L I BR AR Y 
 
 OF THK 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 GIRT OR 
 
 Received 
 
 ^ Accessions No. ^7O _? Shelf No. . ^ ~, 
 
 This volume is printed for private circulation exclusively 
 "PRESENTED TO 
 
 f 
 
 J. O. HALLIWELL-PHILLIPPS. 
 
JBemoranbs. 
 
MEMORANDA 
 
 
 JUl'0 SEell that (Enos 
 ^too Gentlemen of 
 JUio about 
 
 AND ON 
 
 Bl 
 
 J. O. HALLIWELL-PHILLIPPS, F.R.S. 
 
 OP THE 
 
 [BHITIB'SH 
 
 BRIGHTON : 
 PRINTED BY MESSRS. FLEET AND BISHOP. 
 
 1879. 
 
that dob* 
 
 THE main incidents of the serious portion of 
 the present comedy were originally related in 
 the Decameron of Boccaccio, in the ninth novel 
 of the third day, a story which was known to 
 Shakespeare through the medium of an English 
 translation, first published in William Painter's 
 Palace of Pleasure, in the year 1566 ; reprinted 
 in 1575. The outline of the novel is thus 
 described in the title of the translation in the 
 latter work, " Giletta, a phisician's doughter of 
 Narbon, healed the Frenche Kyng of a fistula, 
 for reward whereof she demaunded Beltramo, 
 counte of Rossiglione, to husbande ; the counte 
 beyng maried againste his will, for despite fled 
 to Florence, and loved another ; Giletta, his 
 wife, by pollicie founde meanes to lye with her 
 husbande in place of his lover, and was begotten 
 with child of twoo sonnes,. whiche knowen to 
 her husbande, he received her againe, and after- 
 wardes she lived in greate honor and felicitie." 
 
This brief notice of the contents of the tale 
 sufficiently indicates the outline of so much of 
 the story as was adopted by the great dramatist, 
 who has followed the preliminary circumstances 
 with much fidelity, but has deviated consider- 
 ably from the concluding incidents, which are 
 exhibited in the play at greater length than they 
 are presented to us in the novel, while the 
 comic portion of the former is entirely new. In 
 Boccaccio, the prototype of Helena, instead of 
 being prostrated with grief at the absence of 
 her husband, and unceasingly pursuing her love- 
 labours, governs a province with wisdom, and 
 gains the esteem of the people, before she takes 
 the recovery of her husband's affections into 
 consideration, thus involving a calmness of 
 action inconsistent with the character as pour- 
 trayed by Shakespeare. The supposed death 
 of the heroine, the scenes in which her husband's 
 mother is introduced, and the report of her 
 murder, are also peculiar to the comedy. 
 Shakespeare has adopted the name of Bertram 
 from the novel, anglicizing it from Beltram, 
 but this is the only appellation in his list of 
 characters that is so derived, although Helena's 
 father, Gerard de Narbon, is so called in both 
 compositions. The name of Violenta seems to 
 
have been suggested by the story of Didaco 
 and Violenta, which occurs in the same volume 
 of the Palace of Pleasure as that in which 
 Giletta of Narbona is found. It is worthy of 
 remark that Boccaccio's novel had been drama- 
 tised early in the sixteenth century by Bernard 
 Accolti, in an Italian comedy entitled Virginia, 
 first printed in 1513, and several times re- 
 published in the sixteenth century ; but the 
 novelist is very closely followed in this pro- 
 duction, and there is no reason for supposing 
 that Shakespeare was acquainted with it. 
 Painter's translation of the original story in 
 Boccaccio is in fact the only real source for 
 any of the incidents of the English comedy 
 that has yet been discovered, but it contains 
 suggestions for nearly the whole of the main 
 action of the serious portion of the comedy. 
 Even the scenes in which the wars between 
 the Florentines and the Siennois are alluded to 
 may have been derived from the same source, 
 for the hero of the tale is represented, after the 
 desertion of his wife, as going into Tuscany, 
 " where, understanding that the Florentines and 
 Siennois were at war, he determined to take 
 the Florentines' part, and was willingly received 
 and honorably entertained, and made captain of 
 
8 
 
 a certain number of men, continuing in their 
 service a long time." 
 
 There are reasons for believing that All's 
 Well that Ends Well originally appeared under 
 another, certainly the more graceful, and per- 
 haps the more appropriate, title of ^Love's 
 Labours Won. Meres, in his Palladis Tamia, 
 1598, speaking of the writings of Shakespeare, 
 says, " for comedy, witness his Gentlemen of 
 Verona, his Errors, his Love Labors Lost, his 
 Love Labors Wonne, his Midsummers Night 
 Dreame, and his Merchant of Venice." It is 
 evident, therefore, on unquestioned authority, 
 that, late in the year 1598, one of the comedies 
 of Shakespeare was called Love Labours Won, 
 or, to judge from the analogous instance of the 
 companion drama, a play the proper title of 
 which was Love's Labour's Won ; and unless 
 the somewhat improbable conjecture that this is 
 a lost play be adopted, one of the comedies not 
 mentioned in the above list was, under some 
 form or other, so styled at the time of its pro- 
 duction. The comedies that answer to this 
 condition are, i, The Tempest, a play in 
 which the labours by which love is won are of 
 brief duration, and capriciously imposed merely 
 for a temporary purpose ; 2, The Merry Wives 
 
of Windsor, a title too obvious and definite to 
 admit of conjectural alteration, and a comedy to 
 which the title in Meres cannot be considered 
 with probability to apply ; 3, Measure for 
 Measure, which involves no action applicable to 
 the new title ; 4, Much Ado about Nothing ; 5, 
 As You Like It ; 6, The Taming of the Shrew ; 
 7, The Winter s Tale, which, with the three 
 previous comedies, may fairly be dismissed 
 from consideration as candidates for the appella- 
 tion in question ; and lastly, Twelfth Night, or 
 What you Will, the double title of which suffi- 
 ciently precludes the probability of a third name 
 having been assigned to it, In this discussion, 
 the presumed dates of the composition of these 
 plays are not considered, none of them having 
 been established with absolute certainty. The 
 real questions are, whether the title of Love's 
 Labour's Won does not indicate a drama in 
 which the main incident involves the triumph 
 of love over serious difficulties by indomitable 
 perseverance, and if there is any one of the 
 other comedies in Shakespeare not mentioned 
 by Meres to which such a description applies so 
 forcibly as doth that of All's Well that Ends 
 Well. If these inquiries are answered in the 
 affirmative, it may then be safely concluded 
 
10 
 
 that Love's Labour's Won was originally the 
 name of the present comedy, either in a sepa- 
 rate form, or as a second title. The latter 
 supposition is the most likely to be correct, for 
 although Helena tells Bertram that by her 
 steadfkst labours he is " doubly won," won by 
 two series of love-labours, there are no fewer 
 than four distinct allusions in the play to the 
 proverb of All's Well that Ends Well, and the 
 last, " all is well ended, if this suit be won/' 
 seems almost to indicate the correctness of the 
 assumption that, in the author's original manu- 
 script, the comedy was entitled, All's Well that 
 Ends Well, or Love's Labour's Won. The 
 evidence is obviously insufficient to warrant 
 any alteration in the title as given in the first 
 folio of 1623, but, unless it be supposed that 
 the editors of that edition omitted a comedy 
 which is not now known to exist, it seems al- 
 most certain that the present drama was the 
 one alluded to by Meres under the latter title. 
 An admission of this presumed fact necessarily 
 implies a belief that the play was produced at 
 least as early as in the year 1598. It is not 
 impossible that either the players, or the editors 
 of the first folio of 1623, altered the title of 
 Love's Labour's Won without due authority. 
 
II 
 
 There is evidence that plays were sometimes 
 printed with new names. Thus in Cokain's 
 Poems, 1658, is one "to my friend Mr. Thomas 
 Randolph, on his play called the Entertain- 
 ment, printed by the name of the Muses Look- 
 ing-glass." It is also worthy of remark that 
 Shakespeare's comedy at a later period, seems 
 to have passed under the name of Monsieur 
 Parolles, that appellation being assigned to it 
 by King Charles I. in a manuscript note in a 
 copy of the second folio of 1632, preserved at 
 Windsor Castle, which formerly belonged to 
 that unfortunate monarch. No notice of All's 
 Well that Ends Well, under that title, has been 
 discovered of a date previous to its entry on the 
 books of the Stationers' Company, in Novem- 
 ber, 1623, where it is placed in the list of " soe 
 manie of the said copies as are not formerly 
 entred to other men." 
 
 The adoption of the date of composition, thus 
 conjecturally assigned, does not involve any 
 variance with allusions to contemporary incidents 
 or fashions in the play itself, as far as the latter 
 are at present discovered or understood. When 
 Helena, in the first scene, calls Parolles by the 
 epithet, Monarch, she is supposed to allude to a 
 character also mentioned in the companion 
 
12 
 
 drama of Love's Labour's Lost, who, under the 
 title of Monarch or Monarcho, was well-known 
 in London at the latter part of the sixteenth 
 century, and whose boasting propensities 
 rendered his name a fitting appellation for 
 Parolles, which he was anxious to disclaim, 
 though his wit failed him, and he was constrained 
 to utter merely a monosyllabic negative. There 
 is no doubt he felt that the implied satire was 
 deservedly bestowed. The notice of the sur- 
 plice, in the same act, is not of any utility in 
 the consideration of the subject of date, as the 
 controversy respecting this article of ecclesias- 
 tical costume was carried on previously to 1598, 
 and continued at intervals for many years after- 
 wards. Of as little consideration is the pre- 
 sumed allusion to a book called the The- 
 orique and Practice of Warre, published in 
 1597, the passage which is conjectured to apply 
 to this work bearing no necessary reference to 
 any publication of the kind. 
 
 There is, however, a notice towards the close 
 of the play which is worth some consideration, 
 and may possibly be thought of sufficient 
 moment to deserve the title of an evidence of 
 probability in the question as to the chronology 
 or period of its composition. When Lafeu 
 
13 
 
 styles Parolles " good Tom Drum," he refers of 
 course to the incident of the drum which that 
 character professed to be so anxious to recover, 
 but the nickname itself is not necessarily ori- 
 ginal, and when it is considered that the story 
 of Tom Drum takes a prominent position in one 
 of the popular novels of the day, in which he is 
 introduced as a notorious liar and braggart, the 
 probabilities are that Shakespeare, .when he 
 places the name as applied to Parolles in the 
 mouth of Lafeu, was not merely thinking of the 
 old proverbial expression of Tom Drum's or 
 Jack Drum's Entertainment, but that he intro- 
 duced it as a name well known to the audience, 
 and most appropriate in its application to the 
 detected character of Parolles. The story of 
 Tom Drum was familiar to the English public 
 through the medium of Deloney's Second Part 
 of the Gentle Craft, a most merry and pleasant 
 History not altogether unprofitable nor any way 
 hurtfull, very fit to passe away the tediousnes of 
 the long winter evenings, 4to. London, Printed 
 for Edward White, and are to be sold at his 
 shop neere the little North doore of S. Paules 
 at the signe of the Gun, 1598. This was 
 probably the first edition, printed late in 1597 
 or very early in 1598, the work being entered 
 
14 
 
 on the books of the Stationers' Company in 
 October, 1597. In the sixth chapter of this 
 second part, which relates " how Harry Nevell 
 and Tom Drum came to serve Peachey of 
 Fleete-streete," the author thus commences the 
 history of the latter personage, " among manie 
 other that was desirous of his service, there was 
 one called Tom Drum, that had a great minde 
 to be hisanan, a very odde fellow, and one that 
 was sore infected with the sinne of cogging ; 
 this boasting companion, sitting on a time sadlie 
 at worke in his master's shoppe at Petworth," 
 &c. Deloney then proceeds to relate how he 
 left this situation, and the merry manner in 
 which he was accompanied by his fellow country- 
 men a mile out of the town. As Tom Drum 
 proceeded on his way, in the best possible 
 spirits, he encounters a young gentleman who 
 had deserted his parents, and having expended 
 the whole of his money, was travelling to 
 London with a heavy heart, in the expectation 
 that he might obtain the means of existence in 
 the metropolis. Our hero, at the first view of 
 the youth, shows himself, like Parolles, an 
 unquestionable coward, mistaking him for a 
 highwayman, " at whose sodaine sight Tom 
 Drum started like one that had spide an adder, 
 
and seeing him provided with a good sword and 
 buckler, supposed he had been one that waited 
 for a fat purse," but he soon discovered he was 
 under an erroneous impression, and the new 
 acquaintance, whose name was Harry, speedily 
 enters into conversation, and ultimately into 
 friendship, with the journeyman shoemaker. 
 Shortly before they arrive at Guildford, Tom 
 Drum is anointed a gentleman by the silly process 
 of permitting his face to be smeared with the 
 blood from one of Harry's fingers, which was duly 
 wounded for the occasion, while they exchange 
 clothes, and Tom, says the story, " swaggard 
 with his sword and buckler." Tom Drum now 
 commences his exaggerations and falsehoods. 
 " I durst lay a good wager," quoth he, " I have 
 made more shooes in one day then all the 
 jorneymen heere have done in a month ; with 
 that, one of the jorneymen began to chafe, say- 
 ing, how many paire of shooes hast thou made 
 in a day ? I made, quoth Tom, when the daies 
 were at longest, eight score paire of shooes in 
 one day ! O monstrous detestable lie, quoth 
 they, and thereupon one ran into the chimney 
 and cryed, come again, Clement, come againe. 
 Who call'st thou, quoth Tom ? I call Clement 
 Carrie-lye that runnes poste betwixt the Turke 
 
i6 
 
 and the devill, that he may take his full loading 
 ere hee goe, for the best jorneyman that ever I 
 knew never made above ten paire in a day in 
 his life, and I will laie my whole yeeres wages 
 with thee, that thou canst not make twentie 
 paire in a day as they ought to be ; I should 
 bee ashamed but to doe as much as another, 
 and I never saw him yet that could out-work 
 me, yet dare not I take upon me to make a 
 dosen paire of shoes in a day ; but 'tis an old 
 saying, they brag most that can doe least. 
 Why, thou puple, quoth Tom, thou house-dove, 
 thou cricket that never crept further then the 
 chimney-corner, tel me what countries hast thou 
 travelled ? Far enough, quoth he, to proove 
 as good a workeman as thou art. I deny that, 
 quoth Tom, for I have beene where I have 
 scene men headed like dogs, and women of the 
 same shape, where, if thou hadst offer'd them 
 a kisse, they would have beene ready to have 
 snapt off thy nose ; othersome I have scene 
 that one of their legs hath beene as good as a 
 penthouse to cover their whole bodies, and yet 
 I have made them shooes to serve their feete, 
 which I am sure thou couldst never doe ; nay, 
 if thou wilt goe with me, if thou seest me not 
 make an hundred paire of shooes from sunne- 
 
'7 
 
 rising to sun-setting, count me worse then a 
 stinking mackrell." He follows this up with 
 other exaggerations, advising his auditors to 
 " take heede how you contrary a traveller, for 
 therein you shall but bewray your owne igno- 
 rance, and make yourselves mocking stockes to 
 men of knowledge. And travellers, quoth 
 they, uncontroled, have liberty to utter what 
 lyes they list." The next chapter yields no- 
 thing to the purpose of the argument on behalf 
 of which these extracts are adduced, but the 
 following one, which treats " of Tom Drum's 
 vants, and his rare entertainment at Mistres 
 Farmer's house, the faire widow of Fleete- 
 streete/' is exceedingly curious, and bears a 
 kind of analogy to the incident of Parolles and 
 the drum, inasmuch as it is also founded on the 
 inability of a braggart to accomplish the object 
 he had voluntarily and absurdly boasted was 
 capable of easy execution. Tom Drum is, 
 indeed, like Parolles, " a notorious liar, a great 
 way fool, solely a coward ; " he made (< tolerable 
 vent of his travel ; " and his discomfiture is 
 equally significant with that of Bertram's com- 
 panion. Without then imagining that Shake- 
 speare required even a faintly delineated proto- 
 type for the character of Parolles, or that 
 
i8 
 
 anything of the kind in Deloney's novel is to 
 be considered in the light of having furnished a 
 single suggestion to the mind of the great 
 dramatist, it does not appear improbable that 
 the epithet of the personage in the old novel 
 was introduced into the comedy, because it was 
 an appellation for an outwitted boaster, one that 
 would be readily appreciated by the readers of 
 the light literature of Shakespeare's time, a 
 class to whom the contemporary dramatists 
 naturally in some measure addressed them- 
 selves. 
 
 The title of the play, as transmitted to us by 
 the editors of the folio edition, is an English pro- 
 verbial saying of great antiquity. It was used, 
 in a slightly varied form, during the celebrated 
 rebellion of Jack Straw, by one of the insur- 
 gents in a speech recorded in the chronicle of 
 Henry de Knyghton, " Jak Carter prayeth 
 yow alle that ye make a gode ende of that ye 
 have begunne, and doth wele aye better and 
 better, .for atte the evyn men herethe the day, 
 for if the ende be wele, thanne is al wele/' MS. 
 Cotton. Claud. E. iii. fol. 267, v. "All is well 
 that endeth well " was one of the mottos in the 
 Lottery of 1567, drawn in 1568-9, a prize drawn 
 by one Thomas Lawley de Chaddesley Marches, 
 
19 
 
 Wales. So, in Fulwell's Ars Adulandi, 1579, 
 to this passage in the text, " Wherefore, gentle 
 Maister Philodoxus, I bid you adew with this 
 motion or caveat ; Respice Finem," the mar- 
 ginal note says, " All is Well that endes Well ; " 
 and in the Remedie of Love, 1 600, " you take 
 the old proverb with a right application for my 
 just excuse, All is Well that ends well, and so 
 end I." Again, in Davies' Scourge of Folly, 
 1611, "All's well that ends wel : Then it is 
 well Peter was hang'd, that nere praid till he 
 fell ; " and in the proverbs in Camden's Re- 
 maines, ed. 1629, p. 261 ; and in MS. Bodl. 30. 
 " Exitus act a probat, all is well that ends well, 
 Withals' Dictionary, ed. 1634, p. 556. It clearly 
 appears from these, and from other examples 
 that might be adduced, that the proverbial title 
 of the play was not original, but that it was in 
 common use both before and after the time of 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 No record of any early performance of All's 
 Well that Ends Well has yet been discovered, 
 and it does not appear to have been revived 
 in the seventeenth century after the accession 
 of Charles II., nor, indeed, until October, 1741, 
 when it was produced at Drury-lane theatre, 
 Mrs. Woffington taking the part of Helena, 
 
2O 
 
 and Theophilus Gibber that of Parolles. It 
 was again revived, under the superintendence 
 of Garrick, in 1757, when Mrs. Prichard acted 
 the Countess ; Miss Macklin, Helen ; Mrs. 
 Davies, Diana ; Woodward, Parolles ; Berry, 
 Lafeu ; and Davies, the King. In the year 
 1785, it was altered by Frederic Pilon, reduced 
 to three acts, and performed at the Haymarket 
 theatre, but this version was not printed. The 
 alteration in use at the theatres during the last 
 sixty years is that by Kemble, in which the 
 offensive peculiarities of the story are to a 
 great extent . concealed, and the principal con- 
 dition in Bertram's letter entirely omitted. 
 These sacrifices to the extreme refinement of 
 the present day so essentially weaken the action 
 of the comedy, and impair the necessity for so 
 much of the intensity of character evidently 
 intended by the author, it is scarcely a matter of 
 surprise that the performance of the drama, in 
 this vitiated form, should not have met, at any 
 recent period, with the success that it probably 
 commanded on the Shaksperian stage. 
 
 The comedy of All's Well that Ends Well 
 refers, in its chief action, to an incident very 
 frequently introduced in the ancient romance 
 literature, the conquest achieved by a passionate 
 
21 
 
 and resistless affection over the objections 
 created by disparity of station, obstacles that 
 were nearly insurmountable in a feudal age. 
 To enable us to consider the merits of this 
 play dispassionately, and with an impartial 
 judgment, the difficulties thus presented must 
 be considered in distinct reference to their 
 nature as they were regarded in the middle 
 ages, and must, not be weighed by a modern 
 standard of comparison. /Bertram, a proud 
 noble, unexpectedly constrained by an irre- 
 sistible authority, without any preparation, to 
 marry a person of greatly inferior rank, one 
 whom, in his pride of place, he had regarded 
 as scarcely exalted in position above that of a 
 menial servant in his household, waits not to 
 reflect whether her qualities will compensate for 
 the disparity of station, but, regardless of the 
 king's promises, burning with rage and mortifi- 
 cation at the unprecedented dictation of his 
 sovereign, seeks to heal his wounded pride by 
 immediate change of scene and action. /Bertram 
 is the very personification of impatience and 
 pride of birthl That, in the unsettled state of 
 mind in which he is when at Florence, becoming 
 the victim of passion, he should seek to over- 
 rule the accidents which had rendered its lawful 
 
22 
 
 gratification impossible, is a circumstance which 
 should not induce an entire deprivation of sym- 
 pathy ; it is true to the natural impatience of 
 his character, and the impetuosity with which 
 he followed the suggestions of his own will, 
 both stimulated to excess by the arbitrary in- 
 fliction of what he considered an injustice, so 
 that the poet would have been justified in its 
 introduction, even were it not necessary to the 
 development of the plot. Bertram's unscrupu- 
 lous conduct, as pourtrayed in the later scenes, 
 arises less from innate depravity than from the 
 perplexing situation in which he is placed ; and 
 all is forgiven when, overwhelmed by the in- 
 tensity of Helena's love, which had overcome 
 difficulties he had vainly considered were in- 
 surmountable, he yields himself a willing captive 
 to her romantic affection. 
 
 The above observations on All's Well that 
 Ends Well were written by me in the year 
 1857, and out of a mass of subsequent notes I 
 do not find any worthy of preservation. 
 
(ieniUmen of Verona, 
 
 THE earliest notice of this drama which has 
 yet been discovered is that in the list of Shake- 
 speare's plays given by Meres in his Palladis 
 Tamia, 1598, where it is mentioned as the 
 Gentlemen of Verona. It is not impossible 
 that this latter title was the original designation 
 of the comedy, one by which it was generally 
 known in the profession, and at a later period, 
 Kirkman, who was intimately connected with 
 the stage, inserts it in his list of plays, which 
 first appeared in 1661, as the Gentleman of 
 Verona. As a rule it is unsafe to pronounce a 
 judgment on the period of the composition of 
 any of Shakespeare's dramas from internal evi- 
 dence, but the general opinion that this play 
 is one of the author's earliest complete dramatic 
 efforts may be followed without much risk of 
 error. Admitting its lyrical beauty, its pathos, 
 its humour and its infinite superiority to the 
 dramas of contemporary writers, there is never- 
 theless a crudity in parts of the action, one at 
 
24 
 
 least being especially unskilful and abrupt, 
 which the more lengthened experience of such 
 a writer could hardly have sanctioned. A few 
 of its incidents occur in the tale of Felix and 
 Felismena, which is introduced in the romance 
 of Diana written in Spanish by George of 
 Montemayor about the middle of the sixteenth 
 century. The story in that romance, Felix 
 corresponding to Proteus and Felismena to 
 Julia, may thus be briefly narrated. A youth 
 named Don Felix falls rapturously in love with 
 Felismena, a young lady who is disposed to 
 reciprocate his affection but is unwilling to 
 acknowledge her inclination. Her maid Rosina, 
 whom he has induced to be the bearer of a 
 letter to her, is at first angrily repulsed ; but on 
 a subsequent occasion, she purposely, but as if 
 by accident, drops the missive in the sight of 
 Felismena, who invents an excuse for its pe- 
 rusal. A correspondence then followed which 
 resulted in the complete acknowledgment of the 
 lady's affection. As, however, the course of 
 true love never did run smooth, the father of 
 Don Felix, as might be anticipated, gains 
 intelligence through some officious person of 
 their passion for each other, and, disapproving 
 of the attachment, at once orders him to a 
 
foreign court upon the plea that enforced idleness 
 at home was prejudical to the formation of his 
 character. Felix is upon this decree so over- 
 come with grief that he leaves the object of his 
 affections without acquainting her with his 
 dismissal. Felismena's sorrow at his departure 
 is increased by the jealous apprehension of the 
 possibility of rivals when he was beyond the 
 reach of her personal influence, and as a con- 
 tinued absence from her lover was unendurable, 
 she dons male attire and travels to the same 
 court. Upon her arrival at the town where 
 Felix was sojourning, she takes lodgings in an 
 unfrequented street, and by the invitation of her 
 host experiences the trial of hearing the voice 
 of her lover serenading another mistress. Her 
 next step was soon decided upon. Assuming 
 the name of Valerius, she takes the earliest 
 opportunity of visiting the court, where she as- 
 certained from Fabius, the page of the faithless 
 swain, that Don Felix is enamoured with a lady 
 of the name of Celia, who is described as 
 inferior in beauty to Felismena. It chances that 
 Felix is then in want of another page, and 
 Valerius, secure in her masculine disguise, is 
 speedily engaged. While in this service, she is 
 compelled not only to listen to the outpourings 
 
26 
 
 of the love of the perjured Felix for the obdu- 
 rate Celia, but to become his advocate and the 
 bearer of his love-letters and " tokens." Celia 
 had determined to reject the hand of any one 
 who had deserted another lover in her favour, 
 but she encourages the correspondence and the 
 expectations of her lover for the sake of obtain- 
 ing interviews with Valerius, with whom she 
 had become desperately enamoured at their first 
 interview. Felismena continues loyally to urge 
 the suit of her master ; Celia expires of grief when 
 she discovers that her affection for the page is 
 wholly unrequited, and Don Felix, at the news 
 of her death, leaves the city in an agony of 
 despair. He is pursued by Felismena, who, 
 after many months of fruitless search, finally 
 discovers him in one whom she is the means, 
 through her skilful archery, of saving from 
 destruction in a combat in which he was 
 engaged single-handed against three other 
 knights. Reconciliation and marriage are the 
 natural results of this romantic episode. 
 
 Montemayor's story, parts of which are 
 graphically written, was in a dramatic form in 
 English at least as early as the year 1585, when 
 it was acted before Queen Elizabeth by her 
 Majesty's Players, " the history of Felix and 
 
27 
 
 Philiomena shewed and enacted before her 
 highnes by her Majesties servauntes on the 
 sondaie next after newyeares dale at night at 
 Grenewiche, whereon was ymploied one battle- 
 ment and a house of canvas," Revels' Accounts, 
 1 584-5. In the primitive kind of scenery which 
 illustrated the performances of dramas acted 
 before the Queen, a battlement was the con- 
 ventional representation of any royal or courtly 
 residence. There are a sufficient number of 
 incidents and minute particulars common to 
 the tale above analysed and to Shakespeare's 
 comedy to show that the plot of the latter was 
 partially derived either from Montemayor or 
 from some other work, possibly the old English 
 play just named, in which use had been made 
 of the tale of Felismena ; the latter supposition 
 appearing much more likely to be correct than 
 the notion that the great dramatist had perused 
 the Spanish romance previously to the com- 
 position of the Two Gentlemen of Verona. 
 There is, indeed, an allusion in the latter which 
 seems to indicate, the probability that Shake- 
 speare did not take his story immediately from 
 the Diana, but from some novel or play in which 
 there were correct references to the topography 
 of Milan. Although the poet's instinctive 
 
28 
 
 genius enabled him to avoid a serious continuity 
 of anachronism, it is evident from numerous 
 examples that he was indifferent to minute 
 accuracy in trivial matters of detail ; so that 
 when, as in this comedy, there is found a 
 mention of St. Gregory's Well at Milan, and it 
 is seen from Braun's Civitates Orbis Terrarum, 
 1582, where there is an engraving of that holy 
 well, that it was a veritable object in that city, 
 it may fairly be concluded that the notice in the 
 play owes its introduction to a predecessor. 
 Braun's work is one extremely unlikely to have 
 been even seen, much more consulted, by 
 Shakespeare, while the notion of the poet 
 having visited and been well acquainted with 
 Italy is unsupported by evidence or probability. 
 Speed's welcome of Launce to Padua, a city 
 which has no connexion with the plot of the 
 comedy, may perhaps be considered an error 
 originating in some allusion or incident in the 
 older story, which perhaps included something 
 analogous to the action of Valentine and Silvia 
 in combination with that of Proteus and Julia. 
 The drama of Felix and Philiomena is lost. 
 The Diana was not issued in English until after 
 November 28th, 1598, the date of the dedica- 
 tion to Yong's translation. Shakespeare there- 
 
29 
 
 fore had obviously written the Two Gentlemen 
 of Verona before he could have seen this 
 publication, and no other early English transla- 
 tion which includes the story of Felix and 
 Felismena is known to exist either in print or 
 manuscript. Yong, however, asserts that his 
 version had been completed in manuscript more 
 than sixteen years, so it is just possible, in that 
 age of transcript reading, that the great dra- 
 matist had perused it when in that form ; more 
 probable that the author of the play of Felix 
 and Philiomena had thence derived the ma- 
 terials of his plot. 
 
 According to Tieck, there was an old English 
 play, a German abridgment or mutilated trans- 
 lation of which was acted by English players in 
 Germany about the year 1600, whence some of 
 the materials for the story of the Two Gentle- 
 men of Verona might have been derived. The 
 foreign version alluded to, in which the cha- 
 racters are very coarsely delineated, was first 
 printed in the Englische Comedien vnd Tra- 
 gedien, 1620, under the title of Tragaedia von 
 Julio vnd Hyppolita, but the opinion of some 
 critics that there is a strong resemblance be- 
 tween the plots of the two dramas, the German 
 one and Shakespeare's, seems on examination 
 
30 
 
 to be untenable. The clown in the German 
 play is, like Speed, extremely eager after his 
 perquisites ; and there is an incident of the tear- 
 ing of a letter, but it is not in the slightest 
 degree analogous to that in Shakespeare. The 
 story of the play may be briefly stated as 
 follows. Romulus, a Roman, betrothed to 
 Hyppolita, leaves his beloved to the care of his 
 brother Julius whilst he travels to Rome to 
 obtain the consent of his parents to his mar- 
 riage. Julius, who is secretly in love with 
 Hyppolita, betrays his trust, intercepting the 
 letters of Romulus and substituting others in 
 their place, the latter being of a nature to in- 
 furiate Hyppolita and the Prince, her father. 
 The lady, distracted by the conduct of which 
 she presumes Romulus to have been guilty, 
 eventually determines to accept her father's 
 advice and marry Julius ; while Romulus, on 
 his return, accidentally discovering the fragments 
 of the spurious letter that Hyppolita, when she 
 received, had torn in pieces, of course ascertains 
 the treachery by which his hopes had been de- 
 feated. But the discovery was made too late, 
 Julius and his fair bride being then returning 
 from the Church after their marriage uncon- 
 scious of the fate that awaited them, Romulus 
 joins in the wedding dance in disguise, stabs 
 
Julius and upbraids Hyppolita with perfidy. 
 The latter kills herself in despair and Romulus 
 follows her example, the Prince, overwhelmed 
 by so great a calamity, retiring from the world. 
 It will readily be seen that there is, in all this, 
 nothing which may not have been invented or 
 derived from sources that have no relation to 
 Shakespeare's comedy ; and the same observa- 
 tion applies to an incident in Sydney's Arcadia 
 which has been thought to have suggested the 
 scenes in which Valentine is induced to join the 
 outlaws. 
 
 Athough a portion of the following lines in 
 Tis Merrie when Gossips Meete, 1602, was pro- 
 verbial, the form of the language would appear 
 to show that Rowlands had the present comedy 
 in his recollection, 
 
 The golden sentence proves blacke-bearded men 
 Are precious pearles in beauteous womens eies. 
 
INTRODUCTION. A.D. 1855. 
 
 THE serious portion of the plot of Much 
 Ado about Nothing is derived from one of 
 Bandello's novels, first published in the year 
 1554, which was probably known to Shake- 
 speare in the French translation of Bellefore.st. 
 This tale, observes Dunlop, appears to have 
 been suggested by a story in the Orlando 
 Furioso, book the fifth. In this narrative, to 
 quote the analysis of the writer just named, 
 " the duke of Albany is enamoured of Gineura, 
 daughter of the King of Scotland. The prin- 
 cess, however, being prepossessed in favour of 
 an Italian lover, the duke has recourse to strat- 
 agem to free himself from this dangerous rival. 
 He persuades the waiting-maid of Gineura to 
 disguise herself for one night in the attire of 
 her mistress, and in this garb to throw down 
 a ladder from the window, by which he might 
 ascend into the chamber of Gineura. The duke 
 had previously so arranged matters, that the 
 Italian was a witness to this scene, so pain- 
 ful to a lover. Giaeura was condemned to 
 death for the imaginary transgression, and was 
 
34 
 
 only saved by the opportune arrival of the 
 paladin Rinaldo, who declares himself the 
 champion of the accused princess." In the 
 frontispiece prefixed to this portion of Ariosto's 
 work in Harington's translation, fol. Lond. 
 I 59 I P- 3 1 * tne incident of the ascent of the 
 ladder, which constitutes the main similarity 
 between the stories of the poem and the 
 comedy, is conspicuously pourtrayed ; but, if 
 Shakespeare were acquainted with Ariosto's 
 tale he may have derived his knowledge of it 
 from an earlier source, a metrical translation of 
 it having appeared as early as 1565 " The 
 Historic of Ariodanto and Jeneura, daughter to 
 the King of Scottes, in English verse by Peter 
 Beverley, Imprinted at London by Thomas 
 East for Fraunces Coldocke," no date, but 
 entered on the books of the Stationers' Com- 
 pany in 1565-6, and according to Warton, 
 reprinted in the year 1600. Unless Harington 
 has mistaken the translator's name, there was 
 another early version of the same tale, for in a 
 note to the fifth book, he says, " Some others 
 affirme that this very matter, though set downe 
 here by other names, happened in Ferrara to 
 a kinse-woman of the Dukes, which is here 
 figured under the name of Geneura, and that 
 
35 
 
 indeede such a practise was used against her by 
 a great lord, and discovered by a damsel, as is 
 here set down : howsoever it was, sure the tale 
 is a pretie comicall matter, and hath bin written 
 in English verse some few years past, learnedly 
 and with good grace, though in verse of another 
 kind, by M. George Turbervil ; " but as no 
 copy or even notice of such a translation has 
 yet been discovered, the probability is that 
 Harington's memory has deceived him. It is a 
 very curious circumstance that Ariosto's tale was 
 dramatized in English at an early period, the 
 following entry occurring in the Revels 1 
 Accounts, in the book relating to the period, 
 1581-2 to 1582-3, ed. Cunningham, p. 177, 
 "A Historic of Ariodante and Geneuora 
 shewed before her Majestic on Shrovetuesdaie 
 at night, enacted by Mr. Mulcasters children : 
 for which was newe prepared and imployed one 
 citty, one battlement of canvas, vij. ells of sarce- 
 net, and ij. dozen of gloves." Thus it -would 
 seem that the serious incidents of Much Ado 
 about Nothing may have been long familiar 
 to Shakespeare, as well-known subjects for 
 dramatic representation. They were also par- 
 tially introduced, but with ineffable dulness, into 
 Spenser's Faerie Queene, b. ii. c. 4. 
 
36 
 
 There can be little doubt but that Shake- 
 speare had seen the story related by Ariosto in 
 some form, for the incident of Don John's 
 friend persuading the maid-servant to personate 
 her mistress at the window is not introduced 
 into the novel of Bandello under similar cir- 
 cumstances. The latter is thus analyzed by 
 Dunlop, " Lionato, a gentleman of Messina, 
 had a daughter named Fenicia, who was be- 
 trothed to Timbreo de Cardona, a young man 
 of the same city. Girondo, a disappointed lover 
 of the young lady, having resolved to prevent 
 the marriage, sends a confidant to Timbreo 
 to warn him of the disloyalty of his mistress, 
 and offers that night to show him a stranger 
 scaling her chamber window. Timbreo accepts 
 the invitation, and in consequence sees the 
 hired servant of Girondo, in the dress of a 
 gentleman, ascend a ladder, and enter the house 
 of Lionato. Stung with rage and jealousy, 
 he next morning accuses his innocent mistress 
 to her father, and rejects his alliance. Fenicia, 
 on hearing this intelligence, sinks down in a 
 swoon. This is followed by a dangerous illness, 
 which gives her father an opportunity of pre- 
 venting reports injurious to her fame, by pre- 
 tending she is dead. She is accordingly sent 
 
37 
 
 to the country, and her funeral rites are cele- 
 brated in Messina. Girondo, struck with re- 
 morse at having occasioned her death, now 
 confesses his villainy to Timbreo, after which 
 they proceed together to make the requisite 
 apologies to her family. The sole penance 
 which the father imposes on Timbreo is, that 
 he should espouse a lady of his selection, and 
 that he should not demand to see her previous 
 to the performance of the bridal ceremony. At 
 the nuptial festival, Timbreo, instead of the 
 new bride he awaited, is presented with the 
 innocent and much-injured Fenicia." The 
 striking similarity of this story to the main 
 incidents of the present comedy, and the coinci- 
 dence in the name of the injured lady's father 
 will be readily perceived. It is, however, diffi- 
 cult to account for the deviations made by 
 Shakespeare, without entertaining the supposi- 
 tion that he was immediately indebted, neither 
 to Bandello or Belleforest, but to some English 
 version of the tale, in which the motive for 
 the inexcusable stratagem perpetrated upon the 
 heroine was differently related. Such a motive 
 might have been in the poet's mind, and un- 
 consciously assumed by him in the construction 
 of his plot ; for it must be admitted that no 
 
reasonable cause is exhibited, in the play itself, 
 to account for Don John's intense hatred of 
 Claudio. On the other hand, it is possible that 
 Shakespeare intended to pourtray, in Don John, 
 one of those wretched characters to whom the 
 success of another is a sufficient incentive to 
 inextinguishable hatred and malice. 
 
 The principal incident in the Italian novel is 
 traced by Skottowe to a period as early as the date 
 of the Spanish romance, Tirante the White, com- 
 posed in the dialect of Catalonia about the year 
 1400 ; and, according to Simrock, the ninth novel 
 in the Introduction to Cinthio's Hecatommithi 
 also represents a deception similar to that which 
 was practised upon Fenicia, but it is there con- 
 trived by a servant-maid, who has fallen in love 
 with her master, against her mistress. This par- 
 ticular incident is probably likewise to be met 
 with in other sources, and is not in itself of great 
 importance in the consideration of the inquiry 
 as to the materials directly employed by the 
 great dramatist. As far as our researches have 
 yet extended, the probabilities are in favour of 
 Shakespeare having either been indebted to 
 Bandello, through the medium of Belleforest, 
 or to some early English translation of the 
 Italian novel, which may have been published 
 
39 
 
 in the sixteenth century, although no copy or 
 fragment of such a work has yet been dis- 
 covered. It is also to be presumed, from a cir- 
 cumstance previously mentioned, that the poet 
 was acquainted with the story of Ariosto, in its 
 original or translated form, or possibly in the 
 ancient English drama of Ariodante and Ge- 
 neuora. 
 
 The story of Bandello was also employed by 
 the German dramatist Ayrer, in the construction 
 of the comedy of Phaenicia, published in 1 6 1 8 ; 
 or, perhaps, to speak more correctly, Ayrer's 
 play is founded upon the incidents of the Italian 
 novel. Tieck supposes that the German play 
 is merely a version of an earlier English drama, 
 the same which was used by Shakespeare in the 
 composition of Much Ado about Nothing; and 
 his conjecture is supported by the following 
 entry in the accounts of the Revels at Court in 
 1574; " the expences and charges wheare my 
 L. of Leicesters men showed theier matter of 
 Panecia, x.s" the " matter of Panecia" being, 
 in all probability, the play of Phsenicia, one 
 which may have continued to maintain its 
 position as an acting drama during Shakespeare's 
 early career. " In the German version," ob- 
 serves Mr. Thorns, " we find Timbreo not only 
 
40 
 
 witnesses the ascent of Gerwalt to Phoenicia's 
 chamber ; but, like Shakespeare's Claudio, he 
 overhears an amorous conversation between 
 Gerwalt, and Jahn, the clown of the piece, and 
 the servant of Gerando disguised as Phoenicia, 
 and this fact alone furnishes a strong presump- 
 tion that Shakespeare was indebted not to Ban- 
 dello, but to some earlier dramatist, for the plot 
 of this comedy. A careful perusal of the old 
 German play has indeed satisfied my mind that 
 it is derived from an earlier English composi- 
 tion, that probably which is alluded to in the 
 entry above given. Ayrer's comedy, however, 
 is not in itself very illustrative of Shakespeare's 
 play, and it no doubt differed most materially 
 from its English prototype. 
 
 The quarto edition of 1600, printed by Valen- 
 tine Simmes, is the chief and best authority for 
 the text of this play. That it was reprinted from 
 that edition in the folio of 1623, clearly appears 
 from the occurrence of peculiarities in each that 
 could not possibly have appeared accidentally in 
 both places ; but the folio edition has a singular 
 reading, not found in the quarto, in which " Jack 
 Wilson " is mentioned, which leads to the supposi- 
 tion that the reprint of the former was taken from 
 a playhouse copy of the printed edition of 1600, 
 
S1TF] 
 
 03T 
 
 41 
 
 an exemplar of it, with a few manuscript direc- 
 tions and notes, having probably taken the 
 place of the author's holograph drama. It 
 seems impossible, on any other grounds, to 
 account for all the curious differences, as well 
 as for the important coincidences, which are to 
 be traced between the two copies ; and the 
 modern text may be safely formed from a colla- 
 tion of these early editions, the weight of 
 authority evidently being in favour of the 
 quarto. The latter is thus entered in the 
 Books of the Stationers' Company, " 23 
 Augusti, 1 600 ; Andrewe Wise, William Aspley, 
 -Twoo bookes, the one called Muche Adoo 
 about Nothinge : thother the second parte of 
 the History of Kinge Henry the iiij.th with 
 the Humors of Sir John Fallstaff, wrytten by 
 Mr. Shakespere, xij.df." It appears also amongst 
 some books " to be staied " in an entry dated 
 August 4th, which is believed to refer to the 
 same year 1600, there described as "the Com- 
 medie of Much Adoo about Nothinge, a book," 
 which, with the others there named, was pro- 
 bably attempted to be pirated by other book- 
 sellers. 
 
 It appears, from the title-page of the quarto 
 edition, that Much Ado about Nothing had 
 
42 
 
 been performed by the Lord Chamberlain's 
 company either in or before the year 1600, or 
 perhaps at continuous periods from a year 
 previously ; but no very early notice of the 
 peformance of the comedy has yet been dis- 
 covered. In fact, the only extrinsic mention of 
 it as an acting play, during the author's lifetime, 
 occurs in the MS. accounts of Lord Harrington, 
 Treasurer of the Chamber to James I., the 
 originals of which are preserved in the Bodleian 
 Library ; in which it is stated that Much Ado 
 about Nothing was one of the dramas per- 
 formed by John Heminges, and the rest of the 
 King's Company, before Prince Charles, the 
 Lady Elizabeth, and the Prince Palatine Elector, 
 in the beginning of the year 1613. A subse- 
 quent entry in the same volume of accounts is 
 still more curious, mention being there made 
 of a play entitled Benedick and Beatrice, for 
 so the scribe's orthography may fairly be in- 
 terpreted ; and a difficult question arises for 
 consideration, whether this title be that of 
 another and possibly an older play on the same 
 subject, or merely a second title to Much Ado 
 about Nothing, the fact of the play being men- 
 tioned under its accepted name in the same 
 accounts, under the same date, leading us in 
 
43 
 
 some degree to the former conclusion. The 
 entry occurs in the following terms : " Item, 
 paid to the said John Hemings, xx. die Maii, 
 1613, for presenting six severall playes, viz., 
 one play called A bad Beginning makes a good 
 Ending ; one other called, the Captain ; one, 
 the Alchemist ; one other, Cardano ; one other, 
 Hotspur ; one other, Benedicte and Bettris ; all 
 played in the tyme of this accompte." Leonard 
 Digges, in his commendatory verse.5 on Shake- 
 speare, speaks of Benedick and Beatrice as the 
 prominent characters by which the play was 
 then known, and who were doubtlessly exceed- 
 ingly popular with the audience, 
 
 let but Beatrice 
 
 And Benedicke be scene, loe ! in a trice 
 The cockpit, galleries, boxes, all are full. 
 
 And there is a curious testimony to the fact of 
 their being familiar to the mind of the public, 
 in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, ed. 1624, 
 " many times those which at the first sight can- 
 not fancy or affect each other, but are harsh and 
 ready to disagree, offended with each other's 
 carriage, like Benedict and Betteris in the 
 comedy, and in whom they finde many faults, 
 by this living together in a house, conference, 
 
44 
 
 kissing, colling, and such like allurements, begin 
 at last to dote insensibly one upon another/' 
 Were it not, therefore, for the two entries in 
 Lord Harrington's accounts, the conclusion in 
 favour of the second notice referring to the 
 present comedy would scarcely be questioned ; 
 and, notwithstanding the difficulty created by 
 those entries, it would probably be rash to 
 decide otherwise without the assistance of 
 further evidence on the subject. There can be 
 no doubt but that the adventures of Benedick 
 and Beatrice, and the ludicrous representation 
 of the process of their conversion to mutual 
 affection, attract the principal attention both of 
 the reader and the audience, and that the im- 
 pression made even by the inimitable blundering 
 of the constables, as well as by the more serious 
 scenes, is secondary. 
 
 There is no division into acts or scenes in the 
 quarto edition of Much Ado about Nothing, 
 and, in the folios, the play is divided into acts 
 but not into scenes. Gildon, in his Remarks, 
 1710, p. 306, somewhat quaintly observes, 
 " the scenes of this play are something obscure, 
 for you can scarce tell where the place is in the 
 first two acts, tho' the scenes in them seem 
 pretty entire and unbroken ; but those are things 
 
45 
 
 we ought not to look much for in Shake- 
 spear." The arrangement of the first folio in 
 respect to the acts is that which is still generally 
 adopted, and was, in all probability, the same 
 that was in vogue in the author's own time. It 
 has, however, been proposed to alter it on the 
 ground that while time is supposed to elapse 
 between the first and second scenes of the first 
 act, the action is continuous from the third to 
 the fourth act ; an inconsistency which would 
 be obviated by commencing the second act with 
 the second scene of the first act, the third act 
 with the third scene of the second act, and the 
 fourth act with the fourth scene of the third act, 
 the fifth act remaining as it is now printed. 
 The principle here implied, that pauses in time 
 are invariably to occur between acts, and never 
 between scenes, is somewhat too restrictive, 
 and cannot safely be accepted as necessary to 
 the legitimate construction of a Shaksperian ( 
 drama. 
 
MEMORANDA. 1879. 
 
 The preceding observations on Much Ado 
 About Nothing were written by me in the year 
 1855, and I am sorry to find that there is 
 nothing of very much value or importance 
 amongst my papers of a later date.. The 
 following memoranda, however, may be worth 
 preservation. 
 
 The Old Tale. An unpublished letter writ- 
 ten by Blakeway gives an interesting account 
 of the source whence he derived the traditional 
 story printed in the variorum edition and in 
 several other works. This letter, which is 
 dated from Shrewsbury, December the 29th, 
 1807, nas no superscription to indicate to whom 
 it was addressed. It commences as follows, 
 " Your letter found me at Kinlet in the very 
 act of removing into winter quarters here, the 
 bustle attending which has prevented me from 
 answering it till now. I am glad my old story 
 amused you, and I dare say what you mention 
 is very true, that it has received several modern 
 sophistications in the course of its traditional 
 descent, each narratrix accommodating it to the 
 
48 
 
 manners of her age. You are the best judge 
 whether it is likely to have been of Italian 
 origin, but you are perfectly right- in your 
 remark that the relater has inserted familiar 
 names of the county, for the family of Fox, not 
 the least akin, I believe, to the deceased orator 
 of that name, was formerly a very opulent and 
 widely extended one in Shropshire. In answer 
 to your enquiry when my great aunt, from whom 
 I had the story, died, I have the pleasure to 
 inform you that that truly venerable old lady is 
 still living, and at the advanced age of 92, for 
 she was baptized, as appears by a copy of the 
 register now before me, July 26th, 1715, in the 
 full enjoyment of her mental faculties. From 
 the history of our family I think it likely that 
 she may have received the tale from persons 
 born in Charles the Second's time, but when I 
 see her next I will ask her if she can recollect." 
 The Hundred Merry Tales. This was the 
 title of a very popular jest-book of the sixteenth 
 century, frequently reprinted, but copies of two 
 editions only are now known to be in existence. 
 The title of one of these consists simply of the 
 words, A C. Mery Talys, the colophon being 
 as follows, " Here endeth the booke of a c. 
 mery talys, Imprinted at London at the sygne 
 
49 
 
 of the Meremayde at Powlys gate nexte to 
 Chepesyde," with Rastell's device on the last 
 leaf. A copy at Gottingen, recently discovered, 
 has the following colophon, " Thus endeth the 
 booke of a C. mery talys, Emprynted at London 
 at the synge of the Merymayd at Powlys gate 
 next to chepe syde, the yere of our Lorde 
 M. v. C. xxvj,thexxij. of November, Johannes 
 Rastell." The earliest separate notice of the work 
 occurs in the Registers of the Stationers' Com- 
 pany, 1557-8, when " a boke called an hundreth 
 mery tayles" is mentioned as being licensed to 
 John Wally or Whalley. In January, 1581-2, it 
 was licensed to John Charlwood, and it had no 
 doubt been printed in the interval between these 
 dates. James Roberts was the next publisher, 
 Charlwood having transferred the book to him on 
 May 3ist, 1594, and Roberts assigned it to W. 
 Jaggard in 1615, the representative of the last- 
 named publisher transferring the copyright to 
 Thomas and Richard Cotes in 1627. The 
 Hundred Merry Tales are mentioned by Lane- 
 ham in the list of books in Captain Cox's library 
 given in his Letter from Kenilworth printed 
 about the year 1575, and also in the following 
 works, Epistle prefixed to Hanmer's Eusebius, 
 1585 ; the English Courtier and the Cuntrey 
 
50 
 
 Gentleman, 1586; Pierces Supererogation, 1593; 
 Harrington's Apology, 1596 ; the Priests of 
 Peblis, 1603 ; Wily Beguiled, 1606 ; Taylor's 
 Workes, 1630 ; and in a list of popular books 
 cried for sale by a ballad-man in the London 
 Chaunticleres, a comedy, 1659. "I could tell 
 you more, as he hath done, out of that most 
 learned author, the Book of Merry Tales, from 
 whence his best jests are derived : but that, as 
 the old manciple of Brazen-noze College in 
 Oxford was wont to say, There are more fools 
 to meet with." Ulysses upon Ajax, 1596. 
 
 I could fill a whole volume, and call it the 
 second part of the hundred mery tales, onely 
 with such ridiculous stuffe as this of the Justice ; 
 but Dii meliora ; I have better matters to set 
 my wits about : neither shall you wring out of 
 my pen (though you lay it on the racke) the 
 villainies of that damnd keeper, who killd all 
 she kept, Decker's Wonderfull Yeare, 1603. 
 
 Bevis of Hampton he had read, and Guy of Warwick stout ; 
 
 Huon of Bordeaux, though so long, yet he had read him 
 out. 
 
 The Hundred Tales and Scoggin's Jests, and Arthur of the 
 Round Table ; 
 
 The twelve Wise Men of Gotham too, and ballads innume- 
 rable. 
 The Trimming of Tom Nash, poem in MS. Sloane 1489, 
 
5I 
 
 The following very curious notice of this 
 work having been a favourite one with Queen 
 Elizabeth, occurs in a letter dated 1603 pre- 
 served in the State Paper Office : " About ten 
 dayes synce dyed the Countess of Notingham. 
 The Queene loved the Countess very much, and 
 hath seemed to take her death very heavelye, 
 remayning ever synce in a deepe melancholye 
 with conceipte of her own death, and com- 
 playneth of many infirmyties sodainlye to have 
 overtaken her, as impostum, megrin in her 
 head, aches in her bones, and continuall cold in 
 her legges, besides notable decay in judgement 
 and memory, insomuch as she cannot attend to 
 any discources of government and state, but 
 delight eth to heare some of the 100 merry tales, 
 and such like, and to such is very attentive ; at 
 other tymes very impatient and testye, so as 
 none of the Counsayle, but the secretary, dare 
 come in her presence," See other notices in 
 the variorum edition of Shakespeare, ed. 1821, 
 vii. 165-6. 
 
 Two aspicious persons. Middleton apparently 
 had one of Dogberry's speeches in his recollec- 
 tion when, in his Mad World my Masters, 1608, 
 he makes another constable say, " May it 
 please your worship, sir, here are a company of 
 auspicious fellowes." 
 
52 
 
 Dogberry and Verges. According to Steevens, 
 these names are adopted from the dog-berry, the 
 female cornel, and verjuice, Verges being a cor- 
 ruption. I find, however, that Dogberry occurs 
 as a surname as early as the time of Richard 
 the Second in a charter preserved in the British 
 Museum, Harl. 76 c. 13, and in MS. Ashmol. 
 38 is a couplet, " uppon old Father Varges, a 
 misserable usurer." An allusion in Shirley's 
 Constant Maid, 1640, " my most exquisite 
 Varges," seems to aim at Shakespeare's officer, 
 but the particular application of the name in 
 that place is not very apparent, " Vergys, 
 acetum" MS. Arundel 249, fol. 89. "The brim 
 of a dish, platter or other vessell ; the verges ; " 
 Nomenclator, 1585. The name Borachio is 
 obviously derived from the Spanish wine-bottle 
 so called. " Another way it is very craftily 
 done by a Spanish borachio, that is, a leather 
 bottle as thin and lithe as a glove, the neck 
 whereof is about a foot long, with a screw at 
 the top instead of a stopple," Ady's Candle in 
 the Dark, 1656. 
 
 / cannot see how sleeping, &c. Compare the 
 following curious passage in Parkes's Curtaine- 
 Drawer of the World, 1612, " not many nights 
 since, when we had walked all our stations from 
 
53 
 
 the first bounds of our wardes to the last step it 
 contained, and had not met with any incounter 
 worthy the examination or the Counter, from 
 whence wee might extract or derive our custo- 
 mary fees, till at the last we accosted one that 
 by his attire and behaviour seemed to be some 
 great personage whom wee thought it not our 
 parts to call in question, but very dutifully mak- 
 ing our obaysance unto him, gave him the time 
 of the night, for the which he not onely gave us 
 thankes but also began to commend our diligence 
 and care and good attendance, when before his 
 face sate halfe of our company asleep, leaning 
 their heads against their bils and their billes 
 against the wall." 
 
 Innogen. This lady is mentioned as the wife 
 of Leonato in the first stage-direction in ed. 
 1600, but she does not appear in the play 
 itself. It may be worth notice that the name 
 was perhaps taken from that of the wife of 
 Brute in legendary British history, " Brute 
 and his wife Innogen arrive in Leogitia," 
 Holinshed, ed. 1586. 
 
 They are not the men you took them for. It 
 would appear from a notice of watchmen in 
 Lupton's London and the Countrey Carbo- 
 nadoed and Quartred into Several! Characters, 
 
54 
 
 1632, that this was formerly a conventional 
 phrase with those gentry, " poore souldiers 
 are now and then helpt to a lodging by their 
 meanes ; they'le visit an ale-house under colour 
 of search, but their desire is to get beere of the 
 company, and then, if they be but meane men, 
 they master them ; and they answere them, 
 Come, pay, with this usuall phrase, you are not 
 the men wee looke for, and demand of the 
 hostesse if shee have no strangers in her house ; 
 having got their desire, they depart with this 
 complement, well, if our businesse were not 
 extraordinary, we would have stay'd, but we 
 must search other places upon suspition ; it is, 
 gentlemen, for the King, and so depart with 
 the amazement of the honest company and 
 laughter to themselves." 
 
 They hope they serve God. Although Dog- 
 berry's inimitable speech is of course the poet's 
 own, it is just possible that he might have had 
 in his recollection some popular anecdote of the 
 time similar to one thus recorded in Jacke of 
 Dover his Quest of Inquirie, 1604, " There 
 was of late in Nottingham a certaine justice of 
 peace who one time, ryding through the streete, 
 he met with a swaggering companion called 
 Cutting Tom, who in a braverie tooke the wall 
 
55 
 
 of M. Justice and almost tumbled both him and 
 his horse downe into the dirt ; whereupon in an 
 anger he caused the ruffian to be staide, and 
 asked him what he was ? Mary, quoth Cutting 
 Tom, I am a man as you are. But, quoth the 
 justice, whom dost thou serve ? Whom do I 
 serve, quoth he, why, I do serve God. Serve 
 God, sayd the justice, what, dost thou mocke 
 mee ? Goe, carry the knave to prison ; He teach 
 him some other answer then to say I serve God. 
 To the jaile was he born, where for that night 
 he lay, and on the morrow brought before him 
 againe. Now, sirra, quoth the justice, are you 
 better advised yet ? Tell me who do you serve 
 now ? Why, quoth Cutting Tom, I serve God 
 still. But, sayd the justice, dost thou serve 
 nobody else ? Yes, quoth he, I serve my Lord 
 President of Yorke. Gods body, knave, why 
 didst not say so at first ? Mary, quoth he, be- 
 cause I had thought you had loved God better 
 then my Lord President, for now I see for his 
 sake I am set at liberty and not for Gods. 
 Therefore He serve God no more, but stil my 
 Lord President." 
 
 The stupidity of the constables in former 
 days was so familiar a theme that no useful 
 purpose would be answered by any extended 
 
56 
 
 notice of contemporary accounts. The follow- 
 ing letter, however, from Lord Burghley, dated 
 1586, addressed to Sir F. Walsingham, contains 
 so graphic a description of their inefficiency, it 
 may be quoted as an illustration. It was first 
 printed by Mr. Collier, whose copy I have col- 
 lated with the original in the State- Paper Office, 
 "Sir As I cam from London homward, in 
 my coche, I sawe at every townes end the nom- 
 bre of x. or xij. standyng, with long staves, and 
 untill I cam to Enfeld I thought no other of 
 them, but that they had stayd for avoyding of 
 the rayne, or to drynk at some alehouses, for 
 so they did stand under pentyces at alehouses. 
 But at Enfeld fyndyng a dosen in a plump, 
 whan ther was no rayne, I bethought myself 
 that they war apoynted as watchmen, for the 
 apprehendyng of such as ar missying ; and 
 theruppon I called some of them to me apart, 
 and asked them wherfor they stood ther ? and 
 on of them answered, To tak 3 yong men. 
 And demandyng how they shuld know the per- 
 sons, on answered with these wordes : Mary, 
 my Lord, by intelligence of ther favor. What 
 meane you by that?, quoth I. Marry, sayd they, 
 on of the partyes hath a hooked nose. And 
 have you, quoth I, no other mark ? No, sayth 
 
57 
 
 they. And then I asked who apoynted them ; 
 and they answered on Bankes, a Head Con- 
 stable, whom I willed to be sent to me. Suerly, 
 sir, who so ever had the chardg from yow hath 
 used the matter negligently ; for these watch- 
 men stand so oppenly in plumps, as no suspected 
 person will come neare them ; and if they be no 
 better instructed but to fynd 3 persons by on of 
 them havying a hooked nose, they may miss 
 therof. And thus I thought good to advertise 
 yow, that the Justyces that had the chardg, as I 
 thynk, may use the matter more circumspectly." 
 Gifford has forcibly shown there is little pro- 
 bability in the supposition that the well-known 
 allusion in Ben Jonson to the Watch " mistak- 
 ing words " is aimed at the constables of Shake- 
 speare, the practice of introducing them satiri- 
 cally into plays being very common, and by no 
 means peculiar to the great dramatist. The in- 
 convenience arising from the practice of making 
 the lower sort of people constables and tithing- 
 men is the subject of a letter, dated in 1605, 
 copied in MS. Addit. 6178, art. 13. Compare 
 also what Smith says in his Commonwealth of 
 England, ed. 1601, p. 97, "for so much as 
 every little village hath commonly two con- 
 stables, and many times artificers, labourers 
 
59 
 
 and men of small abilitie bee chosen unto that 
 office, who have no great experience nor know- 
 ledge nor authoritie, the constables at this pre- 
 sent seeme rather to bee, as it were, the execu- 
 tors of the commaundement of the justices of 
 peace." 
 
 A stool and a cushion for tlie sexton. " Item, 
 paid for hinges and nayls, and for mendinge 
 the geaole, and a staple and a trapp doore and 
 an officiall stoole, &c., 8.s. 4.d.," Municipal 
 Manuscripts of Stratford-on-Avon, 1630. 
 
 An early Dutch play by Starter, entitled 
 Timbre de Cardone, 1618, is founded on the 
 same story as Much Ado about Nothing, but I 
 can hardly agree with Mr. Gosse that its author 
 " made large use of his reminiscences " of 
 Shakespeare's comedy. The title-page, as Mr. 
 Gosse observes, has an engraving of Gironde 
 pointing out the supposed tomb of Fenicie to 
 Timbre in the church. This engraving appears 
 sufficiently curious to merit reproduction. 
 
 Charles the First, in his copy of the second 
 folio preserved at Windsor Castle, writes against 
 the title of Much Ado about Nothing, " Ben- 
 nedik and Betrice," not perhaps meaning a new 
 title, but merely that these were the leading and 
 probably his favourite characters. 
 
6o 
 
 Some of the prominent phrases in Much 
 Ado about Nothing were copied, and others 
 imitated, by Hey wood, in his Fay re Mayde of 
 the Exchange, 1607, e -g-> " I am not well, 
 and yet I am not ill," similar to Beatrice's 
 account of Claudio in act ii. sc. i. ; " ye gods 
 of love, that sit above," a song ; " this is the 
 sum of all," the same words being used by Don 
 Pedro in the first act ; " and yet, by this light, 
 I am horribly in love with her," probably copied 
 from the well-known passage in Benedick's 
 speech in the second act; " tis most tolerable 
 and not to be endured," as Dogberry also sagely 
 remarks. This last phrase may be his perver- 
 sion of a proverbial one. " Plays and players 
 are not tollerable nor to be endured/' as North- 
 brook observes in his Treatise on Playes, 1579. 
 Capell, p. 119, mentions some imitations from 
 Much Ado about Nothing in Blurt Master 
 Constable, 1602 ; and there is a passage in 
 Chapman's Monsieur d'Olive, 1606, " O that 
 I were a man for's sake," which appears to be 
 quoted from Shakespeare's play. There is pre- 
 served in the Ashmolean Museum an early 
 ballad entitled Much Ado about Nothing, but 
 it has no connexion with the comedy. 
 
THERE can be no doubt whatever but that 
 in or before the year 1598, Shakespeare had 
 written a tragedy on the subject of and entitled 
 Titus Andronicus. This fact is established on 
 the well-known and incontestable evidence of 
 Meres in the Palladis Tamia, a work entered 
 on the Stationers' Registers on September 7th, 
 1 598, and published in that year. Those, there- 
 fore, who, like myself, cannot believe that any 
 portion of the tragedy emanated from Shake- 
 speare, have found it difficult to reconcile this 
 opinion with the positive testimony of Meres 
 and with the fact of its being included in the 
 collective edition of 1623, In venturing to 
 suggest what is, I believe, a novel solution of 
 this difficulty, I would premise that I pay no 
 attention to the extravagant pretensions to 
 editorial accuracy set forth by the editors of 
 the first folio. It is known that those editors 
 misrepresented the facts in their statement re- 
 specting the copies they made use of, so that 
 
62 
 
 the mere fact of their including a play in their 
 collection is not a substantive evidence that it 
 was written by Shakespeare. The carelessness 
 displayed by them in the selection of those 
 copies invalidates such an assumption ; while 
 the public of the day were indifferent in such 
 matters, save in the exceptional case of the 
 great popularity of a particular drama. It is 
 true that the editors were no doubt aware that 
 Shakespeare had written a tragedy of Titus An- 
 dronicus, but my belief is that, not being able to 
 obtain a copy of it, they contented themselves 
 with a late edition of another play on the same 
 subject, published under this title, " The Most 
 Lamentable Tragedie of Titus Andronicus, as 
 it hath svndry Times beene plaide by the 
 Kings Maiesties Seruants. London, Printed 
 for Eedward White, and are to be solde at his 
 Shoppe, nere the little North Dore of Pauls, at 
 the signe of the Gun. 1611," 4to. That 
 Shakespeare's name is not on this title-page is 
 a fact which is no evidence in the question of 
 authorship, but the assertion that the tragedy 
 had been played by the King's Company is in 
 all probability untrue, for the next half-title in 
 the same edition speaks of it as " the most 
 lamentable Romaine Tragedie of Titus Andro- 
 
63 
 
 nicus, as it was plaid by the Right Honorable 
 the Earle of Darbie, Earle of Pembrooke, and 
 Earle of Sussex their Seruants." It was in 
 fact reprinted from an earlier edition which was 
 issued in 1 600 under the following title, " The 
 most lamentable Romaine Tragedie of Titus 
 Andronicus. As it hath sundry times beene 
 playde by the Right Honourable the Earle of 
 Pembrooke, the Earle of Darbie, the Earle of 
 Sussex, and the Lorde Chamberlaine theyr 
 Seruants. At London, Printed by I. R. for 
 Edward White, and are to bee solde at his 
 shoppe, at the little North doore of Paules, at 
 the signe of the Gun. 1600." 4to. There was 
 an earlier edition in 1594, thus recorded in 
 Langbaine's Account of the English Dramatick 
 Poets, 1691, p. 464, " Titus Andronicus his 
 Lamentable Tragedy ; this play was first printed 
 4 Lond. 1594, and acted by the Earls of 
 Derby, Pembroke, and Essex, their servants." 
 In all probability, Essex is here a misprint for 
 Siissex, as in the title-pages above quoted. The 
 edition of 1594 was thus entered on the books 
 of the Stationers' Company on February 6th, 
 1593-4, "John Danter, Entred for his copye 
 under thandes of bothe the wardens a booke 
 intituled a noble Roman historye of Tytus An- 
 
6 4 
 
 dronicus." It is unquestionably the same play 
 which Henslowe records as having been acted 
 by the Earl of Sussex's company early in 1 594, 
 and by the Lord Admiral's and the Lord Cham- 
 berlain's men in June of the same year, " Re- 
 ceived at Titus and Ondronicous the 23 of 
 Jenewary, iij./z. viij.^. Received at Titus and 
 Ondronicous the 28 of Jenewary, 1593, xxxx,^. 
 Received at Tittus and Ondronicus the 6 of 
 Febery, 1593, xxxx.s. 5 of June, 1594, received 
 at Andronicous, xij.^. 12 of June, 1594, re- 
 ceived at Andronicous, vij.s." The sums here 
 named are Henslowe's shares of the proceeds of 
 the representation. It is extremely unlikely that 
 Shakespeare, who was always attached exclu- 
 sively to the Lord Chamberlain's company, 
 should have written a play in which that com- 
 pany could only have had a very small interest. 
 The mere fact of this drama having been acted 
 by the several private companies above referred 
 to satisfies me that it does not belong to 
 Shakespeare, but that it is to be classed with 
 the old play of Lear and the others the sub- 
 jects of which constituted the chief obligations 
 of the great dramatist to previous writers. The 
 internal evidence points irresistibly in the same 
 direction, and I am convinced that Shake- 
 
65 
 
 speare's play of Titus Andronicus has yet to be 
 recovered. 
 
 The loss of Shakespeare's play on the subject 
 may possibly be attributed to its having been a 
 failure in comparison with his other productions. 
 It was probably withdrawn from the stage soon 
 after its first appearance, and the manuscript 
 may have been lost before the editors of the 
 folio of 1623 made their collection. Ben Jonson, 
 writing in 1614, ignores Shakespeare's drama, 
 and thus refers to the popularity of the older 
 play, " hee that will sweare Jeronimo or An- 
 dronicus are the best playes, yet shall passe un- 
 excepted at heere as a man whose judgement 
 shewes it is constant and hath stood still these 
 five and twentie or thirty yeeres. Though it be 
 an ignorance, it is a vertuous and stay'd igno- 
 rance ; and next to truth, a confirmed errour 
 does well; such a one the author knowes where 
 to finde him," Induction to Bartholomew Fair, 
 1614. Jonson hardly means here to convey the 
 idea of a precise date, but merely that it was 
 about the same age as the old play of Jeronymo, 
 which was written about the year 1588. It is 
 again alluded to in Father Hubburd's Tales, 
 1604, " Nevertheless, for all my lamentable 
 action of one arm, like old Titus Andronicus, 
 
66 
 
 I could purchase no more than one month's pay 
 for a ten months' pain and peril, nor that neither, 
 but to convey away my miserable clamours, that 
 lay roaring against the arches of their ears, 
 marry, their bountiful favours were extended 
 thus far, I had a passport to beg in all 
 countries." It is also worth notice that a Ger- 
 man translation of a play of Titus Andronicus 
 occurs in the curious collection of English Come- 
 dies and Tragedies acted in Germany, and pub- 
 lished in German in the year 1620. This play 
 is supposed by Tieck to be a mutilated and ab- 
 breviated copy of a drama anterior to the pub- 
 lished tragedy. 
 
 At the same time that Danter published the 
 tragedy of Titus Andronicus, 1594, he issued a 
 ballad on the same subject, which was often re- 
 printed. An early copy of it, now before me, 
 is entitled, " The Lamentable and Tragicall 
 History of Titus Andronicus, with the fall of 
 his five and twenty sons in the wars of the 
 Goaths, with the ravishment of his daughter 
 Lavinia by the Empresse two sons through the 
 means of a bloody Moor taken by the sword of 
 Titus in the war, with his revenge upon them 
 for their cruell and inhumane Act ; to the tune 
 of Fortune my Foe." This seems to be merely 
 a ballad founded on the story of the play. 
 
67 
 
 Edward Ravenscroft published an alteration 
 of the following play in the year 1687, in the 
 preface to which he says, " I think it a greater 
 theft to rob the dead of their praise then the 
 living of their money : that I may not appear 
 guilty of such a crime, 'tis necessary I should 
 acquaint you that there is a play in Mr. Shake- 
 spears volume under the name of Titus An- 
 dronicus, from whence I drew part of this." 
 He then adds, " I have been told by some 
 anciently conversant with the stage that it was 
 not originally his, but brought by a private 
 author to be acted, and he only gave some 
 master touches to one or two of the principal 
 parts or characters ; this I am apt to believe, 
 because 'tis the most incorrect and indigested 
 piece in all his works ; it seems rather a heap 
 of rubbish then a structure." Langbaine, how- 
 ever, p. 465, gives part of a prologue to the 
 tragedy, written by Ravenscroft, but afterwards 
 suppressed, in which he distinctly speaks of this 
 drama as wholly written by Shakespeare. The 
 tradition above recorded can, therefore, hardly 
 be safely relied upon. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that Thomas Pavier 
 owned the copyright of a piece called Titus 
 Andronicus, which was assigned by his widow 
 
68 
 
 to two other publishers in 1626 ; but whether it 
 was a tragedy or a prose history is not stated. 
 From the terms of the entry, I should be in- 
 clined to imagine that it was the latter. 
 
MEMORANDA. A.D. 1879. 
 
 The preceding observations on Titus Andro- 
 nicus were written by me in the year 1864, and 
 although the theory therein advanced was some- 
 what a bold one, no reasons have since occurred 
 to induce me to discard it as impossible. It 
 is, indeed, the only hypothesis on which the 
 evidences of Meres and the First Folio can be 
 thoroughly reconciled with the absolute contrast 
 of the printed tragedy to Shakespeare's dra- 
 matic tone and genius. 
 
 It is idle to say that there are in it a few lines 
 and isolated passages which would not disgrace 
 the pen of Shakespeare. The same might be 
 said of many other contemporary dramas. 
 And there is not a sufficient number of those 
 lines and passages in themselves to counte- 
 nance the idea of the drama being one amended 
 by the great poet, and, moreover, they are not 
 of that dramatic-positional character which 
 would justify the idea of the whole being an 
 alteration by Shakespeare even in the earliest 
 part of his literary career. It is, of course, by 
 no means impossible that the tragedy alluded 
 
to by Meres was in itself an alteration of the 
 old play, but it seems out of the question to 
 believe that the copy we now have could have 
 been that alteration. 
 
 The antagonism between the external and 
 internal evidences is so perplexing, it is no 
 matter for wonder that many theories have been 
 suggested. Amongst these most critics will in 
 the long run, I apprehend, reject as least de- 
 serving of credit that which would assign the 
 tragedy in any way as a whole to Shakespeare. 
 Gervinus implies that as his talent was equal 
 to " affect the noisy style of a Kyd and a 
 Marlowe," he might have done so in the present 
 instance, but surely not without exhibiting some 
 great trace of that refining dramatic power 
 which was part of his intellectual nature. 
 
 Now as to the exact position of the Lord 
 Chamberlain's Company in regard to this tra- 
 gedy. I must have been too rash in insinuating 
 (see p. 64) that the Company had even a very 
 small interest in it. There is no proof of any- 
 thing of the kind. It was first produced as a 
 new play on January the 23rd, 1593-4, being 
 acted by " the Earl of Sussex his men," and 
 producing for Henslowe's share the then large 
 sum of $ 8s. od. The Lord Chamberlain's 
 
Company did not play at Newington until the 
 following June, when Titus Andronicus had so 
 declined in popularity that twelve shillings and 
 seven shillings only are pocketed by Hens- 
 lowe at the two recorded performances, and 
 after that month it appears to have been with- 
 drawn. The Chamberlain's Company is not 
 mentioned in the only notices we have of the 
 first edition of the tragedy which appeared in 
 1594, and it is important to observe that, 
 although the name of that company appears 
 with the others on the title-pages of the editions 
 of 1600 and 1611, it is omitted in both in the 
 first half-title. The probability is entirely 
 against the Lord Chamberlain's Company 
 having had more to do with the play than join- 
 ing in the performance of it in June, 1594. 
 
 The publishing evidences point in the same 
 direction. Neither Danter nor White had 
 aught to do with any of the genuine productions 
 of Shakespeare, while the entry of assignment 
 from Millington to Pavier in 1602 may, as I 
 have suggested, refer to a prose history, in the 
 same way that the " book called Thomas of 
 Reading,' 7 named in the same entry, certainly 
 was. Pavier, as appears from other entries, 
 owned the copyright of a ballad of Titus 
 

[WYES 
 
 73 ^*rf 
 
 Andronicus, the title of which must not be 
 confused with that of either the play or the 
 history. The entry of assignment from Mrs. 
 Pavier to Brewster and Bird in 1626 may 
 certainly refer to the last, for " Tytus and 
 Andronicus " is not included in the " right in 
 Shakesperes plaies or any of them," but is 
 inserted in company with the prose Hamlet. 
 Whatever the book was, it was assigned by 
 Bird to Richard Cotes in 1630. This Richard 
 Cotes was a publisher who owned a large 
 number of favourite prose histories, and it is 
 probable that this one was an early edition of 
 aa excessively rare chap-book of the last cen- 
 tury in my possession entitled, " The History 
 of Titus Andronicus, the Renowned Roman 
 General, who, after he had saved Rome by his 
 Valour from being destroyed by the barbarous 
 Goths and lost two-and-twenty of his valiant 
 Sons in ten Years War, was, upon the 
 Emperor's marrying the Queen of the Goths, 
 put to disgrace and banish'd. Newly Trans- 
 lated from the Italian copy printed at Rome," 
 I2mo. Northampton, n.d. At the end of this 
 chap-book is inserted the old ballad on the 
 subject previously alluded to. 
 
 A revolting story, which seems to have been 
 
74 
 
 suggested by the pie incident in Titus Andro- 
 nicus, is told in the Famous Historic of the 
 Seven Champions of Christendome. I quote 
 from the edition of 1608, but there was an 
 earlier one in 1596 or 1597, " these words 
 pricked the negars to the gall and caused them 
 to commit the wickedst deede that ever was 
 practised under the celestiall globe of heaven. 
 First, they sheathed their poniards in the 
 breasts of all the marchants children, whose 
 guiltlesse bloud stayned all the chamber with a 
 crimson colour. Then with their fauchions did 
 they cut their bodies all in sunder and caused 
 seven pies to be made of their flesh, and after 
 served in a banquet to their wofull parents 
 whom the mercilesse Moores set at a square 
 table, the marchant placed directly opposite 
 against his wife, where they were constrayned 
 eyther to feede upon their owne children or 
 starve for want of other sustenance." 
 
 In an inventory of the theatrical costume at 
 the Rose Theatre in March, 1598-9, mention is 
 made of " the Mores lymes," which Malone 
 suspects " were the limbs of Aaron the Moor 
 in Titus Andronicus," who in the original play 
 was probably tortured on the stage. An actor 
 whose peculiar action with one arm was cele- 
 
75 
 
 brated in the part of Titus is curiously alluded 
 to in Father Hubburds Tales, 1604. 
 
 According to an author, whose name I have 
 omitted to note, Shadwell intimates that 
 Ravenscroft got up the story alluded to at p. 67 
 with a view to exalt his own merit in having 
 altered the tragedy of Titus Andronicus. This 
 testimony may be of some importance in esti- 
 mating Ravenscroft's credibility, but there is an 
 expression in his preface, which, as it now just 
 occurs to me, tends greatly to the probability of 
 there being some truth in his statement. He 
 says that the tragedy was " brought by a private 
 author to be acted," and this is exactly what we 
 might believe, namely, that it was written by 
 an amateur who had received a classical educa- 
 tion. Little need be thought of the discrepancy 
 between Ravenscroft's original Prologue and 
 his account of the tradition, for he may not 
 have heard of the latter until after the first pro- 
 duction of his alteration. 
 
 As might be expected in the study of a 
 drama so suspicious as to authenticity, the 
 critics are greatly at variance in respect to the 
 particular speeches to be assigned to the hand 
 of the great dramatist. Coleridge would give 
 the five speeches in act v. sc. 2 commencing, 
 
7 6 
 
 " I am not mad," to his pen, but surely there 
 are passages in the tragedy far more Shakes- 
 pearean than these. On reading Titus Andro- 
 nicus once more, I trust for the last time, the 
 Clown's speeches appear to me to be as much 
 in his manner as any others, and that in them,, 
 if with certainty anywhere, may be traced some 
 of the few " master touches," if Ravenscroft's 
 tradition is to be accepted ; but I do not really 
 believe that Shakespeare wrote a single word 
 of it. 
 
SHAKESPEARE'S NAME. 
 
 There are five and only five undisputed 
 genuine signatures of the great dramatist 
 known to exist, and in each instance he has 
 written his surname without an e at the con- 
 clusion of the first syllable. To those who 
 would shudder at the idea of the greatest 
 author of the world not knowing how to spell 
 his own name, or to those who are unacquainted 
 with the state of the surname question in his 
 time, the poet's own written authority would 
 appear to be decisive. A little enquiry would, 
 however, create a suspicion that such a conclu- 
 sion may be illusory. 
 
 Orthography of every kind was in an un- 
 settled state in the poet's time, and there was no 
 fixed standard in the case of surnames, few per- 
 sons then adhering to an uniform mode of spell- 
 ing even in their own signatures. With respect 
 to the Shakespeares, neither the parents of the 
 dramatist nor their daughters could write at all, 
 and the first members of the family competent 
 to affix their signatures instead of a mark, an 
 accomplishment for which they were indebted 
 
78 
 
 to the Free School at Stratford-on-Avon, were 
 the poet and his brothers. One autograph only 
 of any of the latter has been discovered, and 
 in that the important letter e distinctly appears; 
 so that, if we adopted the system of guiding 
 our early surname orthography by autographs, 
 we must, when speaking of the poet, write 
 Shakspere, but, when we have occasion to 
 mention his brother, it must be Shakespere, 
 a manifest absurdity. 
 
 It thus being certain that there was no uni- 
 form orthography of the surname adopted by 
 the Shakespeare family, we could only prefer 
 the form of Shakspere on the suppositions not 
 only that the poet invariably so wrote his name, 
 but that it was his wish that the curtailed 
 spelling should be that of his own, or of the 
 family surname, With respect to the former 
 surmise, there is practically merely the evidence 
 afforded by three late signatures, for those 
 attached to the Will, having been written at 
 the same time, can only be taken, for the pur- 
 poses of this argument, as one example. In 
 regard to the other theory, it is clear that he 
 had no fancy for the general adoption of the 
 signature form, for otherwise it is incredible 
 that his name should appear as Shakespeare in 
 
79 
 
 the only two works that we can safely believe to 
 have been printed under his own superinten- 
 dence. That the latter was the form he desired 
 that his name should take in literature there can 
 be no reasonable doubt, and, as if to decide the 
 question, to the only contribution he ever made 
 to the work of another author the name there 
 appears with a hyphen, William Shake- speare. 
 Moreover, the poet's two intimate friends and 
 editors in 1623 uniformly give his name in its 
 full proportions, although one of them in the 
 same volume allows his own to appear in 
 different forms. 
 
 In the original tracings from the Will made 
 by Steevens in company with Malone in the 
 year 1776, an a is clearly shown in the second 
 syllable of that one of the signatures which has 
 become somewhat indistinct since that period. 
 This is the best evidence we can now have on 
 the subject, and, if accepted, it would show that 
 the form of the poet's signature was a matter of 
 accident. For the secure discussion of the ques- 
 tion I have assumed that all the signatures are 
 uniformly spelt. The really important letter is 
 the e not the a, for the pronunciation of the 
 name practically depends upon the former. 
 That the great dramatist was familiarly ad- 
 
8o 
 
 dressed at Stratford-on-Avon as Mr. Shaxper 
 may be gathered from the orthography adepted 
 by the scrivener who drew up the Will, but 
 that he was known then amongst his own lite- 
 rary friends, and that he ought to be known 
 now in literature, as Shakespeare is sufficiently 
 established by the testimony of Ben Jonson and 
 many others. 
 
 J. O. H.-P. 
 
 Hollingbury Copse, 
 
 Brighton, 
 28 October, 1879. 
 
 

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