Zeal of the
last age exerted itself in destroying, amongst better things, the innocent
amusements of the former. Numberless _Tales_ and _Poems_ are alluded to in
old Books, which are now perhaps no where to be found. Mr. Capell informs
me (and he is in these matters the most able of all men to give
information) that our Author appears to have been beholden to some Novels
which he hath yet only seen in French or Italian: but he adds, "to say
they are not in some English dress, prosaic or metrical, and perhaps with
circumstances nearer to his stories, is what I will not take upon me to
do: nor indeed is it what I believe; but rather the contrary, and that
time and accident will bring some of them to light, if not all."----

W. Painter, at the conclusion of the second _Tome_ of his _Palace of
Pleasure_, 1567, _advertises_ the Reader, "bicause sodaynly (contrary to
expectation) this Volume is risen to greater heape of leaues, I doe omit
for this present time _sundry Nouels_ of mery deuise, reseruing the same
to be joyned with the rest of an other part, wherein shall succeede the
remnant of Bandello, specially sutch (suffrable) as the learned French man
Francois de Belleforrest hath selected, and the choysest done in the
Italian. Some also out of Erizzo, Ser Giouanni Florentino, Parabosco,
Cynthio, Straparole, Sansouino, and the best liked out of the Queene of
Nauarre, and other Authors. Take these in good part, with those that haue
and shall come forth."--But I am not able to find that a _third Tome_ was
ever published: and it is very probable that the Interest of his
Booksellers, and more especially the prevailing Mode of the time, might
lead him afterward to print his _sundry Novels_ separately. If this were
the case, it is no wonder that such _fugitive Pieces_ are recovered with
difficulty; when the _two Tomes_, which Tom. Rawlinson would have called
_justa Volumina_, are almost annihilated. Mr. Ames, who searched after
books of this sort with the utmost avidity, most certainly had not seen
them when he published his _Typographical Antiquities_; as appears from
his blunders about them: and possibly I myself might have remained in the
same predicament, had I not been favoured with a Copy by my generous
Friend, Mr. Lort.

Mr. Colman, in the Preface to his elegant Translation of Terence, hath
offered some arguments for the Learning of Shakespeare, which have been
retailed with much confidence, since the appearance of Mr. Jo