[43] First published in Gascoigne's "Hundreth sundrie flowres bound up in one small poesie," London, 1572, 4to.
[44] Translated from the French of Belleforest, who had himself translated it from Bandello. Though the date of the only known edition of the story in English is later than the production of "Hamlet," it seems to have been known before, and to have been used by Shakespeare. See Furnivall's "Leopold Shakspere," p. lxix.
[45] "The historie of ... Plasidas and other rare pieces," ed. H. H. Gibbs, Roxburghe Club, London, 1873, 4to. One of these "pieces," prefaced with an important introduction, is the "Goodli history" of Lady Lucrece.
[46] Ut supra, p. 119.
[47] Here is Piccolomini's text: "Sed ut ipse Cæsarem, sic eum Lucretia sequebatur in somnis, nullamque noctem sibi quietam permittebat. Quam ut obiisse verus amator cognovit, magno dolore permotus, lugubrem vestem recepit; nec consolationem admisit, nisi postquam Cæsar ex ducalo sanguine virginem sibi cum formosam tum castissimam atque prudentem matrimonio junxit." The French translator did not alter this end. It will be remembered that the conclusion of Chaucer's "Troilus" compares in the same way with Boccaccio's and with the French translator's, Pierre de Beauveau.
[48] "Captain Cox, his ballads and books, or Robert Laneham's Letter ... 1575," ed. F. J. Furnivall, London, Ballad Society, 1871, 8vo, p. 29.
[49] Epistle to the reader, prefacing the "Palace of Pleasure."
[50] That there was also in London a public for Italian books is shown, among many other proofs, by the early publication thereof an edition of the "Pastor Fido" of Guarini in the original, London, 1591, 12mo.
[51] "Epistolarum ... libri xxxi.," London, 1642, fol., col. 308, 533, 364, &c. a.d. 1497 and 1519.
[52] "The Scholemaster," p. 2, and Letter to Brandesby (in Latin), 1542-3; "Works," ed. Giles, tom. i. p. 25.