The ineffectiveness of the play may be partly due to the necessity of altering the original modern setting to an ancient [pg 181] one. It is hard, for example, to see how the monk Sampayo was metamorphosed into Berecinthius, the fat priest of Cybele.
Mr. Croker's reprint was the cause of a very pretty literary quarrel between the Shakespeare Society and the Percy Society. A writer who signed himself “A Member of both Societies” published a pamphlet animadverting on Mr. Croker's abilities as an editor,[563] and Mr. Croker replied in no measured terms. The documents may be seen at the British Museum.
The anonymous writer, working on the many indications given in the marginal notes, reconstructed the cast of Believe as You List.[564] “My cast,” he says, “has been a work of difficulty, and, in the case of some of the minor performers, a matter of considerable doubt, more especially as a few of them doubled or even trebled their parts; and as we here see (the only instance of the kind I am acquainted with), perhaps exchanged characters during the progress of the play.
Antiochus J. Taylor.[565]
Flaminius J. Lowin.
Lentulus R. Robinson.
Marcellus R. Benfield.
Berecinthius T. Pollard.
Chrysalus E. Swanston.
Demetrius W. Patrick.