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INTRO- the supposition. The very solemnity with which Guazzo DUCTION mentions the Academies of Italy may possibly have led Shakespeare-then very young and full of playful spirit— to poke fun at these institutions; for as Dr. Dowden says of Love's Labour's Lost: 'It is a satirical extravaganza embodying Shakespeare's criticism upon contemporary fashions and foibles in speech, in manners, and in literature.'1

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At Act 1. Sc. ii., Armado having acknowledged that he was in love, asks Moth to comfort him, and tell him what great men have been in love.' Moth lets him know of Hercules and of Samson: Solomon is added some hundred lines later, by the Spaniard himself. Now Pettie's Guazzo has the following: Thou canst neither bee more learned 'then David, neither more strong then Sampson, neither 'more wise then Solomon, who notwithstanding have 'falne by meanes of women (Bk. 11. 232). It looks at least as if Shakespeare was thinking of that passage, for two out of the three names mentioned by Pettie are adapted, and both are Biblical characters. Professor Warwick Bond, however, says that Shakespeare here was borrowing from Lyly's Euphues; 2 although as a matter of fact the names of Lyly's unfortunate lovers' are all of a very different class from that to which Guazzo's belong, viz. Acontius, Tarquinius, Julius Cæsar, Hannibal, Leander, Iphis, and Pyramus. I regret to have to differ from so distinguished a scholar, but it is obvious that Professor Warwick Bond was not acquainted at the time with Pettie's Civile Conversation.

1 See Shakespeare, His Mind and Art.

Vol. i. 169, op. cit.

Macbeth.

INTRO

The interview between Macbeth and the Doctor in re- DUCTION

lation to the troubled state of the Queen runs as follows:

'MACB. How does your patient, doctor?

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MACB. Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it.' (v. iii.) It is hardly possible to think that this extract from Macbeth was ever written by any one who had not studied closely the conversation between Anniball and Guazzo upon topics of a very similar character. Anniball, having spoken of the infirmitie of the body,' continues: but 'to the maladie of the mind, you ought at al times to ' apply apt remedies, indeavouring so much as you may possibly, to be meerie, and to tread under foote al irksome thoughts which molest you . . . For all the Phisitions not only of Fraunce . . . no not Esculapius himselfe, 'by any medicine . . can give you the least helpe ' in the world . . . for that the medicine is in your owne

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handes, whereby in short time you may bee restored 'to your health' (Bk. 1. 16, 18).

Early in Macbeth we have Malcolm's description of Cawdor's death:

'Nothing in his life

Became him like the leaving it,' (1. iv. 7.)

which looks very like a Shakespearian transmutation of a

quotation cited in Pettie :

INTRO- 'A worthy death doeth honour al our life.' (Bk. 11. 182.) DUCTION When Lady Macbeth enjoins her husband to keep his thoughts from showing in his face, her words are:

'bear welcome in your eye,

Your hand, your tongue : look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under 't.' (1. v. 65.) The simile, in varying forms, was one that Shakespeare had already used three times in other plays: so it is not improbable that the source from which all come was the Civile Conversation :

'That in the fayrest flowers and grasse,

The serpent most doeth lurke.' (Bk. 11. 137.)

A single word, provided it be of an unusual character, may at times furnish very convincing evidence that one writer has borrowed from another; and we have unquestionably an example of the kind in the word 'breeched ' as used by Pettie: 'you meane by your wordes to include 'me in the number of the melancholike, which have their 'wit so breeched, that they cannot discerne sweete from sowre' (Bk. 1. 19).

The meaning of the original Italian is unmistakable, offuscato il cavello; while the French of Gabriel Chappuys is qui ont tellement le cerveau offusqué.

Macbeth has the following:

'there, the murderers,

Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers
Unmannerly breech'd1 with gore.'

(II. iii. 121.)

1 The New English Dictionary gives 'breeched' as meaning, in a figurative sense, 'covered, or clothed, with breeches.' Cotgrave's French Dictionary (1611) has 'offusquer to offuscate, obscure, blacken, darken, dimme,' etc. The word obviously means in English nothing more than ‘dulled 'or‘dimmed.

Macbeth also furnishes an instance of the use of receipt INTROin the sense of 'receptacle,' or gathering-place,' not DUCTION employed after Elizabeth's time :

'That memory, the warder of the brain,

Shall be a fume, and the receipt [Fr. receit] of reason
A limbeck only.'

(1. vii. 66.)

And the Civile Conversation describes the ' Countries of
Piemont as having been a continuall receite for

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souldiers of many nations' (Bk. 1. 63).

Measure for Measure.

Isabella's words to Angelo,

'How would you be,

If He, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? O, think on that,
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made,'
(II. ii. 75-79.)

have led to considerable conflict of opinions as to the
meaning of the last line. A passage from Pettie, however,
supplies, in the English of the time, a very simple explana-
tion of the phrase. It is part of a description of the lover
who, on seeing his mistress approach, rearranges his ruffs
and cap, etc. hee pulleth up his cloake about his
'shoulders, hee standeth a tiptoe, hee sheweth a joyfull
' and smyling countenaunce, and hee seemeth to become a
6 newe man ' (Bk. 11. 236).

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In the same Book (p. 231) we have:

Remembring the

saying, That the vaine wordes of temporall men, are

INTRO

meere blasphemies in the mouth of spirituall men,' a DUCTION passage which certainly seems to have served as model

for

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'That in the captain 's but a choleric word
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.'

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(II. ii. 130.)

In Bk. II. 110 is: the worlde is come to this passe, 'that it counteth any thing to bee lawefull, which is delightful.' While Isabella in the play uses the words:

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'Bidding the law make curt'sy to their will.' (11. iv. 176.)

Merchant of Venice.

There is in this play a passage of no apparent significance, and, so far as I know, never yet considered by any of our commentators as deserving of a note. For all that, it forms a highly important link in the chain of evidence which connects the names of Pettie and Shakespeare. In Act 1. Sc. ii., Nerissa questions Portia : Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a Venetian, a 'scholar and a soldier, that came hither in company of 'the Marquis of Montferrat?' And Portia replies: "Yes, yes, it was Bassanio.' Here are a few facts that lend an interest to the hitherto unnoticed Marquis. Stefano Guazzo is described on the title-page of all the Italian editions as Gentilhuomo di Casale di Monferrato.' It is the same in some of the French translations, except that there the word becomes Montferrat. In Bk. iv. 187 we have mention of a certain Embassador of the communaltie of Monferrato'; while the place itself is referred to by name very many times in the

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