object in coming to Aix, where his father and sister resided, but it is difficult to assign a motive for Sebastian's journey to Illyria. It is also more likely, as in the novel, that a lover should return to a mistress he had forsaken, on receiving a striking instance of fidelity and tenderness, than that the duke should abandon a woman he passionately adored, and espouse a stranger, of whose sex he had hitherto been ignorant, and who had not even love to plead as an excuse for her transgression of the bounds of decorum A lady disguised in boy's clothes, and serving her lover as a page, or otherwise, for the interests of her love, is one of the most common incidents in the Italian novels and our early British dramas. Besides Twelfth Night, and the Two Gentlemen of Verona, it is the foundation of Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster, Shirley's Grateful Servant, School of Compliment, Maid's Revenge, &c.

Part III. 41. Story common in our English jestbooks, of a Spaniard who asks part of a dinner for himself, giving his name at full length, and is told there are not provisions for so many people. In the English story I think he asks lodging,

Shakspeare Illustrated, vol. II.

46. Is the most obscene story in Bandello, or perhaps in the whole series of Italian novels, yet it is said in the introduction, to have been related by Navagero to the princess of Mantua and duchess of Urbino.

47. Is from 4th of 8th of Boccaccio.

59. An Italian count, who had long doubted of his wife's fidelity, at length becomes assured of her constancy from her assiduous attendance during a long sickness, which had in fact been created by a poison she had administered. Being at length informed, however, by a domestic, that his wife embraced the opportunity of his confinement from illness to receive the visits of a lover, he is enabled to detect them together, and sacrifices both to his resentment. This tale is the first part of La Force d' Amitié, a story introduced by Le Sage in his Diable Boiteux.

Part IV. 17. Marquis of Ferrara prepares a mock execution, and the victim of this villainous jest expires from apprehension. A similar effect of terror forms the subject of Miss Baillie's play of the Dream, which is the second of her tragedies on Fear.

The ancestors of

NICOLAO GRANUCCI,

being of the Guelph faction, were expelled from Lucca in the beginning of the 14th century, but afterwards returned and spread out into numerous branches, through the various states of Italy. It is from the circumstances of his family that this novelist deduces the origin of his stories, as he informs the reader, that being at Sienna in 1568, he went to the neighbouring town of Pienza, to enquire if there were any descendants of the Granucci settled there. He was conducted by two of the inhabitants to an abbey in the vicinity, and after his arrival, was carried to see the Villa de Trojano, by one of the monks, who, on the way, related a number of tales, of which at parting he presented a compendium in writing; and from this MS. Granucci asserts, that he afterwards formed his work, which was published at Venice, 1574. The 5th story of Granucci is from the 1st of Petrus Alphonsus. A son boasts

La piacevol notte e lieto giorno, opera morale di Nicolao Granucci di Lucca.

of the number of his friends to his father, who advises him to try them, by putting a dead calf in a sack, and pretending that it is the corpse of a person he had murdered. When he asks his friends to assist him in concealing it, they unanimously decline doing any thing in the matter, but the service is undertaken by the sole friend of whom the father boasted. This story is older even than Alphonsus; I think it is of classical origin, and has been somewhere told of Dionysius of Syracuse and his son. Another story of Granucci is from the fabliau Du curé qui posa une pierre.

ASCANIO MORI DA CENO'

was a Mantuan, and passed his life in the service of the princes of Gonzaga, one of whom he followed to Hungary, when he went to attend the Emperor Maximilian in the wars against Solyman. He was an intimate friend of Torquato Tasso, and a curious extract from a letter addressed to him by that poet is given in Black's Life of Tasso (vol. II. p. 194). Ceno's novels, which are fifteen

! Prima parte dell' novelle di Ascanio Mori da Cene.

in number, are dedicated to Vincenzo Gonzaga, prince of Mantua, noted as the assassin of Crichton and the patron of Tasso. The first part of his work was printed at Mantua, 1585, 4to. From the title it would appear that a second part was intended to have been added, but it was never written, or at least never published. The 3d novel is the common story of a messenger coming express with a pardon to a criminal, but who, having his attention diverted by the execution, which was commencing, does not deliver his orders till all is concluded. The 13th is the still better known story of two young men, who, during their father's absence, pretend that he is dead; they sit in deep mourning and apparent distress, and in consequence receive his country rents from the steward, who arrives with them.

CELIO MALESPINI,'

during his youth, was in some public employment at Milan, but afterwards resided at Venice, and finally passed into the service of Duke Francis of

'Ducento novelle del Signore Celio Malespini, nel quale si raccontano diversi avvenimenti; cosi lieti, come mesti e stravaganti.