e;

Chance, however, has at last furnished me with the original to which Shakespeare was indebted for his fable nor does this discovery at all dispose me to retract my former opinion; and I would refer the reader, who is desirous to examine the whole structure of the piece, to Six old Plays on which Shakespeare founded, &c. published by S. Leacroft, at Charing-Cross.

Beaumont and Fletcher wrote what may be called a sequel to this comedy, viz. The Woman's Prize, or the Tamer Tam'd; in which Petruchio is subdued by a second wife. STEEVENS.

Among the books of my friend the late Mr. William Collins of Chichester, now dispersed, was a collection of short comic stories in prose, printed in the black letter under the year 1570: "sett forth by maister Richard Edwards, mayster of her Majesties revels." Among these tales was that of the INDUCTION OF THE TINKER in Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew; and perhaps Edwards's story-book was the immediate source from which Shakespeare, or rather the author of the old Taming of a Shrew, drew that diverting apologue. If I recollect right, the circumstances almost tallied with an incident which Heuterus relates from an epistle of Ludovicus Vives to have actually happened at the marriage of Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy, about the year 1440. That perspicuous annalist, who flourished about the year 1580 says, this story was told to Vives by an old officer of the Duke's court. T. WARTON.

Our author's Taming of the Shrew was written, I imagine, in 1594. See An Attempt to ascertain the Order of Shakespeare's Plays, Vol. II. MALONE

A Lord.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

CHRISTOPHER SLY, a drunken tinker.

Hostess, Page, Players, Huntsmen, and other

Servants attending on the Lord.

BAPTISTA, a rich gentleman of Padua.
VINCENTIO, an old gentleman of Pisa.

Persons in

the Induc

tion

LUCENTIO, son to Vincentio, in love with Bianca. PETRUCHIO, a gentleman of Verona, a suitor to Kath

PEDANT, an old fellow set up to personate Vincentio.

KATHARINA, the shrew,

BIANCA, her sister,

} daughters to Baptista.

Widow.

Tailor, Haberdasher, and Servants, attending on Bap

tista and Petruchio.

SCENE-sometimes in Padua; and sometimes in Petruchio's house in the country.