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W. Painter, at the conclusion of the second Tome of his Palace of Pleasure, 1567, advertises the Reader, “bicause sodaynly (contrary to expectation) this Volume is risen to greater heape of leaues, I doe omit for this present time sundry Nouels of mery deuise, reseruing the same to be joyned with the rest of an other part, wherein shall succeede the remnant of Bandello, specially sutch (suffrable) as the learned French man Francois de Belleforrest hath selected, and the choysest done in the Italian. Some also out of Erizzo, Ser Giouanni Florentino, Parabosco, Cynthio, Straparole, Sansouino, and the best liked out of the Queene of Nauarre, and other Authors. Take these in good part, with those that haue and shall come forth.”–But I am not able to find that a third Tome was ever published: and it is very probable that the Interest of his Booksellers, and more especially the prevailing Mode of the time, might lead him afterward to print his sundry Novels separately. If this were the case, it is no wonder that such fugitive Pieces are recovered with difficulty; when the two Tomes, which Tom. Rawlinson would have called justa Volumina, are almost annihilated. Mr. Ames, who searched after books of this sort with the utmost avidity, most certainly had not seen them when he published his Typographical Antiquities ; as appears from his blunders about them: and possibly I myself might have remained in the same predicament, had I not been favoured with a Copy by my generous Friend, Mr. Lort.

Mr. Colman, in the Preface to his elegant Translation of Terence, hath offered some arguments for the Learning of Shakespeare, which have been retailed with much confidence, since the appearance of Mr. Johnson’s Edition.

“Besides the resemblance of particular passages scattered up and down in different plays, it is well known that the Comedy of Errors is in great measure founded on the Menaechmi of Plautus; but I do not recollect ever to have seen it observed that the disguise of the Pedant in the Taming of the Shrew, and his assuming the name and character of Vincentio, seem to be evidently taken from the disguise of the Sycophanta in the Trinummus of the said Author; and there is a quotation from the Eunuch of Terence also, so familiarly introduced into the Dialogue of the Taming of the Shrew, that I think it puts the question of Shakespeare’s having read the Roman Comick Poets in the original language out of all doubt,

Redime te captum, quam queas, minimo.”

With respect to resemblances, I shall not trouble you any further.–That the Comedy of Errors is founded on the Menaechmi, it is notorious: nor is it less so, that a Translation of it by W. W., perhaps William Warner, the Author of Albion’s England, was extant in the time of Shakespeare; tho’ Mr. Upton, and some other advocates for his learning, have cautiously dropt the mention of it. Besides this (if indeed it were different), in the Gesta Grayorum, the Christmas Revels of the Gray’s-Inn Gentlemen, 1594, “a Comedy of Errors like to Plautus his Menechmus was played by the Players.” And the same hath been suspected to be the Subject of the goodlie Comedie of Plautus acted at Greenwich before the King and Queen in 1520; as we learn from Hall and Holingshed:–Riccoboni highly compliments the English on opening their stage so well; but unfortunately Cavendish, in his Life of Wolsey, calls it an excellent Interlude in Latine. About the same time it was exhibited in German at Nuremburgh, by the celebrated Hanssach, the Shoemaker.