not express
more directly in his immortal verse the finer issues and deeper passions
of the men and women around him. Charles Lamb, who seems to have said
all that is worth saying about the dramatists in the dozen pages or so
to which his notes extend, has also expressed his regret. "I am
sometimes jealous," he says, "that Shakespere laid so few of his scenes
at home." But every art has it conventions, and by the time Shakespeare
began to write it was a convention of English drama that the scene of
its most serious productions should be laid abroad. The convention was
indeed a necessary one, for there did not exist in English any other
store of plots but that offered by the inexhaustible treasury of the
Italian _Novellieri_.

Having mentioned Shakespeare, it seems desirable to make an exception in
his case,[27] and discuss briefly the use he made of Painter's book and
its influence on his work. On the young Shakespeare it seems to have had
very great influence indeed. The second heir of his invention, _The Rape
of Lucrece_, is from Painter. So too is _Romeo and Juliet_,[28] his
earliest tragedy, and _All's Well_, which under the title _Love's Labour
Won_, was his second comedy, is Painter's _Giletta of Narbonne_ (i. 38)
from Bandello.[29] I suspect too that there are two plays associated
with Shakespeare's name which contain only rough drafts left unfinished
in his youthful period, and finished by another writer. At any rate it
is a tolerably easy task to eliminate the Shakespearian parts of _Timon
of Athens_ and _Edward III._, by ascertaining those portions which are
directly due to Painter.[30] In this early period indeed it is somewhat
remarkable with what closeness he followed his model. Thus some gushing
critics have pointed out the subtle significance of making Romeo at
first in love with Rosalind before he meets with Juliet. If it is a
subtlety, it is Bandello's, not Shakespeare's. Again, others have
attempted to defend the indefensible age of Juliet at fourteen years
old, by remarking on the precocity of Italian maidens. As a matter of
fact Bandello makes her eighteen years old. It is banalities like these
that cause one sometimes to feel tempted to turn and rend the
criticasters by some violent outburst against Shakespeare himself. There
is indeed a tradition, that Matthew Arnold had things to say about
Shakespeare which he dared not utter, because the British public would
not stand them. But the British public