ACT III.

Scene 2. Page 498.

The notes on this passage having got into some little confusion by the introduction of the lines in Measure for measure which relate to the fool and death and the supplemental remarks on it, it will be necessary in all future editions to keep them separate, as it seems almost certain that they have no connection with each other.

Cerimon in most express terms declares that he feels more real satisfaction in his liberal employment as a physician, than he should in the uncertain pursuit of honour, or in the mere accumulation of wealth; which would assimilate him to a miser, the result of whose labour is merely to entertain the fool and death. But how was such amusement as this to affect those personages in the other instance, where the vain attempts of a fool to escape the jaws of his adversary form the whole of the subject? The allusion therefore is to some such print as Mr. Steevens happily remembered to have seen, in which death plunders the miser of his money bags, whilst the fool is grinning at the process. It may be presumed that these subjects were common in Shakspeare's time. They might have ornamented the poor man's cottage in the shape of rude prints, or have been introduced into halfpenny ballads long since consigned to oblivion. The miser is at all times fair game; and to prove that this is not a chimerical opinion, and at the same time to show the extensive range of this popular subject, a few prints of the kind shall be mentioned. 1. Death and the two misers, by Michael Pregel. 2. An old couple counting their money, death and two devils attending, a mezzotint by Vander Bruggen. 3. A similar mezzotint by Meheux without the devils. 4. An old print on a single sheet of a dance of death, on which both the miser and the fool are exhibited in the clutches of the grim monarch.

The rear may be closed with the same subject as represented in the various dances of death that still remain. Nor should it be concluded that because these prints exhibit no fool to grin at the impending scene, others might not have done so. The satirical introduction of this character on many occasions supports the probability that they did. Thus in a painting of the school of Holbein, an old man makes love to a girl, attended by a fool and death, to show, in the first instance, the folly of the thing, and in the next, its consequences. It is unnecessary to pursue the argument, as every print of the above kind that may in future occur, will itself speak much more forcibly than any thing which can here be added.

ACT IV.

Scene 3. Page 539.

The two last lines in the quotation from The wife for a month should be printed thus:

Scene 3. Page 540.

"There is here," says Mr. Malone, "perhaps, some allusion to the lues venerea, though the words French crowns in their literal acceptation were certainly also in Boult's thoughts." Mr. Mason sees no allusion whatever to the above disease. That a French crown did signify the lues venerea cannot be doubted; but Mr. Mason's difference of opinion might be further supported by reflecting that if the Frenchman came to renovate[18] his malady, he could not well be said to scatter it. It must therefore be inferred that he was to scatter nothing but his money. As Mr. Mason has not favoured us with an explanation of the coins in question, it is necessary to state that they were crowns of the sun specifically so called, Écus du soleil; and in this instance, for the sake of antithesis, termed crowns in the sun. They were of gold, originally coined by Louis XI. Their name was derived from the mint mark of a sun; and they were current in this kingdom by weight, in the same manner as certain English coins were in France.

Scene 3. Page 541.

This sign is properly referred by Mr. Malone to the person of Marina, and cannot, for the reasons in the last note, allude to the sun, according to Mr. Mason's second explanation. Nor is this gentleman's argument supported by the instance adduced of the sun having been used as the sign of a brothel. It was by no means exclusively, or even particularly so. The following passage from Dekker's Villanies discovered, or the belman's night walks, may throw some light on the subject before us. "He saw the doores of notorious carted bawdes (like hell gates) stand night and day wide open, with a paire of harlots in taffata gownes (like two painted posts) garnishing out those doores, being better to the house then a double signe."

Scene 6. Page 567.

Mr. Malone thinks Tib a contraction of Tabitha; but quÆre if not of Isabel? In all events it was a name given to any lewd woman. In Pasquil's mad cappe, 1626, 4to, an excellent satire, mention is made of a tinker and his tibbe. Why this name was exclusively applied to a loose woman, or how it got into the game of gleek, does not appear.

ACT V.

Scene 3. Page 607.

So in 1 Henry VI. Act I.

This notion is borrowed from the ancients, who expressed their mode of conferring divine honours and immortality on men, by placing them among the stars. Thus on a medal of Hadrian the adopted son of Trajan and Plotina, the divinity of his parents is expressed by placing a star over their heads; and in like manner the consecration medals of Faustina the elder exhibit her on an eagle, her head surrounded with stars. Other similar medals have the moon and stars; and some of Faustina the younger the inscription SIDERIBVS RECEPTA.

THE CLOWN.

Although Boult, the servant to the pandar and his wife, is not termed a clown in the dramatis personÆ, it should seem that he has an equal claim to the appellation with several other low characters that have been introduced into plays for the purpose of amusing the audience. He bears some affinity to the tapster in Measure for measure; but there is nothing that immediately constitutes him the jester to a brothel. See what has been said on such a character in the article relating to the clown in Measure for measure.

ON THE STORY OF PERICLES.

As the very great popularity of this play in former times may be supposed to have originated rather from the interest which the story, replete with incident, must have excited, than from any intrinsic merit as a dramatic composition, it may be worth while, and even interesting to many, to give the subject more ample discussion. To trace it beyond the period in which the favourite romance of Apollonius Tyrius was composed, would be a vain attempt. That was the probable original; but of its author nothing decisive has been discovered. The following circumstance, however, has led to a conjecture concerning him, which shall be stated with as much brevity as possible. When Tarsia, the Marina of Pericles, has finished the song which she addresses to her unknown father Apollonius, she receives from him a hundred pieces of gold, with a command to leave him. Athenagoras, the Lysimachus of Pericles, afterwards meets her, gives her two hundred pieces, and prevails on her to make another effort to sooth the melancholy of Apollonius. She returns to him, requests permission to renew their conversation, and insists on his taking back his money, unless he can expound certain riddles which she proceeds to state. Now these riddles, three in number, are to be found in a work entitled Symposii Ænigmata. The original editor of this book, Pierre Pithou, thought fit, without the smallest authority, to entitle the supposed author CÆlius Firmianus Symposius. Heuman, a subsequent editor, placing implicit confidence in this name, maintained that this person could be no other than the celebrated father of the church CÆlius Firmianus Lactantius; for having found that he had written a work, now lost, under the title of Symposium, he concluded that the name of Symposius, which occurs at the beginning of the Ænigmas, was a mistake, and that he had therefore proved his point. But this futile reasoning was easily subverted by the superior critical talents of the truly learned Fabricius, who demonstrated the impossibility of such an error, and that Heuman had even misconceived the meaning of the word Symposium, which could not apply to a work like the Ænigmas. Besides, the evidence of Saint Jerome remained to show that the symposium was not written, like the Ænigmas, in hexameter verses. Lactantius is therefore out of the question; and though there is no immediate proof respecting the time in which Symposius lived, it appears that it must have been before the eighth century, as bishop Aldhelm, who died in 709, quotes the Ænigmas as composed by Symposius the poet. This, and many other circumstances, sufficiently identify him against the ill-founded assertions of Heuman, who regarded him as a nonentity. Aldhelm himself wrote Ænigmas so much in the manner of Symposius, that one might reasonably enough infer there was no great difference in their respective ages. The learned Barthius (see his Adversaria, lib. lviii. c. 1.), fully persuaded of the reality of Symposius, and acquainted with the occurrence of the riddles in the history of Apollonius Tyrius, concluded, with other learned men, that Symposius wrote the latter; and he justly terms the author dulcis scriptor et eruditus, as will be evident to any one who will take the trouble of reading it in Velser's edition, which is printed from a better manuscript than those used in the Gesta Romanorum. If, as Velser maintains, and Barthius admits, it was originally written in Greek, a difficulty arises with respect to Symposius, unless he be regarded as the translator. But, to say the truth, there does not appear to be any solid reason for supposing him the author, or even translator. It is not very probable that in either character he would have introduced his own matter from another work; and therefore, until some more fortunate discovery shall occur, the romance of Apollonius Tyrius must remain anonymous.

With respect to the language in which it was composed, Velser was of opinion, from certain GrÆco-Latin words which it contains, that this was Greek, and he speaks rather obscurely of a manuscript of it in that language at Constantinople. He seems to think that the translator was a Christian, living about the period of the decline of the Roman empire. Barthius conceived him to have been a monk of the sixth century. The Saxon translation mentioned in Wanley's list of manuscripts, and now in Bennett College, Cambridge, is doubtless from the Latin, and is alone a sufficient testimony of the antiquity of the work. At what time it was made must be left to the decision of those who are critically skilled in the Saxon language. One Constantine is said to have translated it into modern Greek verse about the year 1500; and this is probably the manuscript mentioned in Dufresne's index of authors, and afterwards printed at Venice in 1563. Mr. Tyrwhitt has observed that Velser was not aware of its having been already published in the Gesta Romanorum; and it may be added that it had been printed separately at Augsburg in 1471; perhaps as early as in the Gesta Romanorum; a fact that cannot well be ascertained, because there are editions of the latter without date which might have been printed before. Mr. Warton has committed a slight mistake in supposing that Alamannus Rinucinus made a Latin translation corrected by Beroaldus about the year 1520.[19] Vossius, whom he had misconceived, was speaking of a translation of Philostratus's life of Apollonius Tyaneus. What Mr. Malone has said of the English translations precludes the necessity of any further notice of them; but with respect to that gentleman's supposition, that there might have been an early prose translation from the Gesta Romanorum, in which the name of Apollonius was changed to Pericles, it becomes necessary to state that there are very good reasons for concluding that the story of Apollonius Tyrius, from the Gesta Romanorum, never was translated into English; and even that the Gesta Romanorum in question did not appear in our language till the beginning of the eighteenth century, and then but a small portion of it.[20] The name of Pericles has been very well accounted for by Mr. Steevens.

To render this article as complete as possible, and to facilitate the reference to a story once so celebrated, a list of the various manuscripts and printed copies is subjoined.

MANUSCRIPTS.

Those in Latin are, two in Bennett Coll. Cambridge; see Nasmith's Catal. Nos. cccxviii. ccccli.—Two in the Bodleian libr. Nos. 2435, 2540; see Catal. MSS. AngliÆ, pp. 125, 134. Mr. Warton mentions a third, in H. E. Poetry, vol. i. p. 350, note h. A fourth is in the same library among Archb. Laud's MSS. No. 1302, Catal. MSS. AngliÆ, p. 70; on what authority this is said to have been translated from the Greek, remains to be examined.

In Magdal. Coll. Ox. No. 2191, Catal. MSS. AngliÆ, p. 72.—In Vossius's collection, No. 2409, Catal. MSS. AngliÆ, p. 64.—In the Norfolk collection, now in the library of the Royal Society, No. 3181, Catal. MSS. AngliÆ, p. 80.—Two in the Sloanian library; see Ascough's Catal. p. 854.—Two in the Vatican. See Montfaucon Bibl. bibliothecarum, i. 20, Nos. 275, 284.—In the Medicean library, Montfaucon Bibl. bibl. i. 372, No. xl.—In the royal library at Paris; Montfaucon Bibl. bibl. ii. 756, No. 5251.

A Saxon translation. Bennett Coll. Camb. See Nasmith's Catal. No. cci. and Wanley, Libror. vett. septentrional. catal. apud Hickesij Thesaur. p. 146.

A French translation is among the royal MSS. in the British museum, 20 c. ii. evidently made from the Latin about the 15th century.

A fragment in old English verse, probably by Thomas Vicary of Wimborn minster in Dorsetshire, on the story of Apollonius Tyrius, was in the possession of the late reverend and learned Dr. Farmer of Cambridge. See it noticed in the present vol. of Mr. Steevens's Shakspeare, pp. 381, 609.

PRINTED COPIES.

Apollonii Tyrii historia, no date, but before 1500, 8vo.

The same published by Velser, 1595, 4to.

In modern Greek verse. Venice, 1563, 1601, 1696, 8vo.

In Italian rime. Venice, 1486, and without place, 1489, 4to.

In Italian prose, reformed; and published for the benefit of the common people, per piacer del popolo, Milan, 1492, 4to.

In Spanish, in the PatraÑas of Juan Timoneda, Alcala, 1576, and Bilbao, 1580, 8vo. This translation may be presumed to have been made from the Gesta Romanorum, as other stories from it are in the same work.

In German, Augsburg, 1471, folio, and 1476, 4to.

In Dutch, Delft, 1493, 4to.

In French, b. l. Geneva, 4to, n. d. Again, transl. by Gilles Corrozet, Paris, 1530, 8vo. Again, Amst. 1710, Paris, 1711, 12mo, modernized by M. Le Brun. It is abridged in Melanges tirÉes d'une grande bibliotheque, vol. lxiv. p. 265. It is also among the Hist. tragiques de Belleforest, tom. vii. 1604, 12mo.

In Engl. transl. by Rob. Copland from the French, and printed by Wynkyn de Worde, 1510.

The patterne of painful adventures &c. that befell unto Prince Appolonius, &c. translated by T. Twine, 1607, Originally published by W. Howe, 1576.

In Gower's Confessio amantis, 1483, 1532, and 1554, folio, from Godfrey of Viterbo.

In the Pantheon or universal chronicle of Godfrey of Viterbo, compiled in Latin in the 12th century. First printed at Basil, 1569, folio, and afterwards in Pistorius's collection of German historians.

And lastly, in most of the editions of the Gesta Romanorum, in which it makes the 153rd chapter. In comparing this with Velser's work, it will be perceived that it is the same, making allowance for the usual difference of manuscripts. In short, there is but one story.

A few years after the publication of this play, there appeared on the French stage a tragi-comedy on the same story, entitled Les heureuses infortunes. It is in two parts, each of five acts, and composed by Francois Bernier de la Brousse. It might be worth while to examine whether he had made any use of the English Pericles.

However unworthy of Shakspeare's pen this drama, as an entire composition, may be considered, many will be of opinion that it contains more that he might have written than either Love's labour's lost, or All's well that ends well.