THE story on which this play is formed, is of great antiquity. It is found in a book, once very popular, entitled Gefla 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 feen) was printed in 1488; * in that edition the history of Appolonius King of Tyre makes the 153d chapter. It is likewife related by Gower in his Confeffio Amantis, lib. viii. p. 175-185, edit. 154. The Rev. Dr. Farmer has in his poffeffion a fragment of a MS. poem on the fame fubject, which appears, from the hand-writing and the metre, to be more ancient than Gower. There is also an ancient romance on this fubject,. called Kyng Appolyn of Thyre, tranflated 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 Tharfa 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. It is obfervable, 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 expreffions are occafionally borrowed. However, I think it is not unlikely, that there may have been (though I have not met with it) an early profe tranflation of this popular story, from the Geft. Roman. in which the name of Appolonius was changed to Pericles; to which, likewife, 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 Tharfia his daughter, wherein the uncertaintie of this world and the fickle state of man's life are lively defcribed. Tranflated into English by T. Twine, Gent." I have never seen the book, but it was without doubt a republication of that published by W. Howe in 1576. Pericles was entered on the Stationers' books, May 2, 1608, by Edward Blount, one of the printers of the first folio edition of Shak * There are several editions of the Gesta Romanorum before 1488. Douce. 3925 copy! fpeare's plays; but it did not appear in print till the following year, and then it was published not by Blount, but by Henry Goffon; who had probably anticipated the other, by getting a hafty transcript from a playhouse copy. There is, I believe, no play of our author's, perhaps I might fay, 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 feldom attended to; verse is frequently printed as prose, and the grossest errors abound in almost every page. I mention these circunistances, only as an apology to the reader for having taken fomewhat 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 arofe from its having been frequently exhibited on the slage. 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 flood, to see a crowd "Of civil throats stretch'd out fo loud: "As at a new play, all the rooms So that I truly thought all these In a former edition of this play I faid, on the authority of another person, that this pamphlet had appeared in 1596; but I have fince 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, likewife exhibits a proof of this play's uncommon fuccess. The poet speaking of his piece, says: if it prove so happy as to please, "We'll fay 'tis fortunate, like Pericles." By fortunate, I understand highly fuccessful. The writer can hardly be fuppofed 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, infinuates that this drama was ill received, or at least that it added nothing to the reputation of its author: "But Shakspeare, the plebeian driller, was Verfes by J. Tatham, prefixed to Richard Brome's The passages above quoted shew that little credit is to be given to the affertion contained in these lines; yet they furnish us with an additional proof that Pericles, at no very distant period after Shakspeare's death, was confidered as unquestionably his performance. In The Times displayed in Six Seftiads, 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 "Doth equal, and with Sophocles we may "Compare great Shakspeare; Ariftophanes "Never like him his fancy could display: "Witness The Prince of Tyre, his Pericles : " His sweet and his to be admired lay "He wrote of lustful Tarquin's rape, shows he "Did understand the depth of poefie." For the divifion of this piece into scenes I am responsible, there being none found in the old copies. MALONE. The History of Appolonius King of Tyre was supposed 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 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 fame title, in modern Greek, was re-tranflated (if I may so speak) from the Latin-απο Λαλινικης εις Ρωμαΐκην γλωσσαν. Du Frefne, Index Author, ad Gloff. 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, inferted this romance as part of the hiftory of the third Antiochus, about 200 years before Christ. It begins thus [MS. Reg. 14. C. xi.]: " Filia Seleuci regis stat clara decore, The rest is in the fame metre, with one pentameter only to two hexa meters. Gower, by his own acknowledgement, took his ftory from the Pantheon; as the author (whoever he was) of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, professes to have followed Gower. FYRWHITT. There are three French translations of this story, viz.-" La Chronique d'Appollin, Roy de Thyr;" 4to. Geneva, bl. 1. no date;-and "Plaitante et agreable Histoire d'Appollonius Prince de Thyr en Affrique, et Roi d'Antioche; traduit par Gilles Corozet," 8vo. Paris, 1530; and (in the seventh volume of the Histoires Tragiques, &c. 12m). 1601, par François Belle-foreft, &c.) "Accidens diuers aduenus aduenus à Appollonie Roy des Tyriens: ses malheurs fur mer, ses pertes de femme & fille, et la fin heureuse de tous ensemble." In the introduction to this last novel, the tranflator fays-"Ayant. en main une histoire tiree du Grec, & icelle ancienne, comme aussi je l'ay recuellie d'un vieux livre écrit à la main," &c. But the present story, as it appears in Belle-forest'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 Feast. Langbaine, &c. have accused this great poet of adopting circumstances from the Histoires 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. Thomas Both editions of Twine's tranflation are now before me. 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 should have been republished in 1607, the play entered on the books of the Stationers' Company in 1608, and printed in 1609. It is almost needless to observe that our dramatick Pericles has not the least resomblance to his historical namesake; though the adventures of the former are sometimes coincident with those of Pyrocles, the hero of Sidney's Arcadia; for the amorous, fugitive, shipwrecked, musical, tilting, defpairing Prince of Tyre is an accomplished knight of romance, disguifed under the name of a statefman, "Whose refiftless eloquence "Wielded at will a fierce democratie, " Shook th' arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greece." As to Sidney's Pyrocles, - Tros, Tyriufve, "The world was all before him, where to choose but Pericles was tied down to Athens, and could not be removed to a gogue of Athens, and the vagabond Prince of Tyre. 8 L It |