ertainly introduced many French scenes in his
works, and he has taken several of his plots, such as that of _Romeo and
Juliet_, from the Italians. As to his own language, he is said to have
made the poems of Chaucer principally his study, so that it would not be
quite fair to produce any plagiarisms from that writer; but I give the
reader a few specimens of English literature taken from other quarters,
which seem to have afforded Shakspeare ideas, or else matter, to work
upon. The following passage is from one of our oldest dramas, and it
will readily call to the recollection of the reader, the celebrated
speech of Claudio in _Measure for Measure_:

"To die is sure to go we know not whither,
We lie in silent darkness, and we rot.
Perhaps the spirit, which is future life,
Dwells, salamander-like, unharm'd in fire,
Or else with wand'ring winds is blown about
The world; but if condemned like those
Whom our uncertain thought imagines howling,
Then the most loath'd and the most weary life,
Which age, ache, penury or imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a Paradise.
To what we fear of death."

The sentences that follow are from a small historical work I have fallen
in with, written in old English, but without its date; about a fourth
part of the matter contained in this little book is to be found woven
into the different historical plays of Shakspeare, but the underwritten
extracts are very nearly in his own words, allowing, of course, for the
more poetical expression.

(_Fall of Wolsey._) "Being near his end, he called Sir William Kingston
to him, and said, 'Pray, present my duty to his majesty, who is a noble
and gallant prince, and of a resolved mind, for he will venture the loss
of his kingdom, rather than be contradicted in his desires. And now, Mr.
Kingston, had I but served my God as diligently as I have served the
king, he never would have forsaken me in my grey hairs!'" (Compare this
with Cardinal Wolsey's speech to Cromwell, _Henry VIII._, Act iii.)

Amongst other particulars in this book, concerning _Richard III._ we
have the following: "The Protector coming in council, seemed more than
ordinarily merry, and after some other discourses, 'My lord (says he to
the Bishop of Ely) you have very good strawberries in your garden in
Holborn, pray let us have a dish of them.' 'With all my heart,' replied
the bishop, and sent for some. Afterwards, the Protector knit his brows
and his lips, and risin