* TWELFTH-NIGHT.] There is great reason to believe, that the serious part of this Comedy is founded on some old translation of the seventh history in the fourth volume of Belleforest's Histoires Tragiques. Belleforest took the story, as usual, from Bandello. The comic scenes appear to have been entirely the production of Shakspeare. It is not impossible, however, that the circumstances of the Duke sending his Page to plead his cause with the Lady, and of the Lady's falling in love with the Page, &c. might be borrowed from the Fifth Eglog of Barnaby Googe, published with his other original poems in 1563. "A worthy Knyght dyd love her longe, "By hym he often dyd aspyre 66 "This passed well, tyll at the length Thus also concludes the first scene of the third act of the play before us: "And so adieu, good madam; never more " Will I my master's tears to you deplore, I offer no apology for the length of the foregoing extract, the book from which it is taken, being so uncommon, that only one copy, except that in my own possession, has hitherto 'oc |