PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. MR. DOUCE observes that "the very great popularity of this play in former times may be supposed to have originated from the interest which the story must have excited. To trace the fable beyond the period in which the favorite romance of Apollonius Tyrius was composed, would be a vain attempt: that was the probable original; but of its author nothing decisive has been discovered. Some have maintained that it was originally written in Greek, and translated into Latin by a Christian about the time of the decline of the Roman empire; others have given it to Symposius, a writer whom they place in the eighth century, because the riddles which occur in the story are to be found in a work entitled Symposii Enigmata. It occurs in that storehouse of popular fiction, the Gesta Romanorum, and its antiquity is sufficiently evinced by the existence of an Anglo-Saxon version, mentioned in Wanley's list, and now in Bene't College, Cambridge. One Constantine is said to have translated it into modern Greek verse, about the year 1500, (this is probably the MS. mentioned by Dufresne in the index of authors appended to his Greek Glossary,) and afterwards printed at Venice in 1563. It had been printed in Latin prose, at Augsburg, in 1471, which is probably as early as the first dateless impression of the Gesta Romanorum.* A very curious fragment of an old metrical romance on the subject, was in the collection of the late Dr. Farmer, and is now in my possession. This we have the authority of Mr. Tyrwhitt for placing at an earlier period than the time of Gower. The fragment consists of two leaves of parchment, which had been converted into the cover of a book, for which purpose its edges were cut off, some words entirely lost, and the whole has suffered so much by time as to be scarcely legible. Yet I have considered it so curious a relic of our early poetry and language, that I have bestowed some pains in deciphering what remains, and have given a specimen or two in the notes toward the close of the play. I will here exhibit a further portion, comprising the name of the writer, who appears to have been Thomas Vicary, of Winborn Minster, in Dorsetshire. The portion I have given will continue the story of Apollonius (the Pericles of the play): Wit hys wyf in gret solas He lyvede after this do was, "Towards the latter end of the twelfth century, Godfrey of Viterbo, in his Pantheon, or Universal Chronicle, inserted this romance as part of the history of the third Antiochus, about two hundred years before Christ. It begins thus [MS. Reg. 14. c. xi.] ;— Filia Seleuci stat clara decore Matreque defunctâ pater arsit in ejus amore Res habet effectum, pressa puella dolet. The rest is in the same metre, with one pentameter only to two hexameters."-Tyrwhitt And had twey sones by iunge age the kyndom of Antioche Of Tire and of Cirenen, Came never werre on hys londe Bot hit yede wel an hond, He wrot twey bokys of hys lyf, He lafte at Ephese tn he her fette. Anategora he made king of Tire, best sone of that empire He made king of Aitnage that he louede dure, Of Cirenen th' was Whan that he hadde al thys y dyght Cam deth and axede hys fee, hys soule to God al myght So wol God thr hit bee, And sende ech housbonde grace For to lovye so hys wyf That cherysed hem wit oute trespace As sche dyde hym al here lyf, Heer to amende our mysdede, to the makers stat have ytake hys bedys on hond At Wymborne mynstre in that stede, Hit is nought worth to be knowe, To wham y clemde at my bygynninge, In to the blysse of heuene to dwelle, Explicit APPOLONI TYRUS REX nobilis & v'tuosus, &c. This story is also reiated by Gower, in his Confessio Amantis, lib. vii. p. 175-185, edit. 1554. Most of the incidents of the play are found in his |