novels'[2] he writes 'there is one entitled _The Nun; or, The Perjur'd
Beauty_ and Mr. Gosse has kindly informed me that the story is identical
with _The Nun; or, The Fair Vow-Breaker_ which appears in the editio
princeps of 1689 (inaccessible to me).' Unfortunately he can find no
analogy and is obliged to draw attention to other sources. He points to
_The Virgin Captive_, the fifth story in Roger L'Estrange's _The Spanish
Decameron_ (1687). Again: there is the famous legend of the lovers of
Teruel as dramatized in 1638 by Juan Perez de Montalvan, _Los Amantes de
Teruel_. An earlier comedia exists on the same subject written by A. Rey
de Artieda, 1581, and yet another play by Tirso de Molina, 1635, based
on Artieda. Hamelius was obviously not satisfied with his researches,
and with a half-suggestion that Southerne may have merely intended to
pay a compliment to his 'literary friend Mrs. Behn,' his conclusion is
that 'the question is naturally still open whether Southerne was not
drawing from some more immediate source--possibly even from some lost
version of the story by Mrs. Behn herself.'

In the course of my preparing the present edition of Mrs. Behn's
complete works, Mr. Gosse, adding yet another to innumerable kindnesses
and encouragements, entrusted me with a little volume[3] from his
private library: _The History of the Nun; or, The Fair Vow-Breaker_
(12mo, 1689, Licensed 22 October, 1688), and I soon found this to be the
immediate source of Southerne's tragedy, a totally different novel from
_The Nun; or, The Perjur'd Beauty_, and one, moreover, which has never
till now been included in any edition of Mrs. Behn's works or, indeed,
reprinted in any form. It were superfluous to compare novel and tragedy
detail by detail. Many striking, many minor points are the same in each.
In several instances the nomenclature has been preserved. The chief
divergence is, of course, the main catastrophe. Mrs. Behn's execution
could ill have been represented on the boards, and Southerne's heroine,
the victim of villainies and intrigue, is, it must be confessed, an
infinitely more pathetic figure than guilty Isabella in the romance.

The story of a man returning after long absence and finding his spouse
(or betrothed) wedded to another, familiarized to the generality of
modern readers by Tennyson's _Enoch Arden_, occurs in every shape and
tongue. No. 69 of _Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ is _L'Honneste femme a
Deux Maris_.[4] A more