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The paffages above quoted fhew that little credit is to be given to the affection contained in these lines; yet they furnish us with an additional proof that Pericles, at no very diitant period after Shakspeare's death, was confidered as unquestionably his performance.

In The Times difplayed in Šix Seftiads, 4to. 1646, dedicated by S. Shephard to Philip Earl of Pembroke, p. 22, Seftiad VI. stanza 9, the author thus fpeaks of our poet and the piece before us:

"See him, whole tragick scenes Euripides
"Doth equal, and with Sophocles we may
"Compare great Shakspeare; Aristophanes
"Never like him his fancy could display:
"Witness The Prince of Tyre, his Pericles:
"His fweet and his to be admired lay

"He wrote of luftful Tarquin's rape, shows he
"Did understand the depth of poefie."

For the divifion of this piece into scenes I am refponible, there being none found in the old copies. MALONE.

The Hiftory of Appolonius King of Tyre was fuppofed by Mark Welfer, when he printed it in 1595, to have been translated from the Greek a thousand years before. [Fabr. Bib. Gr. v. p. 821.] It cer tainly bears ftrong marks of a Greek original, though it is not (that I know) now extant in that language. The rythmical poein, under the fame title, in modern Greek, was re-tranflated (if I may so speak) from the Latin-απο Λαλινικής εις Ρωμαϊκην γλωσσαν. Du Frefne, Index Author, ad Gloff. Græc. When Welfer printed it, he probably did not know that it had been published already (perhaps more than once) among the Gefta Romanorum. In an edition, which I have, printed at Rouen in 1521, it makes the 154th chapter. Towards the Jatter end of the XIIth century, Godfrey of Viterbo, in his Pantheon or Univerfal Coronicle, inferted this romance as part of the history of the third Antiochus, about 200 years before Chrift. It begins thus [MS. Reg. 14. C. xi.]:

"Filia Seleuci regis ftat clara decore,

"Matreque defunctâ pater arfit in ejus amore.

"

"Res habet effectum, preffa puella dolet The rest is in the fame metre, with one pentameter only to two hexas

meters.

Gower, by his own acknowledgement, took his story from the Pantheon; as the author (whoever he was) of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, profeffes to have followed Gower. TYRWHITT.

There are three French translations of this story, viz.-" La Chro nique d'Appollin, Roy de Thyr;" 4to. Geneva, bl. 1. no date; and "Plaitante et agreable Hiftoire d'Appollonius Prince de Thyr en Affrique, et Roi d'Antioche; traduit par Gilles Corozet," 8vo. Paris, 15305-and (in the feventh volume of the Hiftoires Tragiques, &c. 12mo. 160, par François Belle-forest, &c.) "Accidens diuers

aduenus

aduenus à Appollonic Roy des Tyriens: fes malheurs fur mer, fes pertes de femme & fille, et la fin heureufe de tous enfemble."

In the introduction to this last novel, the tranflator fays" Ayant en main une hiftoire tiree du Grec, & icelle ancienne, comme auffi je l'ay recuellie d'un vieux livre écrit à la main," &c.

But the prefent ftory, as it appears in Belle-foreft's collection, (Vol. VII. p. 113,& feq.) has yet a further claim to our notice, as it had the honour (p. 148-9) of furnishing Dryden with the outline of his Alexander's Feaft. Langbaine, &c. have accuted this great poet of adopting circumftances from the Hiftoires Tragiques, among other French novels; a charge, however, that demands neither proof nor apology.

The popularity of this tale of Appollonius, may be inferred from the very numerous MSS. in which it appears.

Both editions of Twine's tranflation are now before me. Thomas Twine was the continuator of Phaer's Virgil, which was left imperfect in the year 1558.

In Twine's book our hero is repeatedly called-" Prince of Tyrus." It is fingular enough that this fable fhould have been republifhed in 1607, the play entered on the books of the Stationers' Company in 1608, and printed in 1609.

It is almoft needlefs to obferve that our dramatick Pericles has not the least resemblance to his historical namefake; though the adventures of the former are fometimes coincident with those of Pyrocles, the hero of Sidney's Arcadia; for the amorous, fugitive, fhipwrecked, mufical, tilting, defpairing Prince of Tyre is an accomplished knight of romance, difguifed under the name of a ftatefman,

"Whose refiftlefs eloquence

"Wielded at will a fierce democratie,

"Shook th' arfenal, and fulmin'd over Greece."

As to Sidney's Pyrocles,-Tros, Tyriufve,

"The world was all before him, where to choose
"His place of reft;"

but Pericles was tied down to Athens, and could not be removed to a throne in Phoenicia. No poetick licenfe will permit a unique, claffical, and confpicuous name to be thus unwarrantably transferred. A Prince of Madagascar must not be called Æneas, nor a Duke of Florence Mithridates; for fuch peculiar appellations would unfeasonably remind us of their great original poffeffors. The playwright who indulges himfelf in these wanton and injudicious vagaries, will always counteract his own purpofe. Thus, as often as the appropriated name of Pericles occurs, it ferves but to expofe our author's grofs departure from established manners and historick truth; for laborious fiction could not defignedly produce two perfonages more oppofite than the fettled demagogue of Athens, and the vagabond Prince of Tyre.

It is remarkable, that many of our ancient writers were ambitious to exhibit Sidney's worthies on the stage; and when his fubordinate agents were advanced to fuch honour, how happened it that Pyrocles, their leader, fhould be overlooked? Mufidorus, (his companion,) Argalus and Parthenia, Phalantus and Eudora, Andromana, &c. furnished titles for different tragedies; and perhaps Pyrocles, in the prefent inftance, was defrauded of a like diftinction. The names invented or employed by Sidney, had once fuch popularity, that they were sometimes borrowed by poets who did not profels to follow the direct current of his fables, or attend to the ftrict preservation of his characters. Nay, so high was the credit of this romance, that many a fashionable word and glowing phrase selected from it, was applied, like a Promethean torch, to contemporary fonnets, and gave a tranfient life even to those dwarfish and enervate bantlings of the reluctant Mufe.

1 muft add, that the Appolyn of the Story-book and Gower, could have been rejected only to make room for a more favourite name; yet, however conciliating the name of Pyrocles might have been, that of Pericles could challenge no advantage with regard to general predilection.

I am aware, that a conclufive argument cannot be drawn from the falfe quantity in the second fyllable of Pericles; and yet if the Athenian was in our author's mind, he might have been taught by repeated tranflations from fragments of fatiric poets in Sir Thomas North's Plutarch, to call his hero Pericles; as for inftance, in the following ckuplet:

"O Chiron, tell me, firft, art thou indeede the man

"Which did inftruct Pericles thus? make anfwer if thou can." &c. &c.

Such therefore was the pronunciation of this proper name, in the age of Shakspeare. The addrefs of Perfius to a youthful orator Magni pupille Pericli, is familiar to the ear of every claffical reader.

All circumstances therefore confidered, it is not improbable that our author defigned his chief character to be called Pyrocles, not Pericles, however ignorance or accident might have fhuffled the latter (a name of almost similar sound) into the place of the former. The true name, when once corrupted or changed in the theatre, was effectually withheld from the publick; and every commentator on this play agrees in a belief that it must have been printed by means of a copy far as Deucalion off" from the manufcript which had received Shakspeare's revifal and improvement. STEEVENS.

* Such a theatrical mistake will not appear improbable to the reader who recollects that in the fourth scene of the first act of the Third Part of King Henry VI, instead of "tigers of Hircania," the players have given us" tigers of Arcadia." Instead of "an Ate," in King John," an ace." Instead of "Panthino," in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Panthion." Instead of " Polydore," in Cymbeline," Paladour" was continued through all the editions till that of 1773.

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The daughter of Antiochus.

DIONYZA, wife to Cleon.

THAISA, daughter to Simonides.

MARINA, daughter to Pericles and Thaifa.

LYCHORIDA, nurse to Marina.

DIANA.

Lords, Ladies, Knights, Gentlemen, Sailors, Firates, Fijhermen,

and Meffengers, &c.

SCENE, difperfedly in various countries.

PERICLES.

ACT I.

T

Enter GOWER.

Before the Palace of ANTIOCH.

fing a fong of old was fung,

From afhes ancient Gower is come;

Affuming man's infirmities,

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

On ember-eves, and holy-ales;

And lords and ladies of their lives
Have read it for restoratives:

'Purpose to make men glorious;

Et quo antiquius, èo mèlius.

If you, born in these latter times,
When wit's more ripe, accept my rhymes,
And that to hear an old man fing,
May to your wishes pleasure bring,
I life would wish, and that I might
Waste it for you, like taper-light.-
This city then, Antioch the great
Built up for his chiefest feat;
The fairest in all Syria;

(I tell you what mine authors fay :)
This king unto him took a pheere,
Who died and left a female heir,

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