altered. Another play in the same language, by Don Francisco de Roxas, called Los Vandos de Verona, is formed on the same relation.-ED.

knowledge of Italian, we may remark that the exquisitely beautiful words in which Romeo first addresses Juliet, at the masked ball, and her reply, contain an allusion to his name, which signifies a pilgrim; a fact which many a one does not know who is yet familiar with Italian.1 Probably Romeo visited the feast of the Capulets in a pilgrim's dress; but even without this aid, Shakespeare might rely upon his hearers understanding the allusion; the idea of a pilgrim was not yet so remote, that they should be ignorant of the word for one.

We do not know whether Shakespeare was acquainted with the novella of Luigi da Porto; it is probable that he was; but we cannot, with Voss, make our conclusion from the circumstance that in this novella the death of certain friends provokes Romeo to attack Tybalt, as in Shakespeare the death of Mercutio gives occasion to this attack.

Of the value of the novella of Bandello, in a literary point of view, we say nothing; compared with Shakespeare's treatment of the same subject, it must fail. But however small may be its merits, its style deserves the preference over that of Luigi da Porto, who seems to have had still less feeling of the power of love, which yet the novella ought to set forth. The delay of the lovers till they have removed every impedi

1 If the play mentioned by Brooke should ever be discovered, we shall perhaps ascertain whether the incident here referred to was Shakespeare's own idea. We cannot doubt that Romeo appeared in a pilgrim's dress. See the first conversation between the lovers in act i., sc. 5. It is a circumstance worthy of remark, in reference to the observation made in the text on the probability that the exact meaning of romeo is not known to many well read Italian scholars, that the Quarterly Review, in a recent number, absolutely denied the fact that romeo did mean a pilgrim. Mr. Talbot suggests whether the term may not be connected with the Latin comic name of Dromio. The same writer adds, "English Etymologies," p. 403, “Juliet is properly the diminutive of Julia; but it has apparently united itself with another name, Juliet, or Joliette, the diminutive of Jolie, pretty."-ED.