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Thurston del.

Twelfth Night

Chapman sc.

Act 1st Sc. 9th

Published by Vernor and Hood Poultry May 1.1799

TWELFTH-NIGHT;

OR,

WHAT YOU WILL.

A

COMEDY,

BY

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

ACCURATELY PRINTED

FROM THE TEXT OF

Mr. STEEVENS's LAST EDITION.

Drnamented with Plates.

London:

PUBLISHED BY E. HARDING, NO. 98, PALL-MALL;

J. WRIGHT, PICCADILLY; G. SAEL, STRAND;
AND VERNOR AND HOOD, POULTRY.

1799.

OBSERVATIONS.

THERE is great reafon to believe, that the ferious part of this Comedy founded on fome old tranflation of the feventh hiftory in the fourth volume of Belleforest's Hiftoires Tragiques. Bel-` leforeft took the ftory, as ufual, from Bandello. The comic

scenes appear to have been entirely the production of Shakspeare. It is not impoffible, however, that the circumstances of the Duke fending his Page to plead his caufe with the Lady, and of the Lady's falling in love with the Page, &c. might be borrowed from the Fifth Eglog of Barnaby Googe, published with his

other original Poems in 1563.

"A worthy Knyght dyd love her longe,
"And for her fake dyd feale

"The panges of love, that happen styl

66

By frowning fortune's weale.

"He had a Page, Valerius named,

"Whom fo muche he dyd trufte,
"That all the fecrets of his hart
"To hym declare he mufte.
"And made hym all the onely meanes
"To fue for his redreffe,

"And to entreate for grace to her
"That caufed his diftreffe.
"She whan as first she saw his page
"Was ftraight with hym in love,
"That nothynge coulde Valerius face
"From Claudia's mynde remove.
"By hym was Fauftus often harde,
"By hym his futes toke place,
"By hym he often dyd afpyre
To fe his Ladyes face.

"This paffed well, tyll at the length
"Valerius fore did fewe,

"With many teares befechynge her
"His mayfter's gryefe to rewe.
"And tolde her that yf she wolde not
"Release his mayster's payne,

"He never wolde attempte her more

"Nor fe her ones agayne," &C.

Thus alfo concludes the first scene of the third act of the Play before us:

"And fo adieu, good madam; never more

"Will I my master's tears to you deplore," &c.

I offer no apology for the length of the foregoing extract, the book from which it is taken, being fo uncommon, that only one copy, except that in my own poffeffion, has hitherto occurred. Even Dr. Farmer, the late Rev. T. Warton, Mr. Reed, and Mr. Malone, were unacquainted with this Collection of Googe's Poe try.

August 6, 1607, a Comedy called What you Will (which is the fecond title of this play), was entered at Stationers' Hall by Tho. Thorpe. I believe, however, it was Marston's play with that name. Ben Jonfon, who takes every opportunity to find fault with Shakspeare, seems to ridicule the conduct of Twelfth-Night in his Every Man out of his Humour, at the end of Act III. fc. vi. where he makes Mitis fay, "That the argument of his comedy might have been of fome other nature, as of a duke to be in love with a countefs, and that countefs to be in love with the duke's fon, and the fon in love with the lady's waiting maid: fome fuch crafs wooing, with a clown to their serving man, better than be thus near and familiarly allied to the time." STEEVENS.

I fuppofe this comedy to have been written in 1614. If how ever the foregoing paffage was levelled at Twelfth-Night, my fpeculation falls to the ground. MALONE.