* PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE.] The story on which this play is formed, is of great antiquity. It is found in a book, once very popular, entitled Gesta Romanorum, which is supposed by Mr. Tyrwhitt, the learned editor of The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, 1775, to have been written five hundred years ago. The earliest impression of that work (which I have seen) was printed in 1488;* in that edition the history of Appolonius King of Tyre makes the 153d chapter. It is likewise related by Gower in his Confessio Amantis, Lib. VIII. p. 175-185, edit. 1554. The Rev. Dr. Farmer has in his possession a fragment of a MS. poem on the same subject, which appears, from the hand-writing and the metre, to be more ancient than Gower. The reader will find an extract from it at the end of the play. There is also an ancient romance on this subject, called Kyng Appolyn of Thyre, translated from the French by Robert Copland, and printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1510. In 1576 William Howe had a licence for printing The most excellent, pleasant, and variable Historie of the strange Adventures of Prince Appolonius, Lucine his wyfe, and Tharsa his daughter. The author of Pericles having introduced Gower in his piece, it is reasonable to suppose that he chiefly followed the work of that poet. observable, that the hero of this tale is, in Gower's poem, as in the present play, called Prince of Tyre; in the Gesta Romanorum, and Copland's prose Romance, he is entitled King. Most of the incidents of the play are found in the Conf. Amant. and a few of Gower's expressions are occasionally borrowed. However, I think it is not unlikely, that there may have been (though I have not met with it) an early prose translation of this popular story, from the Gest. Roman. in which the name of Appolonius was changed to Pericles; to which, likewise, the author of this drama may have been indebted. In 1607 was published at London, by Valentine Sims, "The patterne of painful adventures, containing the most excellent, pleasant, and variable Historie of the strange Accidents that befell unto Prince Appolonius, the lady Lucina his wife, and Tharsia his daughter, wherein the uncertaintie of this world and the fickle state of man's life are lively described. Translated into English by T. Twine, Gent." I have never seen the book, but it was without doubt a re-publication of that published by W. Howe in 1576. It is Pericles was entered on the Stationers' books, May 2, 1608, by Edward Blount, one of the printers of the first folio edition of Shakspeare's plays; but it did not appear in print till the following year, and then it was published not by Blount, but by *There are several editions of the Gesta Romanorum before 1488. DOUCE. Henry Gosson; who had probably anticipated the other, by getting a hasty transcript from a playhouse copy. There is, I believe, no play of our author's, perhaps I might say, in the English language, so incorrect as this. The most corrupt of Shakspeare's other dramas, compared with Pericles, is purity itself. The metre is seldom attended to; verse is frequently printed as prose, and the grossest errors abound in almost every page. I mention these circumstances, only as an apology to the reader for having taken somewhat more licence with this drama than would have been justifiable, if the copies of it now extant had been less disfigured by the negligence and ignorance of the printer or transcriber. The numerous corruptions that are found in the original edition in 1609, which have been carefully preserved and augmented in all the subsequent impressions, probably arose from its having been frequently exhibited on the stage. In the four quarto editions it is called the much admired play of PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE; and it is mentioned by many ancient writers as a very popular performance; particularly, by the author of a metrical pamphlet, entitled Pymlico, or Run Redcap, in which the following lines are found: "Amaz'd I stood, to see a crowd "Of civil throats stretch'd out so loud: In a former edition of this play I said, on the authority of another person, that this pamphlet had appeared in 1596; but I have since met with the piece itself, and find that Pymlico, &c. was published in 1609. It might, however, have been a republication. The prologue to an old comedy called The Hog has lost his Pearl, 1614, likewise exhibits a proof of this play's uncommon success. The poet, speaking of his piece, says: 66 if it prove so happy as to please, "We'll say, 'tis fortunate, like Pericles." By fortunate, I understand highly successful. The writer can hardly be supposed to have meant that Pericles was popular rather from accident than merit; for that would have been but a poor eulogy on his own performance. An obscure poet, however, in 1652, insinuates that this drama was ill received, or at least that it added nothing to the reputation of its author: "But Shakespeare, the plebeian driller, was The passages above quoted show that little credit is to be given to the assertion contained in these lines; yet they furnish us with an additional proof that Pericles, at no very distant period after Shakspeare's death, was considered as unquestionably his performance. In The Times displayed in Six Sestiads, 4to. 1646, dedicated by S. Shephard to Philip Earl of Pembroke, p. 22, Sestiad VI. stanza 9, the author thus speaks of our poet and the piece before us: "See him, whose tragick scenes Euripides "He wrote of lustful Tarquin's rape, shows he For the division of this piece into scenes I am responsible, there being none found in the old copies. See the notes at the end of the play. MALONE. The History of Apollonius King of Tyre was supposed by Mark Welser, when he printed it in 1595, to have been translated from the Greek a thousand years before. [Fabr. Bib. Gr. v. p. 821.] It certainly bears strong marks of a Greek original, though it is not (that I know) now extant in that language. The rythmical poem, under the same title, in modern Greek, was retranslated (if I may so speak) from the Latin-aro Aalivians His Papainyy yλwooav. Du Fresne, Index Author. ad Gloss. Græc. When Welser printed it, he probably did not know that it had been published already (perhaps more than once) among the Gesta Romanorum. In an edition, which I have, printed at Rouen in 1521, it makes the 154th chapter. Towards the latter end of the XIIth century, Godfrey of Viterbo, in his Pantheon or Universal Chronicle, inserted this romance as part of the history of the third Antiochus, about 200 years before Christ. It begins thus [MS. Reg. 14, C. xi.]: "Filia Seleuci regis stat clara decore, Matreque defunctâ pater arsit in ejus amore. The rest is in the same metre, with one pentameter only to two hexameters. Gower, by his own acknowledgement, took his story from the Pantheon; as the author, (whoever he was) of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, professes to have followed Gower. TYRWHITT. |