As the 13th line of the following ballad seems here particularly alluded to, it is not improbable but Shakespeare wrote it shot so trim, which the players or printers, not perceiving the allusion, might alter to true. The former, as being the more humorous expression, seems most likely to have come from the mouth of Mercutio.[814]
In the 2d Part of Hen. IV. A. 5, Sc. 3, Falstaff is introduced affectedly saying to Pistoll,
"O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news?
Let king Cophetua know the truth thereof."
These lines, Dr. Warburton thinks, were taken from an old bombast play of King Cophetua. No such play is, I believe, now to be found; but it does not therefore follow that it never existed. Many dramatic pieces are referred to by old writers,[815] which are not now extant, or even mentioned in any list. In the infancy of the stage, plays were often exhibited that were never printed.
It is probably in allusion to the same play that Ben Jonson says, in his Comedy of Every Man in his Humour, A. 3, Sc. 4:
"I have not the heart to devour thee, an' I might be made as rich as King Cophetua."
At least there is no mention of King Cophetua's riches in the present ballad, which is the oldest I have met with on the subject.
It is printed from Rich. Johnson's Crown Garland of Goulden Roses, 1612,[816] 12mo. (where it is intitled simply A Song of a Beggar and a King:) corrected by another copy.