Therewithal it is to be noted that the Puritans were specially forward and zealous in urging the complaints which put the Privy Council upon issuing this stringent process; and it will hardly be questioned that the character of Malvolio was partly meant as a satire on that remarkable people.  That the Poet should be somewhat provoked at their action in bringing about such tight restraints upon the freedom of his art, was certainly natural enough.  Nor is it a small addition to their many claims on our gratitude, that their aptness to “think, because they were virtuous, there should be no more cakes and ale,” had the effect of calling forth so rich and withal so good-natured a piece of retaliation.  Perhaps it should be remarked further, that the order in question, though solicited by the authorities of the city, was not enforced; for even at that early date those magistrates had hit upon the method of stimulating the complaints of discontented citizens till orders were taken for removing the alleged grievances, and then of letting such orders sleep, lest the enforcing of them should hush those complaints, and thus take away all pretext for keeping up the agitation.

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The story upon which the more serious parts of Twelfth Night were founded appears to have been a general favourite before and during Shakespeare’s time.  It is met with in various forms and under various names in the Italian, French, and English literature of that period.  The earliest form of it known to us is in Bandello’s collection of novels.  From the Italian of Bandello it was transferred, with certain changes and abridgments, into the French of Belleforest, and makes one in his collection of Tragical Histories.  From one or the other of these sources the tale was borrowed again by Barnabe Rich, and set forth as The History of Apolonius and Silla, making the second in his collection of tales entitled Farewell to the Military Profession, which was first printed in 1581.

Until the discovery of Manningham’s Diary, Shakespeare was not supposed to have gone beyond these sources, and it was thought something uncertain to which of these he was most indebted for the raw material of his play.  It is now held doubtful whether he drew from either of them.  The passage I have quoted from that Diary notes a close resemblance of Twelfth Night to an Italian play “called Inganni.”  This has had the effect of directing attention to the Italian theatre in quest of his originals.  Two comedies bearing the title of Gl’ Inganni have been found, both of them framed upon the novel of Bandello, and both in print before the date of Twelfth Night.  These, as also the three forms of the tale mentioned above, all agree in having a brother and sister, the latter in male attire, and the two bearing so close a resemblance in person and dress as to be indistinguishable; upon which circumstance some of the leading incidents are made to turn.  In one of the Italian plays, the sister is represented as assuming the name of Cesare; which is so like Cesario, the name adopted by Viola in her disguise, that the one may well be thought to have suggested the other.  Beyond this point, Twelfth Night shows no clear connection with either of those plays.