The story then goes on to relate the matter of their courtship; how the Prince resolved to forsake his home and inheritance, and become a shepherd, for her sake, as she could not think of matching with one above her degree; how, forecasting the opposition and dreading the anger of his father, he planned for escaping into Italy, in which enterprise he was assisted by an old servant of his named Capnio, who managed the affair so shrewdly, that the Prince made good his escape, taking the old shepherd along with him; how, after they got to sea, the ship was seized by a tempest and carried away to Bohemia; and how at length the several parties met together at the Court of Pandosto, which drew on a disclosure of the facts, and a happy marriage of the fugitive lovers.

I must add one more item from the novel, as it aptly shows what advantage is sometimes to be gained by tracing the Poet in his reading.  In the play, the Shepherd on finding the babe is made to exclaim, “What have we here?  Mercy on ’s, a bairn; a very pretty bairn! a boy, or a child, I wonder?” For some hundred years, editorial ingenuity has been strained to the utmost to explain why child should be thus used in opposition to boy; and nothing would do but to surmise an obsolete custom of speech which made child signify girl.  The simple explanation is, that boy is a misprint for god.  For this felicitous restoration we are indebted to Mr. R.G.  White, of New York, who was guided to it by the corresponding passage of the novel:  “The shepherd, who before had never seen so fair a babe nor so rich jewels, thought assuredly that it was some little god, and began with great devotion to knock on his breast.  The babe, who writhed with the head to seek for the pap, began again to cry, whereby the poor man knew it was a child.”  That we are not gods, is indeed evident enough when we cry.  Of course the man’s devotion turned all to pity as soon as he caught that little but most unequivocal note of humanity.

* * * * *

From the foregoing sketch, it would seem that the Poet must have written with the novel before him, and not merely from general recollection.  Here, again, as in case of As You Like It, to appreciate his judgment and taste, one needs to compare his workmanship in detail with the original, and to note what he left unused.  The free sailing between Sicily and Bohemia he retained, inverting, however, the local order of the persons and incidents, so that Polixenes and Florizel are Bohemian Princes, whereas their prototypes, Egistus and his son, are Sicilians.  The reason of this inversion does not appear.  Of course, the Poet could not have done it with any view to disguise his obligations; as his purpose evidently was, to make the popular interest of the tale tributary to his own success and profit.  The most original of men, he was also the most free from pride and conceit of