SOURCE.

Mrs. Behn has taken her episode of Antonio's persuading Alberto to woo
Clarina from Robert Davenport's fine play, _The City Night-Cap_ (4to
1661, but licensed 24 October, 1624) where Lorenzo induces Philippo to
test Abstemia in the same way. Astrea, however, has considerably altered
the conduct of the intrigue. Bullen (_The Works of Robert Davenport_,
1890) conclusively and exhaustively demonstrates that Davenport made use
of Greene's popular _Philomela; the Lady Fitzwater's Nightingale_ (1592,
1615, and 1631), wherein Count Philippo employs Giovanni Lutesio to
'make experience of his wife's [Philomela's] honesty', rather than was
under any obligation to Cervantes' _Curioso Impertinente, Don Quixote_,
Book IV, ch. vi-viii. Read, Dunlop, and Hazlitt all had express'd the
same opinion. The Spanish tale turns upon the fact of Anselmo, the
Curious Impertinent, enforcing his friend Lothario to tempt his wife
Camilla. Such a theme, however, is common, and with variations is to be
found in Italian novelle. Recent authorities are inclined to suggest
that the plot of Beaumont and Fletcher's _The Coxcomb_ (1610), much of
which runs on similar lines, is not founded on Cervantes. Southerne, in
his comedy, _The Disappointment; or, The Mother in Fashion_ (1684) and
'starch Johnny Crowne' in _The Married Beau_ (1694), both comedies of no
little wit and merit, are patently indebted to _The Curious
Impertinent_. Cervantes had also been used three quarters of a century
before by Nat Field in his _Amends for Ladies_ (4to, 1618), where Sir
John Loveall tries his wife in an exactly similar manner to Lorenzo,
Count Philippo and Anselmo.

The amours of the Florentine court are Mrs. Behn's own invention; but
the device by which Curtius ensnares Frederick is not unlike Vendice and
Hippolito's trapping of the lecherous old Duke in _The Revenger's
Tragedy_ (4to, 1607), albeit the saturnine Tourneur gives the whole
scene a far more terrible and tragic catastrophe.

In January, 1537, Lorenzino de Medici having enticed Duke Alessandro of
Florence to his house under pretext of an assignation with a certain
Caterina Ginori, after a terrible struggle assassinated him with the aid
of a notorious bravo. Several plays have been founded upon this history.
Notable amongst them are Shirley's admirable tragedy, _The Traitor_
(licensed May, 1631, 4to 1635) and in later days de Musset's
_Lorenzaccio_ (1834).

The Mask in Act V of _The Amorous