ON THE FABLE AND COMPOSITION OF

TROILUS and CRESSIDA.

MR. Pope (after Dryden) informs us, that the ftory of Troilus and Crefida was originally the work of one Lollius, a Lombard (of whom Gascoigne fpeaks in Dan Bartholomewe his firft Triumph: "Since Lollius and Chaucer both, make doubt upon that glofe"); but Dryden goes yet further. He declares it to have been written in Latin verse, and that Chaucer translated it. Lollius was a hiftoriographer of Urbino in Italy. Shakespeare received the greateft part of his materials for the ftructure of this play from the Troye Boke of Lydgate. Lydgate was not much more than a tranflator of Guido of Columpna, who was of Meffina in Sicily, and wrote his Hiftory of Troy in Latin, after Dictys Cretenfis, and Dares Phrygius, in 1287. On thefe, as Mr Warton obferves, he engrafted many new romantic inventions, which the taste of his age dictated, and which the connection between Grecian and Gothic fiction eafily admitted; at the same time comprehending in his plan the Theban and Argonautic ftories from Ovid, Statius, and Valerius Flaccus. Guido's work was published at Cologne in 1477, again in 1580: at Strafburgh 1486, and ibidem 1489. It 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 firft 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 pro

probably might have been Shakespeare's inducement to try their fortune on the stage.-Lydgate's Troye Boke was printed by Pynion, 1513. In the Books of the Stationers' Company, anno 1581, is entered "A proper ballad, dialogue-wife, between Troilus and Creffida." Again, Feb. 7. 1602: "The booke of Troilus and Creffida, as it is acted by my Lo. Chamberlain's men." The first of these entries is in the name of Edward White, the second in that of M. Roberts. Again, Jan. 28, 1608, entered by Richard Bonian and Hen. Whalley, "A booke called the history of Troilus and Creffida." STEEVENS.

This play is more correctly written than most of Shakespeare's compofitions, but it is not one of those in which either the extent of his views or elevation of his fancy is fully difplayed. As the ftory abounded with materials, he has exerted little invention; but he has divertified his characters with great variety, and preferved them with great exactnefs. His vicious characters fometimes difguft, but cannot corrupt, for both Creffida and Pandarus are detefted and contemned. The comic characters seem to have been the favourites of the writer; they are of the superficial kind, and exhibit more of manners than nature; but they are copioufly filled and powerfully impreffed. Shakespeare has in his ftory followed, for the greater part, the old book of Caxton, which was then very popular; but the character of Therfites, of which it makes no men. tion, is a proof that this play was written after Chap man had publifhed his version of Homer. JOHNSON.

TROILUS and CRESSIDA.

IN Troy, there lies the fcene. From ifles of Greece
The princes orgillous, their high blood chaf'd,
Have to the port of Athens fent their fhips
Fraught with the minifters and inftruments
Of cruel war: Sixty and nine, that wore
Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia: and their vow is made,
To ranfack Troy; within whofe ftrong immures
The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen,

With wanton Paris fleeps; And that's the quarrel.
To Tenedos they come;

And the deep-drawing barks do there difgorge
Their warlike fraughtage: Now on Dardan plains
The fresh and yet unbruifed Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions: Priam's fix-gated city
(Dardan, and Thymbria, Ilias, Chetas, Troyan,
And Antenoridas), with mally ftaples,
And correfponfive and fulfilling bolts,
Sperrs up the fons of Troy-

Now expectation, tickling fkittish fpirits,
On one and other fide, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard:-And hither am I come
A prologue arm'd,-but not in confidence
Of author's pen, or actor's voice; but fuited
In like conditions as our argument,-
To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
Leaps o'er the vaunt and firftlings of thofe broils,
'Ginning in the middle; ftarting thence away
To what may be digefted in a play.

Like, or find fault; do as your pleafures are;
Now good, or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.