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

STORY OF THE CASKETS.

The novel of Boccaccio that has been cited on this occasion, together with some other tales that resemble it, have, it is conceived, no manner of connexion with the play. The curious reader will find one of these stories, and perhaps the most ancient of them, in the lives of Barlaam and Josaphat, as related in the Golden legend, though compiled at a period much anterior to that amusing work. Another is in Gower's Confessio amantis, fo. 96, edit. 1532; and a third in the same work, fo. 96, verso. The latter has been related in a more ample and ingenious manner in the Cento novelle antiche, nov. 65.

In chap. 109 of the Latin printed copy of the Gesta Romanorum, a very different work from that referred to by Dr. Farmer and Mr. Tyrwhitt, there is the following story: A smith had lost a chest of money, which being carried by the sea to the shores of a distant country, was taken up by an inn-keeper, who, not suspecting that it contained any thing, threw it carelessly aside. Having occasion one day for some fuel to warm his guests, he broke up the chest, and finding the money, laid it by safely, till some one should arrive to claim it. The smith soon afterwards appeared; and having publicly declared his loss, the inn-keeper resolved to ascertain if it were the will of Providence that he should make restitution. He therefore caused three pasties to be made; the first he filled with earth, the second with dead men's bones, and the third with money. He then invited the smith to dinner, and gave him the choice of the pasties. The smith fixed on those with the earth and bones, and relinquished the other. The host now concluded that it was not the will of Heaven that he should restore the money; he therefore called in the blind and the lame, opened the other pasty in their presence, and divided the treasure between them.

But the work to which the play stands immediately indebted, is a Gesta Romanorum in English, never printed in Latin, and of which the earliest edition that could be procured on the present occasion was printed by Thomas Est, in 1595, 12mo, and several times afterwards. The latter part only of the 32nd history has been used. This has already been given in English by Dr. Farmer, and in Latin by Mr. Tyrwhitt. It has undoubtedly furnished the author of the play with the incident of the caskets; but he has transposed the mottoes of the gold and silver ones, and substituted another for that of lead.