embarks on board a vessel bound to the Levant, and on arriving at
Alexandria, she is taken into the service of the Sultan of Egypt, under
the name of Sicurano; she gains the confidence of her master, who, not
suspecting her sex, sends her as captain of the guard which was
appointed for the protection of the merchants at the fair of Acre. Here
she accidentally meets Ambrogiolo, and sees in his possession the purse
and girdle, which she immediately recognizes as her own. In reply to her
inquiries, he relates with fiendish exultation the manner in which he
had obtained possession of them, and she persuades him to go back with
her to Alexandria. She then sends a messenger to Genoa in the name of
the Sultan, and induces her husband to come and settle in Alexandria. At
a proper opportunity, she summons both to the presence of the Sultan,
obliges Ambrogiolo to make a full confession of his treachery, and
wrings from her husband the avowal of his supposed murder of herself:
then falling at the feet of the Sultan discovers her real name and sex,
to the great amazement of all. Bernabo is pardoned at the prayer of his
wife, and Ambrogiolo is condemned to be fastened to a stake, smeared
with honey, and left to be devoured by the flies and locusts. This
horrible sentence is executed; while Zinevra, enriched by the presents
of the Sultan, and the forfeit wealth of Ambrogiolo, returns with her
husband to Genoa, where she lives in great honor and happiness, and
maintains her reputation of virtue to the end of her life.

These are the materials from which Shakspeare has drawn the dramatic
situation of Imogen. He has also endowed her with several of the
qualities which are attributed to Zinevra; but for the essential truth
and beauty of the individual character, for the sweet coloring of
pathos, and sentiment, and poetry interfused through the whole, he is
indebted only to nature and himself.

It would be a waste of words to refute certain critics who have accused
Shakspeare of a want of judgment in the adoption of the story; of
having transferred the manners of a set of intoxicated merchants and a
merchant's wife to heroes and princesses, and of having entirely
destroyed the interest of the catastrophe.[56] The truth is, that
Shakspeare has wrought out the materials before him with the most
luxuriant fancy and the most wonderful skill. As for the various
anachronisms, and the confusion of names, dates, and manners, over which
Dr. Johns