That our great poet was as well versed in the pages of Valentine and Orson, as have been the school-boys of this country for the last century, is our firm belief. "It would be difficult," says the possessor of Copland's edition, "to find a reader of the present day, who had not in the hour of childhood voted a portion of his scanty stipend to the purchase of 'Valentine and Orson,' and withdrawn for a few hours from more laborious exercises, or amusements, to peruse its fascinating pages;" and equally difficult would it have been, in Shakspeare's days, to have found a person of liberal education, who had not devoted a portion of his leisure to the perusal of this simple but energetic romance.
From the numerous corresponding passages, however, cited by our author's commentators, from the period of Catullus to the seventeenth century, it would seem that the idea, and even the terms in which it has been expressed, may be considered as a kind of common property, and consequently rather a mark of coincidence than imitation.
Of the Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney, the best pastoral romance, and one of the most popular books of its age, we cannot be surprised that Shakspeare should have been an ardent admirer, and that
occasionally he should have been indebted to it for an incident or an image. The first scene of the fourth act, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which Valentine accepts the captainship of a band of outlaws, appears to be founded on that part of the Arcadia where Pyrocles, released from prison by the Helots, consents to be their leader and captain.[573:A]
More certainly is the episode of Gloster and his sons, in King Lear, derived from the same work, the first edition of which, published in 1590, being divided into chapters, exhibits one with this title:—"The pitifull state and storie of the Paphlagonian unkinde king, and his kinde sonne: first related by the sonne, then by the blind father." The subsequent editions omit the divisions into chapters, and in the copy before us, which is the seventh impression, the story commences at page 132, being part of the second book. As no other source for this narrative than the Arcadia, has hitherto been traced, and as the similarity of incident is considerable, there can be little doubt but that this portion of King Lear must confess its obligation to the romance.
The appellation, also, given to Cupid, in a passage in Much Ado about Nothing, is evidently to be referred to a line in the Arcadia. Don Pedro, speaking of Benedict, says, "he hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bow-string, and the little hangman dare not shoot at him."[573:B] It has been conjectured, that the word in Italics should be hench-man, a page or attendant; but to decide the question it is only necessary to quote the words of Sidney:—
"Millions of yeares this old drivell Cupid lives;
While still more wretch, more wicked he doth prove:
Till now at length that Jove him office gives,
At Juno's suite, who much did Argus love,