man, it many times doth belye, and forge and flatter, and speaks then most faire when the deepest deceit and treachery is intended: not the foot, nor the finger, nor the whole hand: no not the whole body, nor all the members thereof, either severally, by themselves, or joyntly together (this one onely excepted) that doth so stretch and draw, and finger, and fold and unfold this curtaine canopy to the daily use and deceit of itselfe and others, as it alone doth."

It is rather extraordinary that none of Shakspeare's commentators should have noticed the skilful manner in which he has diversified and expanded the well known apologue of the belly and the members, the origin of which it may be neither unentertaining nor unprofitable to investigate, as well as the manner in which it has been used, and by whom.

The composition has been generally ascribed to Menenius Agrippa; but as it occurs in a very ancient collection of Æsopian fables, there may be as much reason for supposing it the invention of Æsop as there is for making him the parent of many others. The first person who has introduced Menenius as reciting this fable is Dionysius of Halicarnassus, book 6. Then follow Livy, lib. 2; Plutarch, in the life of Coriolanus; Florus, lib. i. cap. 23; each of whom gives it in his own manner. During the middle ages there appeared a collection of Latin fables in hexameter verse, that has agitated the opinions of the learned to little purpose in their endeavours to ascertain the real name of the compiler or versifier. He has been called Romulus, Accius and Salo. Nor is the time when he lived at all known. These fables are sometimes called anonymous, and have been published in various forms. An excellent edition by Nilant appeared in 1709, 12mo. Many of them were translated into French verse in the eleventh century by a French lady who calls herself Marie de France, in which form they have been happily preserved with many others extremely curious composed by the same ingenious person, on whose life and writings a most valuable memoir has been communicated to the Society of Antiquaries, by the author's truly learned and amiable friend the Abbé Gervase de la Rue, professor of history in the university of Caen. William Herman of Gouda, in Holland, reduced them into Latin prose about the year 1500, omitting some, and adding others. The works of Romulus and Herman of Gouda, have been published in a great variety of forms and languages, and constitute the set of Æsopian fables which commences with that of the cock and the precious stone; in all which the apologue of the belly and the [members is to be found, and sometimes with considerable variation. What Camden has given is from John of Salisbury, who wrote in the reign of Henry the Second, and professes to have`received it from Pope Hadrian IV. See his Polycraticon, sive de

nugis curialium, 1. vi. c. 24. Camden has omitted the latter part; and the learned reader will do well to consult the original, where he will find some verses by Q. Serenus Sammonicus, a physician in the reign of Caracalla, that allude to the fable. John of Salisbury has himself composed two hundred Latin lines De membris conspirantibus, which are in the first edition of his Polycraticon printed at Brussels, without date, about 1470. These were reprinted by Andreas Rivinus at Leipsic, 1655, 8vo; and likewise at the end of the fourth volume of Fabricius's Bibliotheca mediæ et infimæ ætatis, Hamburg, 1735, 8vo. They are, most probably, the lines which are called in Sinner's catalogue of the MSS. at Berne, "Carmen Ovidii de altercatione ventris et artuum,” vol. iii. p. 116. Nor was this fable unknown in the Eastern world. Syntipas, a Persian fabulist, has placed it in his work, published, for the first time, from a MS. at Moscow, by Matthæus, Lips. 1781, 8vo. Lafontaine has related it in his own inimitable manner; and, lastly, the editor of Baskerville and Dodsley's Esop has given it in a style not inferior perhaps to that of any of his predecessors. Douce.

WINTER'S TALE.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

THIS play, throughout, is written in the very spirit of its author. And in telling this homely and simple, though agreeable, country tale,

"Our sweetest Shakspeare, fancy's child,

"Warbles his native wood-notes wild."

This was necessary to observe in mere justice to the play; as the meanness of the fable, and the extravagant conduct of it, had misled some of great name into a wrong judgment of its merit; which, as far as it regards sentiment and character, is scarce inferior to any in the whole collection. WARBURTON.

At Stationers' Hall, May 22, 1594, Edward White entered "A booke entitled A Wynter Nyght's Pastime." STEEVENS. The story of this play is taken from The Pleasant History of Dorastus and Fawnia, written by Robert Greene. JOHNSON. In this novel, the King of Sicilia, whom Shakspeare names

Leontes, is called

Polixenes K. of Bohemia

Mamillius P. of Sicilia

Florizel P. of Bohemia
Camillo

Old Shepherd

Hermione

Perdita

Mopsa

Egistus.

Pandosto

Garinter.

Dorastus.

Franion.

Porrus.

Bellaria.

Faunia.

Mopsa.

The parts of Antigonus, Paulina, and Autolycus, are of the poet's own invention; but many circumstances of the novel are omitted in the play. STEEVENS.

66

Dr. Warburton, by some of great name," means Dryden and Pope. See the Essay at the end of the second Part of The Conquest of Granada: "Witness the lameness of their plots; [the plots of Shakspeare and Fletcher;] many of which, especially those which they wrote first, (for even that age refined itself in some measure,) were made up of some ridiculous incoherent story, which in one play many times took up the business of an age. I suppose I need not name, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, [and here, by-the-by, Dryden expressly names Pericles as our author's production,] nor the historical plays of Shakspeare; besides many of the rest, as The Winter's Tale, Love's Labour's Lost, Measure for Measure, which were either grounded on impossibilities, or at least so meanly written, that the comedy neither caused your mirth, nor the serious part your concernment." Mr.