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OBSERVATIONS.

Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.] Some of the incidents in this play may be supposed to have been taken from The Arcadia, Book I. chap. vi. where Pyrocles consents to head the Helots. (The Arcadia was entered on the books of the Stationers' Company, Aug. 23d, 1588.) The love-adventure of Julia resembles that of Viola in Twelfth Night, and is indeed common to many of the ancient novels. STEEVENS,

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Mrs. Lenox observes, and I think not improbably, that the story of Proteus and Julia might be taken from a simi lar one in the Diana of George of Montemayor." This pastoral romance," says she, was translated from the Spanish in Shakespeare's time." I have seen no earlier translation than that of Bartholomew Yong, who dates his dedication in November 1598; and Meres, in his Wit's Treasury, printed the same year, expressly mentions the Two Gentlemen of Verona. Indeed Montemayor was translated two or three years before, by one Thomas Wilson; but this work, I am persuaded, was never published en tirely; perhaps some parts of it were, or the tale might have been translated by others. However, Mr. Steevens says, very truly, that this kind of love-adventure is frequent in the old novelists, FARMER,

There is no earlier translation of the Diana entered on the books of the Stationers' Company, than that of B. Yong, Sept. 1598. Many translations, however, after they were licensed, were capriciously suppressed. Among others," The Decameron of Mr. John Boccace, Floren tine," was "recalled by my lord of Canterbury's com mands." STEEVENS.

It is observable (I know not for what cause) that the style of this comedy is less figurative, and more natural and unaffected, than the greater part of this author's, though supposed to be one of the first he wrote.

POPE

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