have not been so well handled in the popular form. There is a list of the MSS. and printed editions of this romance, in all languages, in Douce, ii., 140 et seq.

In England, the romance of " Apollonius of Tyre" was early treated both in prose and verse. Gower,' who is introduced in Shakespeare's "Pericles" as the relator, interwove it into his Confessio Amantis, which was completed as early as 1393. His authority, as he himself professes, is Godfrey of Viterbo. But Dr. Farmer possessed a fragment of an English poem on the same circumstance, which, according to the writing and language, appeared to be older than Gower. In English prose, the romance of "Apollonius" was published by Wynkyn de Worde, as early as 1510, translated from the French by Robert Copland. In 1576, William Howe had a privilege for an edition of this popular romance, of which the translation of T. Twine," which appeared in 1607, by Valentine Sims, appears to have been only a reprint.

Gower's Confessio Amantis is considered as Shakespeare's immediate source, because this ancient poet is introduced speaking in Pericles. But from the notes of the English annotators, who produce frequent quotations from the popular books, we can see that the poet often departed from Gower's work, and followed the latter, where Gower is wanting. It

The story in Gower has been judiciously included in Mr. Collier's Shakespeare's Library.-ED.

2 This extremely curious fragment was written by a priest of Wimborne Minster, co. Dorset. It has escaped the researches of Mr. Collier, but has been recently printed by the Editor of this work in a volume intended for private circulation.-ED.

3 Not Thomas Twine, but his brother, Lawrence Twine, as Mr. Collier has remarked. This romance has been reprinted in Collier's Shakespeare's Library.-ED.

Instead of the game at ball, by which Apollonius gains the favour of the King of Pentapolis, Shakespeare has a tournament; it cannot be shown that he owes this alteration to any model. It is doubtful whether there was not an English form of this romance, having the altered names, which was used by Shakespeare.

appears also, from these passages, that the English people's book agrees very nearly with the German one, and this justifies us in keeping more immediately to that and to the Gesta Romanorum. We should have made use of the last only, but that the story was best fitted for an antique and popular form, which Shakespeare has taken pains to give it by the introduction of "ancient Gower;" and we found this could be best preserved by keeping close to the German popular form. We conceived, also, that we ought to give the songs and riddles in rhyme, according to the popular work, and not in hexameters. We must be excused for a somewhat freer treatment of the story than we should have allowed ourselves elsewhere, having to reconcile two distinct models. In this necessary liberty, we confined ourselves to the form of the story, without arbitrarily altering any of the incidents.

Many traits of popular fiction occur in our romance, but it can hardly be thought to rest entirely on a popular fiction. The incestuous love of Antiochus for his daughter is derived also by the German book from the Helena, and from Straparola's kindred novel of the "Maiden in the Coffer." Compare Valentine Schmidt's Märchensaal, 115, with the remarks, 303, and the Pentamerone, ii., 6 (16). But here, that is to say, in the tale, this love has a motive; while in " Apollonius" it is entirely without foundation. The preservation of Lucina in the chest reminds us of that of Doralice in the coffer. The riddle, on the solution of which the possession of the princess is made to depend, is a trait which perpetually recurs. The stay of Tharsia in the house of the Pander returns in a similar form in many ecclesiastical legends; for example, in that of St. Agnes, and the fisherman who shares his coat with the shipwrecked Apollonius is St. Martin. For the rest, the adventures of Apollonius are very much in the manner of the Greek romance, where voyages and pirates act the chief part. Yet a poetical style and an alluring

invention are not to be denied to this poem, and certainly our readers will thank us for preserving it.

It has been already remarked, in Chapter XI., that the discovery of Lucina, as Priestess of Diana at Ephesus, was probably the model for the preservation of Hermione in the "Winter's Tale." But much more does the preservation and discovery of Emilia, the Abbess at Ephesus, in the Comedy of Errors," remind us of Apollonius and Pericles; as, on the other side, the catastrophe of the "Comedy of Errors" has a great resemblance to the event of the novel of "Cinthio," mentioned in Chapter XIII.

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XV. KING LEAR.

It is well known that there is an older tragedy on the subject of King Lear,' which Tieck has translated in his "Old English Theatre," vol. ii. The author of it has doubtlessly taken his materials from Holinshed, or his predecessor, Geoffrey of Monmouth. The episode of Gloucester and his sons, Edmund and Edgar, however, as the source of those who have given the adventure out of Sidney's " Arcadia," does not occur here, and the conclusion in the chronicle is much more scanty. Tieck ascribes this older piece, which is judged by the English much too depreciatingly, and still more unjustly by Voss, in the remarks to his translation, to Shakespeare. It is known that Tieck considers many other plays as works of Shakespeare's youth, and we trust he will not withhold the proofs. We consider his opinion with regard to this older King Lear, which has great beauties, as less bold than many of his others.

The author of the older play has clearly not made use of the old ballad of "King Leir and his three daughters," given by Percy, and translated by Eschenberg; the newer piece, however, has several things in common with the ballad; for example, Lear's madness, Cordelia's death, &c., and thus arises

1 Our author here refers, of course, to "The True Chronicle History of King Leir," 1605, reprinted by Steevens.-ED.

2 The inability of German writers to appreciate the poetry of our old drama, however deeply they understand its philosophy, is nowhere so clearly exhibited as in their observations on such works as these. The old play may certainly be compared with advantage to its contemporaries, but very few English critics would discover the "great beauties" in it, which M. Simrock appears to have found.-ED.

the question, whether the author of the ballad copied from the play, or Shakespeare from the ballad. We decide for the first supposition, partly on account of the modern tone of this spiritless fabrication, partly because the poet, to whom the older piece, or at least Holinshed's Chronicle, was accessible, could find all the ideas determining the treatment of the subject in his own mind, which was not the case with the ballad-writer. That nothing is said in the ballad of the Night-Storm" cannot prove Johnson's opinion that it is older than the play, for it is clear that the author of the ballad did not mean to give an extract from the play.' He meant, as the name Aganippus shows, to guide himself by the Chronicle, but could not keep himself free from the influence of the play.

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Cordelia's words in Holinshed are singular:-" So much as you have, so much you are worth, and so much I love you, and no more." In Monmouth—

"Quantum habes, tantum vales, tantumque te diligo."

The old ballad more clearly—

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'My love shall be the duty of a child."

And in the older play—

"What love the child doth owe her father."

In Spenser's "Faerie Queene," where the story of Lear is related in few words, Cordelia says, that she loves her father as much as is becoming; and in the Gesta Romanorum, as much as he is worthy. The latter seems also to be the meaning in Monmouth and Holinshed.

The story takes another turn in the popular tale of the history of Ina, King of the West Saxons, which Camden relates (Remains, p. 306, ed. 1674). "This King had three

1 The writer evidently copied Holinshed, but includes an incident not occurring in the pages of that historian, but found in the play.-ED.