Illustrations of Shakspeare, and of Ancient Manners: / with Dissertations on the Clowns and Fools of Shakspeare; on a Collection of Popular Tales Entitled Gesta Romanorum; and on the English Morris dance.

by Francis Douce

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.