TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.] The story was originally written by Lollius, an old Lombard author, and since by Chaucer. POPE. Mr. Pope (after Dryden) informs us, that the story of Troilus and Cressida was originally the work of one Lollius, a Lombard; (of whom Gascoigne speaks in Dan Bartholmewe his first Triumph: “Since Lollius and Chaucer both, make doubt upon that glose,") but Dryden goes yet further. He declares it to have been written in Latin verse, and that Chaucer translated it. Lollius was a historiographer of Urbino in Italy. Shakespeare received the greatest part of his materials for the structure of this play from the Troye Boke of Lydgate. Lydgate was not much more than a translator of Guido of Columpna, who was of Messina in Sicily, and wrote his History of Troy in Latin, after Dictys Cretensis, and Dares Phrygius, in 1287. On these, as Mr. Warton observes, he engrafted many new romatick inventions, which the taste of his age dictated, and which the connection between Grecian and Gothick fiction easily admitted; at the same time comprehending in his plan the Theban and Argonautic stories from Ovid, Statius, and Valerius Flaccus. Guido's work was published at Collogne m 1477, again 1480: at Strasburgh 1486, and ibidem 1489. It appears to have been translated by Raoul le Feure, at Cologne, into French, from whom Caxton rendered it into English in 1471, under the title of his Recuyel, &c. so that there must have been yet some earlier edition of Guido's performance than I have hitherto seen or heard of, unless his first translator had recourse to a manuscript. Guido of Columpna is referred to as an authority by our own chronicler Grafton. Chaucer had made the loves of Troilus and Cressida famous, which very probably might have been Shakespeare's inducement to try their fortune on the stage.-Lydgate's Troye Boke was printed by Pynson, 1513. In the books of the Stationers' Company, anno 1581, is entered "A proper ballad, dialogue-wise, between Troilus and Cressida." Again, Feb. 7, 1602: "The booke of Troilus and Cressida, as it is acted by my Lo. Chamberlain's men. The first of these entries is in the name of Ede ward White, the second in that of M. Roberts. Again, Jan. 28, 1608, entered by Rich. Bonian and Hen. Whalley, A booke called the history of Troilus and Cressida." " STEEVENS. The entry in 1608-9 was made by the booksellers for whom this play was published in 1609. It was written, I conceive, in 1602. See An Attempt to ascertain the Order of Shakespeare's Plays, Vol. II. MALONE. Before this play of Troilus and Cressida, printed in 1609, is a bookseller's preface, showing that first impression to have been before the play had been acted, and that it was published without Shakespeare's knowledge, from a copy that had fallen into the bookseller's hands. Mr. Dryden thinks this one of the first of our author's plays: but, on the contrary, it may be judged, from the fore-mentioned preface, that it was one of his last; and the great number of observations, both moral and politick, with which this piece is crouded more than any other of his, seems to confirm my opinion. POPE. We may learn, from this preface, that the original proprietors of Shakespeare's plays thought it their interest to keep them unprinted. The author of it adds, at the conclusion, these words: "Thank fortune for the 'scape it hath made among you, since, by the grand possessors wills, I believe you should rather have prayed for them, than have been prayed," &c. By the grand possessors, I suppose, were meant Heming and Condell. It appears that the rival playhouses at that time made frequent depredations on one another's copies. In the Induction to The Malcontent, written by Webster, and augmented by Marston, 1606, is the following passage. "I wonder you would play it, another company having interest in it." "Why not Malevole in folio with us, as Jeronimo in deeimo sexto with them? They taught us a name for our play; we call it One for another." Again, T. Heywood, in his Preface to The English Traveller, 1633: "Others of them are still retained in the hands of some actors, who think it against their peculiar profit to have them come in print." STEEVENS. |