Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/348

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. APRIL 29, 1916.

Maginn.* With two such men as Giffard and the brilliant writer Maginn the power exercised by the paper became great, and its circulation increased. Attempts were made in those days to influence the press, on the part of those in authority, which would not now for a moment be tolerated. Not long after The Evening Standard had been estab- lished the Duke of Wellington, in a peremp- tory tone, commanded the editor to take a particular course both in that paper and in The Morning Herald, of which Giffard was also editor. James Grant, who knew Giffard well, states that " he never spoke of this incident but with the greatest indignation at the conduct of the Duke in thus seeking unduly to influence the press."

JOHN COLLINS FBANCIS.

(To be continued.)

'CYMBELINE': THE SOURCE OF THE "WAGER INCIDENT."

LOBD CBOMER, in his interesting review, in The Spectator of Jan. 29, 1916, of the new life of Shakespeare by Sir Sidney Lee, inci- dentally raises the interesting problem of the source of the " wager incident " in ' Cym- beline ' when he says :

"But it is perhaps less well known that

' Cymbeline,' though mainly based on a story of Boccaccio, perhaps although Sir Sidney Lee thinks to a very slender extent owed its origin to an English work published in 1603 and bearing the amazing and amusing title of ' Westwards for Smelts,' &c."

I shall endeavour to show as shortly as possible that this hypothesis is quite un- tenable, and that the only source that is possible is the ninth tale of the second day of Boccaccio's ' Decameron,' although whether direct or by means of some translation or adaptation it is a difficult matter to deter- mine.

The earliest known edition of ' Westwards for Smelts ' is of the year 1619-20, although Malone asserts there was one in 1603.

The date of ' Cymbeline ' is put by various commentators of Shakespeare between the

Capt. Shandon. In 1830 he established Fraser's Magazine, his gallery of literary portraits being its most popular feature. These portraits, drawn by Maclise, with Maginn's notices, edited by Prof. Bates, were reproduced in a handsome quarto volume in 1873, and published by Chatto & Windus. This is now out of print and very scarce. In 1885 Messrs. Sampson Low & Co. published Maginn's Misce Sanies in Prose and Verse,' in two volumes.
 * Maginn was the original of Thackeray's

years 1604 and 1611. Shakespeare was dead in 1620, so if the earliest edition of ' Westwards for Smelts ' was that which is now the only known one, of 1619-20, he could not have been acquainted with it. If Malone is correct in his assertion of an edition in 1603, Shakespeare might have seen it, but even then it can hardly have been the source of the " wager incident" in


 * Cymbeline.'

' Westwards for Smelts,' which is a very free "bourgeois" rendering of the 'De- cameron ' tale, contains, indeed, the incident of the wager, which is common also to ' Cymbeline,' as well as to many other tales ; but it does not contain the incident of the villain being concealed in a chest,, the incident of the "birth-mark," or the description of the bedchamber, &c., all of" which occur in both * Cymbeline ' and the

incidents were not derived from ' Westwards for Smelts,' but either directly or indirectly from the ' Decameron.'
 * Decameron.' It is evident that these

The earliest known English translation of the ' Decameron ' is that of 1620, although certain of the tales previously appeared in Painter's ' Palace of Pleasure ' of 1567-8, and in other works of about the same time- There were, however, several French trans- lations of it prior to the time of Shakespeare, which he might have known, even supposing he had no acquaintance with the original.

But, besides 'Westwards for Smelts,' there is another version of this particular tale of the ' Decameron ' which Shakespeare might have known. "This mater treateth of a mercantes wyfe that afterwards went lyke a man and became a great lorde, and was called Frederyke of Jennen afterwarde." The imprint runs "Imprinted in Anwarpe by me, John Dusborowhge, dwellinge besyde ye Gamer porte in the yere of our Lorde God a. MCCCCC and XVII J."

There is no copy of this in the British Museum, which possesses, however, one of another edition (undated), consisting of 18 leaves, a small quarto, adorned (?) with several very rude woodcuts. This is bound together with five other tracts, all of which are printed by different printers, but all dated 1560, to which year the authorities attribute also the ' Frederick of Jennen.'

This "chap-book" version of the 'De- cameron ' tale, for it is really not a transla- tion, does not appear to be taken direct from it, but to be a close rendering of an old German "folk -tale" of the year 1489 called ' Von vier Kaufmannern ' ('Of Four Merchants').