S"* S. N« 79., July 4. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



where they differed, the clearest and most natural reading 

 has constantly had the preference." 



W: J: [Autograph.] 



I do not mean to insinuate that the above- 

 described volume is inaccessible, or unrecorded. 

 There is a copy, as appears by the printed cata- 

 logue, in the library of the India-House ; and the 

 publication is noticed by professor Wilson in the 

 Calcutta edition of Megha duta, and by F. von 

 Adelung in his Historical sketch of Sanscrit litera- 

 ture. It is also noticed in the Encyclopedie des 

 gens du monde, in the Nouvelle biographie generate, 

 etc. 



But in every instance which has come under my 

 observation the title of the volume is misreported ; 

 or the place or date of its impression, or its size, 

 is omitted ; and, except in the advertisement, I 

 have nowhere seen it designated as the first San- 

 scrit book. BOJUTON CoBNET, 



Fontainebleau, 

 (Rue de France, No. 16.) 



SHAKSPEABE's " PEBICLES," AND WItKlNS's NOVEL 

 FOUNDED CPON IT. 



The readers of "N. & Q." are already ac- 

 quainted with the fact of the reprint in Olden- 

 burg of an English tract, bearing the title of The 

 Painful Adventures of Pericles, Prince of Tyre. 

 They are aware that it is a novel founded upon 

 Shakspeare's Pericles, and not a novel upon which 

 Shakspeare's Pericles was founded. It was a 

 theory of mine, entertained and broached about 

 twenty years ago, that this novel, printed in 1608, 

 contains passages which are not found in the play, 

 printed in 1609 ; and that those passages must 

 have formed part of the original drama as it was 

 acted at the Globe Theatre, in 1607, or, more pro- 

 bably, in 1608. 



They are given as mere prose, and in a nar- 

 rative form, in the novel ; but sometimes, with 

 the omission of two or three particles, and some- 

 times without the omission, or even change of a 

 syllable, they run into such excellent and Shak- 

 epearian blank- verse, as to form of themselves a 

 strong confirmation of my opinion, that by means 

 of such passages we recover a genuine and lost 

 portion of Pericles, as it was first acted, and as 

 our great dramatist wrote it. In support of this 

 notion, I published, in 1839, fifty copies of a small 

 tract, called Farther Particulars regarding Shak- 

 speure and his Works, in which I may here say 

 (since comparatively few have had an opportunity 

 of seeing it), that I endeavoured to establish three 

 points, then entirely new. 1. That the novel was 

 founded upon Shakspeare's Pericles. 2. That it 

 contained portions written by Shakspeare, but not 

 found in his play, as it has come down to us. 3. 

 That it furnishes some most useful and valuable 



verbal emendations. This little production of 

 mine attracted so little notice at the time, that 

 when Rodd, the publisher (if publication it can 

 be called), died, he was in possession of a num- 

 ber of unsold copies of it. When I printed the 

 first edition of my Shakspeare in 1843, I used a 

 part of my Farther Particulars, Sf-c, in the " In- 

 troduction" to Pericles. 



I apprehended that the copy of The Painful 

 Adventures of Pericles, lent to me by the late Mr. 

 Heber, was unique and complete. I soon dis- 

 covered that it was not the sole existing exemplar, 

 and a fragment, without commencement or con- 

 clusion, devolved into my hands ; but it was not 

 until within these last few months that I learned 

 that Mr. Heber's book was incomplete : it wanted 

 the dedication, which was the more important, 

 because at the end of it was the name of the com- 

 piler of the narrative, George Wilkins, the author, 

 as I then presumed, of a play entitled The Mise- 

 ries of Enforced Marriage, first printed in 1607. 

 I have now good reason to believe that they were 

 different men with the same names. The dis- 

 covery of a copy of The Painful Adventures of 

 Pericles, in a public library of Switzerland, en- 

 abled Professor Mommsen, of Oldenburg, to re- 

 print the tract in Germany, in its entire state ; 

 and as he favoured me with some copies of it, in 

 return for a brief and imperfect sort of preface, 

 with which, really at an hour's notice, I furnished 

 him, I have been enabled to go over every line 

 and letter it contains, with a view to the reprint 

 I am now making of my Shakspeare of 1843. 



The result has been the discovery of much new 

 matter connected with the three points I urged in 

 my Farther Particulars of 1839. I think that I 

 have now established them all beyond the possi- 

 bility of dispute ; but my object is not at present 

 to advert to the first and third, but to the second, 

 which I hold to be the most important of all, — viz. 

 that Wilkins's novel, founded upon Pericles, and 

 probably derived from short-hand notes taken at 

 the Globe Theatre during the representation, in- 

 cludes not a few passages, originally recited by 

 the actors, but not contained in the very imper- 

 fect first edition of the play in 1609, from which 

 all the subsequent reprints were made. I subjoin 

 a few proofs. 



Simonides, pretending wrath at the love his 

 daughter Thaisa has declared for Pericles, calls 

 him, in Wilkins's novel : — 



" A stragling Theseus, borne we know not where, one 

 that hath neither bloud, nor merite, for thee to hope for, 

 or himselfe to challenge even the least allowance of thy 

 perfections." 



How easily this passage, as it were, turns itself 

 into blank-verse, will at once be seen : — 



« A straggling Theseus, born wee know not where, 

 One that hath neither blood, nor merit, for thee 

 Ever to hope for, or himself to challenge 

 The least allowance of thy perfections." 



