ected, is not a first-rate specimen of typography. The son of the prince
sees and falls in love with the supposed shepherd's daughter, and, to avoid
the anger of the prince his father, he secretly sails away with her and the
old shepherd. By a storm they are driven on the coast of Bohemia:

"A violent storm on the sea did arise,
Drove them to Bohemia; they are took for spies;
Their ship was seized, and they to prison sent:
To confine them a while the king's fully bent."

Here we arrive at an incident which is found in Greene, but which
Shakspeare had the judgment to avoid, making the termination of his drama
as wonderful for its art, as delightful for its poetry. Greene and my
ballad represent the king of Bohemia falling in love with his own daughter,
whom he did not recognise. She effectually resisted his entreaties, and he
resolves "to hang or burn" the whole party; but the old shepherd, to save
himself, reveals that she is not his daughter, and produces "the mantle of
gold" in which he had found her:

"He likewise produced the mantle of gold.
The king was amazed the sight to behold;
Though long time the shepherd had used the same,
The king knew it marked with his own name."

This discovery leads directly to the unwinding of the plot: the young
prince makes himself known, and his father being sent for, the lovers are
{3} "married in triumph" in Bohemia, and the old shepherd is made "a lord
of the court."

If any of your readers can inform me of another copy of the above ballad,
especially unmodernised (the versification must have suffered in the
frequent reprints) and in black-letter of an early date, they will do me a
favour. At present I am unable to decide whether it was founded upon
Greene's novel, Shakspeare's play, or upon some independent, possibly
foreign, narrative. I am by no means satisfied that Greene's novel was not
a translation, and we know that he was skilful in Italian, Spanish, and
French.

J. PAYNE COLLIER.

I cannot find the particular Number of NOTES AND QUERIES, but unless I am
greatly mistaken, in one of them, a correspondent gave praise (I am the
last to say it was not deserved) to DR. MAGINN for suggesting that _miching
mallecho_, in _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2., was from the Spanish _mucho
malhecho_. I never heard of DR. MAGINN's opinion until I saw it in your
pages; but if you happen to be able to refer to the Shakspeare I
superintended through the press in 1843, vol. v