Tales, 1554-1573, translated into French by Belleforest, furnished the sources of Much Ado About Nothing, and perhaps Twelfth Night. The greatest of these collections was the Decameron, c. 1353, by Giovanni Boccaccio, one of whose stories, translated by William Painter in his Palace of Pleasure, 1564, furnished the source of All's Well That Ends Well. Another story of the Decameron was probably the source of the romantic part of the plot of Cymbeline. The Merry Wives of Windsor had a plot like the story in Straparola's Tredici Piacevole Notte (1550), Thirteen Pleasant Evenings; and The Merchant of Venice borrows its chief plot from Giovanni Fiorentino's Il Pecorone.

Two of Shakespeare's plays are based on English novels written somewhat after the Italian manner As You Like It on Thomas Lodge's novel-poem, Rosalynde, and The Winter's Tale from Robert Greene's Pandosto. The Two Gentlemen of Verona is from a Spanish story in the Italian style, the Diana of Jorge de Montemayor. The Comedy of Errors from Plautus is his only play based on classical sources.

The Italian novelle emphasized situation, but had little natural dialogue and still less characterization. The Elizabethan dramatists used them only for their plots. Never did works of higher genius spring from less inspired sources.

The Plays used by Shakespeare. Although Shakespeare made up one of his plots, the Comedy of Errors, from two plays of Plautus (254-184 B.C.), the Menaechmi and Amphitruo, the rest of the plays he used for material were contemporary work. He borrowed from them plots and situations, and occa

sionally even lines. With the exception, however, of one of the early histories, the plays he made use of are in themselves of no value as literature. Their sole claim to notice is that they served the need of the great playwright. None but the student will ever read them. In practically every case Shakespeare so developed the story that the fiction became essentially his own; while the poetic quality of the verse, the development of character, and the heightening of dramatic effect, which he built upon it, left no more of the old play in sight than the statue shows of the bare metal rods upon which the sculptor molds his clay.

Seven histories go back to the earlier plays on the kings of England. The Second and Third Parts of Henry VI are taken from two earlier plays often called the First and Second Contentions (between the two noble houses of York and Lancaster). The First and Second parts of Henry IV, and Henry V, are all three an expansion of a cruder production, the Famous Victories of Henry V. Richard III is based upon the True Tragedie of Richard, Duke of York; King John upon the Troublesome Reigne of John, King of England, the latter undoubtedly the best of the sources of Shakespeare's Histories.

King Leir and His Daughters is the only extant play which is known to have formed the basis of a Shakespearean tragedy. Shakespeare made additions in this case from other sources, borrowing Gloucester's story from Sidney's Arcadia. The earlier play of Hamlet, which it is believed Shakespeare used, is not now in existence.

Among the comedies, the Taming of the Shrew is

directly based upon the Taming of a Shrew. Measure for Measure is less direct, borrowing from George Whetstone's play in two parts, Promos and Cassandra (written before 1578).

The existence of versions in German and Dutch of plays which present plots similar in structure to Shakespeare's, but less highly developed, leads scholars to advance the theory that several lost plays may have been sources for some of his dramas. Entries or mentions of play's, with details like Shakespeare's, dated earlier than his own plays could have been in existence, are also used to further the same view. The Two Gentlemen of Verona, the Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and, with less reason, Timon of Athens, and Twelfth Night, are thought to have been based more or less on earlier lost plays.

Finally, a number of plays perhaps suggested details in Shakespeare's plays. Of plays so influenced, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and Henry VIII are the chief. But the debt is negligible at best, so far as the general student is concerned.

To conclude, what Shakespeare borrowed was the raw material of drama. What he gave to this material was life and art. No better way of appreciating the dramatist at his full worth could be pursued than a patient perusal and comparison of the sources of his plays with Shakespeare's own work.

The best books on this subject are: H. R. D. Anders, Shakespeare's Books (Berlin, 1904); Shakespeare's Library, ed. J. P. Collier and W. C. Hazlitt (London, 1875); and the new Shakespeare Library now being published by Chatto and Windus, of which several volumes are out.

CHAPTER IX

HOW SHAKESPEARE GOT INTO PRINT

THE Elizabethan audiences who filled to overflowing the theaters on the Bankside possessed a far purer text of Shakespeare than we of this later day can boast. In order to understand our own editions of Shakespeare, it is necessary to understand something, at least, of the conditions of publishing in Shakespeare's day and of the relations of the playhouses with the publishers.

The printing of Shakespeare's poems is an easy tale, Venus and Adonis in 1593, and The Rape of Lucrece in 1594, were first printed in quarto by Richard Field, a native of Stratford, who had come to London. In each case a dedication accompanying the text was signed by Shakespeare, so that we may guess that the poet not only consented to the printing, but took care that the printing should be accurate. Twelve editions of one, eight of the other, were issued before 1660. The other volume of poetry, the Sonnets, was printed in 1609 by Thomas Thorpe, without Shakespeare's consent. Two of them, numbers 138 and 144, had appeared in the collection known as The Passionate Pilgrim, a pirated volume printed by W. Jaggard in 1599. No reëdition of the Sonnets appeared till 1640. With regard to the plays it is different. It is first

to be said that in no volume containing a play or plays of Shakespeare in existence to-day is there any evidence that Shakespeare saw it through the press. All we can do is to satisfy ourselves as to how the copy of Shakespeare's plays may have got into the hands of the publishers, and as to how far that copy represents what Shakespeare must have written.

The editions of Shakespearean plays may be divided into two groups, -the separate plays which were printed in quarto1 volumes before 1623, and the First Folio of Shakespeare, which was printed in 1623, a collected edition of all his plays save Pericles. Our text of Shakespeare, whatever one we read, is made up, either from the First Folio text, or in certain cases from the quarto volumes of certain plays which preceded the Folio; together with the attempts to restore to faulty places what Shakespeare must have written a task which has engaged a long line of diligent scholars from early in the eighteenth century up to our own day.

The Stationers' Company. In the early period of English printing, which began about 1480 and lasted up to 1557, there was very little supervision over the publishing of books, and as a result the competition was unscrupulous. There was a guild of publishers, called

1 A quarto volume, or quarto, is a book which is the size of a fourth of a sheet of printing paper. The sheets are folded twice to make four leaves or eight pages, and the usual size is about 6 × 9 in. A folio is a volume of the size of a half sheet of printing paper. The paper is folded once and bound in the middle, the usual size being about 9 × 12 in. The divisions of the book made by thus folding sheets of paper are called quires, and may consist of four or eight leaves.