The play of Henry the Fifth furnishes a reference to the fifth article in Laneham's catalogue of the Coxean collection. Fluellen compelling Pistol to eat his leek, tells him,—"You called me yesterday, mountain-squire; but I will make you to-day a squire of low degree."[567:B]
This romance, which was licensed to John Kynge on the tenth of June 1560[567:C], and printed by William Copland before 1570[567:D], was one of the most popular of the sixteenth century, and possesses some striking traits of manners, and several very curious poetical sketches. It is twice alluded to by Spenser[567:E] in his Faerie Queene, and has been supposed, though probably without sufficient foundation, to have existed in manuscript anterior to the age of Chaucer.[567:F]
There are some scenes in Shakspeare which appear to have been originally derived from Oriental fable. Thus, in Twelfth Night, the leading ideas of Malvolio's soliloquy (act ii. sc. 5.), bear a strong
resemblance, as Mr. Tyrrwhitt observes, to those of Alnaschar, in The Arabian Nights Entertainments; an observation which has drawn from Mr. Steevens the following curious and pertinent note:—
"Many Arabian fictions had found their way into obscure Latin and French books, and from thence into English ones, long before any professed version of The Arabian Nights Entertainments had appeared. I meet with a story similar to that of Alnaschar, in The Dialoge of Creatures Moralysed, bl. l. no date, but probably printed abroad: 'It is but foly to hope to moche of vanyteys. Whereof it is told in fablis that a lady uppon a tyme delyuered to her mayden a galon of mylke to sell at a cite. And by the waye as she sate and restid her by a dyche side, she began to thinke yt with ye money of the mylke she wolde bye an henne, the which shulde bring forth chekyns, and when they were grownyn to hennys she wolde sell them and by piggis, and eschaunge them into shepe, and the shepe into oxen; and so whan she was come to richnesse she sholde be married right worshipfully unto some worthy man, and thus she rejoycid. And when she was thus marvelously comfortid, and ravished inwardely in her secrete solace thinkynge with howe great joye she shuld be ledde towarde the churche with her husbond on horsebacke, she sayde to her self, Goo wee, goo wee, sodaynelye she smote the grounde with her fote, myndynge to spurre the horse; but her fote slypped and she fell in the dyche, and there laye all her mylke; and so she was farre from her purpose, and never had that she hopid to have. Dial. 100, LL. ij b."[568:A]
We may also refer the Induction to the Taming of the Shrew to the same source, to The Sleeper awakened, in the Arabian Nights, a tale which seems to have crept from its oriental fountain through every modern European language. Its earliest appearance in English that can now be traced, is derived from the information of Mr. Warton, who informs us that his friend Mr. Collins, the celebrated lyric poet, had in his
possession a collection of short comic stories in prose, "sett forth by maister Richard Edwards, mayster of her Majesties revels," and with the date of 1570. This book, which was printed in the black letter, contained the story of the Induction, and was, there is little doubt, the source whence Shakspeare and the author of the elder Taming of the Shrew drew their outline.[569:A] A similar tale is the subject of a ballad in the Pepysian collection, which has been published by Percy[569:B], and it is to be found also in Sir Richard Barckley's Discourse on the Felicitie of Man, 1598, in Goulart's Admirable and Memorable Histories, translated by E. Grimstone, 1607; in Burton's Anatomie of Melancholy, 1615; in The Apothegms of King James, King Charles, the Marquis of Worcester, &c. 1658, and in Winstanley's Historical Rarities, 1684.[569:C] Some of the Arabian Tales and some of the Fables of Pilpay may be traced in The Seven Wise Masters, and in the English Gesta Romanorum.
To romances of Italian origin and structure, such as were exhibited in English versions often mutilated and incorrect, our author's obligations are so numerous, particularly with regard to the formation of plot, that, referring to a future consideration of each play for further illustration on these subjects, we shall only remark in this place, that many of the faults which have been ascribed to Shakspeare's want of judgment in the conduct of his dramas, are attributable to the necessity he was under, either from want of power or want of time, of applying to versions and imitations in lieu of the originals; a species of accommodation which frequently led him to adopt the mistakes of a wretched translation, when a reference to the Italian would immediately have induced a better choice. This will account for many of the charges which Mrs. Lennox has brought against the poet, in respect to deficiency of skill in the arrangement of his incidents.[569:D]
The First Part of King Henry the Fourth presents us with an allusion to one of those Spanish romances which became so popular towards the close of Elizabeth's reign. Falstaff, in answer to the Prince, who had told him, that he saw no reason why he should "be so superfluous to demand the time of the day," replies, "Indeed, you come near me now, Hal: for we, that take purses, go by the moon and seven stars; and not by Phœbus,—he, that wandering knight so fair."[570:A]
The romance to which this passage stands indebted, is entitled, in the best and most complete edition, "Espeio de Principes, y Cavalleros. En el qual se cuentan los immortales hechos de Cavallero del Febo," &c. &c., four parts, folio, and is the subject of the Barber's eulogium in Don Quixote. "He (the Don) had frequent disputes with the priest of his village, who was a learned person, and had taken his degrees in Ciguenza, which of the two was the better knight, Palmerin of England, or Amadis de Gaul. But master Nicholas, barber-surgeon of the same town, affirmed, that none ever came up to the Knight of the Sun."[570:B]