this latter purpose it will be seen that we have availed ourselves of it in our notes; but it will not be out of place here to speak of the strong presumptive evidence it affords, that the drama has not reached us by any means in the shape in which it was originally represented. The subsequent is given, in the novel of 1608, as the speech of Marina, when she is visited in the brothel by Lysimachus, the governor of Mitylene, whom, by her virtue, beauty, and eloquence, she diverts from the purpose for which he came.

"If as you say, my lord, you are the governor, let not your authority, which should teach you to rule others, be the means to make you misgovern yourself. If the eminence of your place came unto you by descent, and the royalty of your blood, let not your life prove your birth bastard: if it were thrown upon you by opinion, make good that opinion was the cause to make you great. What reason is there in your justice, who hath power over all, to undo any? If you take from me mine honour, you are like him that makes a gap into forbidden ground, after whom many enter, and you are guilty of all their evils. My life is yet unspotted, my chastity unstained in thought: then, if your violence deface this building, the workmanship of heaven, made up for good, and not to be the exercise of sin's intemperance, you do kill your own honour, abuse your own justice, and impoverish me."

Of this speech in the printed play we only meet with the following emphatic germ :

"If you were born to honour, show it now:

If put upon you, make the judgment good,

That thought you worthy of it."—(A. iv. sc. 6.)

It will hardly be required of us to argue, that the powerful address, copied from the novel founded upon "Pericles," could not be the mere enlargement of a short-hand writer, who had taken notes at the theatre, who from the very difficulty of the operation, and from the haste with which he must afterwards have compounded the history, would be much more likely to abridge than to expand. In some parts of the novel it is evident that the prose, there used, was made up from the blank-verse composition of the drama, as acted at the Globe. In the latter we meet with no passage similar to what succeeds, but still the ease with which it may be reconverted into blankverse renders it almost certain that it was so originally. Pericles tells Simonides, in the novel, that

"His blood was yet untainted, but with the heat got by the wrong the king had offered him, and that he boldly durst and did defy himself, his subjects, and the proudest danger that either tyranny or treason could inflict upon him.”

To leave out only two or three expletives renders the sentence perfect dramatic blank-verse :

"His blood was yet untainted, but with heat
Got by the wrong the king had offer'd him;
And that he boldly durst and did defy him,
His subjects, and the proudest danger that
Or tyranny or treason could inflict."

Many other passages to the same end might be produced from the novel of which there is no trace in the play. We shall not, however, dwell farther upon the point, than to mention a peculiarly Shakespearean expression, which occurs in the novel, and is omitted in the drama. Lychorida brings the new-born infant to Pericles, who in the printed play (Act iii. sc. 1) says to it,

"thou'rt the rudeliest welcome to this world That e'er was prince's child. Happy what follows! Thou hast as chiding a nativity,

As fire, air, water, earth, and heaven can make."

In the novel founded upon the play the speech is thus given, and we have printed the expression, which, we think, must have come from the pen of Shakespeare, in italic type:—

"Poor inch of nature! (quoth he) thou art as rudely welcome to the world, as ever princess' babe was, and hast as chiding a nativity as fire, air, earth and water can afford thee."

The existence of such a singular production was not known to any of the commentators; but several copies of it have been preserved, and one of them was sold in the library of the late Mr. Heber.

It will have been remarked, that the novel printed in 1608 states that "Pericles" had been "lately presented," and on the title-page of the edition of the play in 1609 it is termed "the late, and muchadmired Play called Pericles:" it is, besides, spoken of as "a new play," in a poetical tract called "Pimlico or Run Red-cap," printed in 1609. Another piece, called "Shore," is mentioned in "Pimlico," under exactly similar circumstances: there was an older drama upon the story of Jane Shore, and this, like "Pericles," had, in all probability, about the same date been revived at one of the theatres with additions.

"Pericles" was five times printed before it was inserted in the folio of 1664, viz. in 1609, 1611, 1619, 1630, and 1635. The folio seems to have been copied from the last of these, with a multiplication of errors, but with some corrections. The first edition of 1609 was obviously brought out in haste, and there are many corruptions in it; but more pains were taken with it than Malone, Steevens, and others imagined: they never compared different copies of the same edition, or they would have seen that the impressions vary importantly, and that several mistakes, discovered as the play went through the press, were carefully set right: these will be found pointed out in our notes. The commentators dwelt upon the blunders of the old copies, in order to warrant their own extraordinary innovations, but wherever we could do so, with due regard to the sense of the author, we have restored the text to that of the earliest impression.

The Daughter of Antiochus.

DIONYZA, Wife to Cleon.

THAISA, Daughter to Simonides.

MARINA, Daughter to Pericles and Thaisa.

LYCHORIDA, Nurse to Marina.

DIANA.

Lords, Ladies, Knights, Gentlemen, Sailors, Pirates, Fishermen and Messengers, &c.

SCENE, dispersedly in various Countries.

1 The play in the folio, 1664, is followed by a defective list of persons, under the title of "The Actors' Names."

PERICLES,

PRINCE OF TYRE.

ACT I.

Enter GOWER.

Before the Palace of Antioch.

To sing a song that old was sung,
From ashes ancient Gower is come;
Assuming man's infirmities,

To glad your ear, and please your eyes.
It hath been sung at festivals,

On ember-eves, and holy ales',

And lords and ladies in their lives

Have read it for restoratives:

The purpose is to make men glorious;

Et bonum quo antiquius, eo melius.
If you, born in these latter times,
When wit's more ripe, accept my rhymes,
And that to hear an old man sing,
May to your wishes pleasure bring,
I life would wish, and that I might
Waste it for you, like taper-light.-

1 and holy ALES ;] Every old copy, quarto and folio, has "holy-days;" but as the speech was no doubt meant to rhyme, we have adopted Dr. Farmer's amendment by "holy ales," what were called church ales were probably intended.

it

2 The PURPOSE is-] In all the old copies it stands, "The purchase is;" and may possibly be right, taking purchase in the sense of prize or reward.

3

This Antioch, then: Antiochus the great
Built up this city for his chiefest seat,
The fairest in all Syria;

I tell you what my authors say:
This king unto him took a feere3,
Who died and left a female heir,
So buxom, blithe, and full of face,
As heaven had lent her all his grace;
With whom the father liking took,
And her to incest did provoke.

Bad child, worse father, to entice his own
To evil, should be done by none.

By custom what they did begin
Was with long use account no sin.
The beauty of this sinful dame
Made many princes thither frame,
To seek her as a bed-fellow,
In marriage pleasures play-fellow :
Which to prevent he made a law,
To keep her still and men in awe,
That whoso ask'd her for his wife,
His riddle told not, lost his life:
So, for her many a wight did die,
As yond' grim looks do testify".

What now ensues, to the judgment of your

eye

I give, my cause who best can justify.

[Exit.

took a FEERE:] i. e. a mate or wife: the word also occurs in "Titus Andronicus," Vol. vi. p. 327.

4 By custom-] "But custom" in the old copies; and in the next line,

account'd for "account."

5 As yond' grim looks do testify.] Referring to the heads of the unsuccessful suitors, exhibited to the audience over the gates of the palace at Antioch. That such was the case we have the evidence of the novel, founded upon the play, published under the title of "The painfull Adventures of Pericles Prince of Tyre," 1608, where the heading of the first chapter ends thus :-" placing their heads on the top of his castle gate, whereby to astonish all others that came to attempt the like."