HISTORICAL NOTICE OF THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. Mr. Steevens conjectures that some of the incidents of this play were taken by Shakspeare from the Arcadia, book i. chap. 6. where Pyrocles consents to head the Helots; to which tale the adventures of Valentine with the outlaws, in this drama, bear a striking resemblance. But however this question may be disposed of, there can be little doubt that the episode of Felismena, in the Diana of George of Montemayor, a romance translated from the Spanish, and published in the year 1598, was the source whence the principal part of the plot of the Two Gentlemen of Verona has been derived. The story of Proteus and Julia, in this play, closely corresponds with its prototype; and in several passages the dramatist has copied the very language of the pastoral. The authenticity of this drama has been disputed by Hanmer, Theobald, and Upton, who condemn it as a very inferior production: but Dr. Johnson, in ascribing it to the pen of Shakspeare, asks, if it be taken from him, to whom shall it be given?' justly remarking, that it will be found more credible that Shakspeare might sometimes sink below his highest flights, than that any other should rise up to his lowest.' 'It is observable,' says Pope, that the style of this comedy is less figurative, and more natural and unaffected, than the greater part of this author's, though supposed to be one of the first he wrote.' Dr. Johnson remarks, that in this play there is a strange mixture of knowlege and ignorance, of care and negligence. The versification is often excellent, the allusions are learned and just; but the author conveys his heroes by sea from one inland town to another in the same country; he places the emperor at Milan, and sends his young men to attend him, but never mentions him more: he makes Proteus, after an interview with Silvia, say he has only seen her picture; and, if we may credit the old copies, he has, by mistaking places, left his scenery inextricable. The reason of all this confusion seems to be, that he took his story from a novel, which he sometimes followed and sometimes forsook, sometimes remembered and sometimes forgot.'-' When I read this play,' adds the same writer, I cannot but think that I find, both in the serious and ludicrous scenes the language and sentiments of Shakspeare. It is not, indeed, one of his most powerful effusions; it has neither many diversities of character, nor striking delineations of life; but it abounds in yvwμai beyond most of his plays; and few have more lines or passages which, singly considered, are eminently beautiful.' |