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· novel by George Wilkins, avowedly based on the rama, was published in 1608, with the following

e:

E | Painefulle Aduentures | of Pericles Prince of | Being the true History of the play of Pericles, as it tely presented by the worthy and an- | cient Poet ower. | AT LONDON | Printed by T. P. for Nat. 1608. | " (The Cambridge Editors).

se curious as to the Apollonius Saga, from which y of Pericles is ultimately drawn, are referred to or Mommsen's Preface to Wilkins's novel and to or Smyth's Shakespeare's Pericles and Apollonius of hiladelphia, MacCalla & Co.

ious to the publication in 1709 of Rowe's edition of peare no doubts had been put forward as to his being hor of our play. Contemporary writers ascribe it and Dryden (Prologue to Davenant's Circe) expressly

Shakespeare's own muse her Pericles first bore;
The Prince of Tyre was elder than the Moor;
'Tis miracle to see a first good play;

All hawthorns do not bloom on Christmas day.

genuineness of the play and its early production first maintained by Malone, who in his Supplement vens's edition of 1778 sets out his theory at great but accompanies it by a dissertation in which s propounds his doubts as to Shakespeare's share.1 n, however, he became a convert to Steevens's view, his edition of 1790 his mature convictions are thus

the discussion between these two critics, see the Variorum of 1821, pp. 221-253.

stated.

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"The congenial sentiments, the numerous expressions bearing a striking similitude to passages in his undisputed plays, some of the incidents, the situation of many of the persons, and in various places the colour of the style combine to set the seal of Shakespeare on the play before us, and furnish us with internal and irresistible proofs that a considerable portion of this piece, as it now appears, was written by him. The greater part of the three last Acts may, I think, on this ground be safely ascribed to him; and his hand may be traced occasionally in the other divisions. Steevens, after a lengthy criticism of the Choruses, and a few remarks as to the Dumb Shows, passes on to more general considerations. "The drama before us," he says, “contains no discrimination of manners (except in the comick dialogues), very few traces of original thought, and is evidently destitute of that intelligence and useful knowledge that pervade even the meanest of Shakespeare's undisputed performances. To speak more plainly, it is neither enriched by the gems that sparkle through the rubbish of Love's Labour's Lost, nor the good sense that so often fertilises the barren fable of The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Pericles, in short, is little more than a string of adventures so numerous, so inartificially crowded together, and so far removed from probability, that, in my judgment, I must acquit even the irregular and lawless Shakespeare from having constructed the fabrick of the drama, though he has certainly bestowed some decoration on its parts.

I do

not recollect a single plot of Shakespeare's formation (or even adoption from preceding plays or novels) in which the majority of the characters are not so well connected, and so

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y in respect of each other, that they proceed in tion to the end of the story. In Pericles this ty is wanting. . . . And even with the aid of Gower es are rather loosely tacked together, than closely ven. We see no more of Antiochus after his first nce. His anonymous daughter utters but one unble couplet, and then vanishes. Simonides likewise s soon as the marriage of Thaisa is over; and the ment of Cleon and his wife, which poetick justice ed, makes no part of the action, but is related in a epilogue by Gower. This is at least a practice n no instance has received the sanction of ShakeFrom such deficiency of mutual interest, and liaison he personages of the drama, I am further strengthened elief that our great poet had no part in constructing Johnson long ago observed that his real power is in the splendor of particular passages, but in the s of his fable, and the tenour of his dialogue: and becomes necessary for me to quote a decision on comprehensive views, I can appeal to none in should more implicitly confide. . . . I admit withrve that Shakespeare . . . is visible in many scenes out the play. But it follows not that he is answerits worst part, though the best it contains may be, nonourably, imputed to him. . . . To conclude, the Pericles was in all probability the composition of iend whose interest the 'gentle Shakespeare' was ous to promote. He therefore improved his dialogue places; and knowing by experience that the strength matick piece should be augmented towards its cataswas most liberal in the last Act.

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The conclusion at which Malone arrived as to Shakespeare's share has, with more or less difference of detail, been largely accepted in modern times; though there are those who, with Knight, still maintain that the play is wholly Shakespeare's, but written at different periods, perhaps distant from each other by some twenty years. "That it was an early work," remarks that critic, "we are constrained to believe; not from the evidence of particular passages, which may be deficient in power or devoid of refinement, but from the entire construction of dramatic action. The play is essentially one of movement, which is a great requisite for dramatic success; but that movement is not held in subjection to unity of idea. The writer, in constructing the plot, had not arrived to a perfect conception of the principle that a tragedy is tied to the laws of poesy, and not of history, not bound to follow the story, but having liberty either to feign a quite new matter, or to frame the history to the most tragical convenience'. But with this essential disadvantage we cannot doubt that, even with very imperfect dialogue, the action presented a succession of scenes of very absorbing interest. The introduction of Gower, however inartificial it may seem, was the result of very profound skill. The presence of Gower supplied the unity of idea which the desultory nature of the story wanted; and thus it is that in 'the true history' formed upon the play, the unity of idea is kept in the expression of the titlepage, 'as it was lately presented by the worthy and ancient poet, John Gower'. Nevertheless, such a story, we believe, could not have been chosen by Shakspere in the seventeenth century, when his art was fully developed in all its wondrous

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and combinations. With his perfect mastery of the of representing, instead of recording, the treatment y which would have required perpetual explanation nection would have been painful to him, if not im

belief in an early production revised in its author's ys had many years before commended itself "as ay probable" to the judgment of Verplanck,1 who Pericles having, from its first appearance, by means ry, its dumb-show, and by its comparative merit reto its rivals for popular favour, succeeded and kept on of the stage, the author would not feel himself pon to rewrite a play which answered its main end, subject of which presented no peculiar attractions while the re-examination of his own boyish, halfhoughts would naturally expand and elevate them oler forms, and re-clothe them in that glowing e he had since created for himself. . . . Nevertheother solution of the difficulty . . . may still be the :: that the original Pericles was by some inferior erhaps by a personal friend of Shakespeare's, t he, without remodelling the plot, undertook to and improve it, beginning with slight additions, and d, warming as it proceeded, breaking out towards e of the drama with its accustomed vigour and ce."

r supporters of the view that the play is wholly eare's are Drake and Procter, together with the critics, Ulrici and Franz Horn. Dyce, with whom

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