deviations from him in the conduct of it: when probably all he knew
of the matter was from Madam Isabella in the _Heptameron_ of Whetstone.
Ariosto is continually quoted for the Fable of _Much ado about Nothing_;
but I suspect our Poet to have been satisfied with the _Geneura_ of
Turberville. _As you like it_ was _certainly borrowed_, if we believe Dr.
Grey, and Mr. Upton, from the _Coke's Tale of Gamelyn_; which by the way
was not _printed_ 'till a century afterward: when in truth the old Bard,
who was no hunter of MSS., contented himself solely with Lodge's
_Rosalynd_ or Euphues' _Golden Legacye_. 4to. 1590. The Story of _All's
well that ends well_, or, as I suppose it to have been sometimes called,
_Love's labour wonne_, is originally indeed the property of Boccace, but
it came immediately to Shakespeare from Painter's _Giletta of Narbon_. Mr.
Langbaine could not conceive whence the Story of _Pericles_ could be
taken, "not meeting in History with any such _Prince of Tyre_"; yet his
legend may be found at large in old Gower, under the name of _Appolynus_.

_Pericles_ is one of the Plays omitted in the later Editions, as well as
the early Folios, and not improperly; tho' it was published many years
before the death of Shakespeare, with his name in the Title-page. Aulus
Gellius informs us that some Plays are ascribed absolutely to Plautus,
which he only _re-touched_ and _polished_; and this is undoubtedly the
case with our Author likewise. The revival of this performance, which Ben
Jonson calls _stale_ and _mouldy_, was probably his earliest attempt in
the Drama. I know that another of these discarded pieces, the _Yorkshire
Tragedy_, had been frequently called so; but most certainly it was not
written by our Poet at all: nor indeed was it printed in his life-time.
The Fact on which it is built was perpetrated no sooner than 1604: much
too late for so mean a performance from the hand of Shakespeare.

Sometimes a very little matter detects a forgery. You may remember a Play
called the _Double Falshood_, which Mr. Theobald was desirous of palming
upon the world for a posthumous one of Shakespeare: and I see it is
classed as such in the last Edition of the Bodleian Catalogue. Mr. Pope
himself, after all the strictures of Scriblerus, in a Letter to Aaron
Hill, supposes it of that age; but a mistaken accent determines it to have
been written since the middle of the last century:

----This late example
Of base