: Of author's pen, or actor's voice; but fuited -the vaunt-] i. e. the awaunt, what went before. STEEVENS. Helen, wife to Menelaus. Andromache, wife to Hector. Caffandra, daughter to Priam, a prophetess. Alexander, Creffida's fervant. Trojan and Greek Soldiers, with other attendants. SCENE, TROY, and the Grecian Camp before it. ACT I. SCENE I. C Priam's palace. Enter Pandarus and Troilus. TROILUS. ALL here my varlet, I'll unarm again : Each Trojan, that is master of his heart, Pan. * The story was originally written by Lollius, an old Lombard author, and fince by Chaucer. Popr. Mr. Pope (after Dryden) informs us, that the story of Troilus and Creffida was originally the work of one Lollius, a Lombard. Dryden goes yet further, declares it to have been written in Latin verse, and that Chaucer tranflated it. Lollius was a historiographer of Urbino in Italy. Shakespeare received the greatest part of his materials for the structure of this play from the Troye Boke of Lydgate. Lydgate was not much more than a tranflator of Guido of Columpna, who was of Messina in Sicily, and wrote his History of Troy in Latin, after Dictys Cretenfis, 1278. Guido's work was published at Cologne in 1477, again in 1480, at Strasburgh 1486, and ibidem 1489. This work appears to have been translated by Raoul le Feure, at Cologne, into French, from whom Caxton rendered it into English in 1471, under the title of his Recuyel, &c. fo that there must have been yet some earlier edition of Guido's performance than I have hitherto seen or heard of, unless his first tranflator had recourse to a manufcript. Guido of Columpna is referred to as an authority by our own chronicler Grafton. Chaucer had made the loves of Troilus and Creffida famous, which very probably might have been Shakespeare's inducement to try their fate on the stage. Lydgate's Troye Boke was printed by Pynfon, 1513. STEEVENS. Troilus A 4 Pan. Will this geer ne'er be mended? Troi. The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength, Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant; Pan. Well, I have told you enough of this. For my part, I'll not meddle nor make no further. He that will have a cake out of the wheat, must needs. tarry the grinding. Troi. Have I not tarried? Pan. Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the boulting. Troi. Have I not tarried? Pan. Ay, the boulting; but you must tarry the leavening. Troilus and Creffida.] Before this play of Troilus and Cressida, printed in 1609, is a bookseller's preface, shewing that first impression to have been before the play had been acted, and that it was published without Shakespeare's knowledge, from a copy that had fallen into the bookseller's hands. Mr. Dryden thinks this one of the first of our author's plays: but, on the contrary, it may be judged from the fore-mentioned preface that it was one of his laft; and the great number of observations, both moral and politic (with which this piece is crowded more than any other of his) feems to confirm my opinion. POPE. We may rather learn from this preface, that the original proprietors of Shakespeare's plays thought it their intereft to keep them unprinted. The author of it adds, at the conclufion, these words: Thank fortune for the 'scape it hath " made among you, fince, by the grand possessors will, I be"lieve you should rather have prayed for them, than have " been prayed," &c. By the grand poffeffors, I suppose, were meant, Heming and Condell. STEEVENS. 2-fonder than ignorance;] Fonder, for more childish. WARBURTON. 3 And skill-less, &c.] Mr. Dryden, in his alteration of this play, has taken this speech as it stands, except that he has changed skill-less to artless, not for the better, because skill-less relers to kill and Rilful. JOHNSON. Troi. Still have I tarried. Pan. Ay, to the leavening: but here's yet in the word hereafter, the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven, and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips. Troi. Patience herself, what goddess ere she be, Doth leffer blench at fufferance than I do. At Priam's royal table do I fit; And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts, Troi. I was about to tell thee, when my heart, Pan. An her hair were not fomewhat darker than Helen's-Well, go to, there were no more comparifon between the women. But, for my part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they term it, praise her, but I would fomebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not difpraise your fifter Cassandra's wit; but Troi. O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus, When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown'd; Reply not in how many fathoms deep They lie indrench'd. I tell thee, I am mad Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart Her eyes, her hair; her cheek, her gait; her voice Handlest in thy difcourse: - that her hand! In whose comparison all whites are ink Writing their own reproach; to whose soft seizure The |