to
make good the charge arranges to have his own hired servant in the
dress of a gentleman ascend a ladder and enter the house of Lionato at
night, Timbreo being placed so as to witness the proceeding. The next
morning Timbreo accuses the lady to her father, and rejects the
alliance. Fenicia sinks down in a swoon; a dangerous illness follows;
and, to prevent the shame of her alleged trespass, Lionato has it
given out that she is dead, and a public funeral is held in
confirmation of that report. Thereupon Girondo becomes so harrowed
with remorse, that he confesses his villainy to Timbreo, and they both
throw themselves on the mercy of the lady's family. Timbreo is easily
forgiven, and the reconciliation is soon followed by the discovery
that the lady is still alive, and by the marriage of the parties. Here
the only particular wherein the play differs from the novel, and
agrees with Ariosto's plan of the story, is, that the lady's
waiting-woman personates her mistress when the villain scales her
chamber-window.

It does not well appear how the Poet could have come to a knowledge of
Bandello's novel, unless through the original; no translation of that
time having been preserved. But the Italian was then the most
generally-studied language in Europe; educated Englishmen were
probably quite as apt to be familiar with it as they are with the
French in our day; Shakespeare, at the time of writing this play, was
thirty-five years old; and we have many indications that he knew
enough of Italian to be able to read such a story as Bandello's in
that language.

The foregoing account may serve to show, what is equally plain in many
other cases, that Shakespeare preferred, for the material of his
plots, such stories as were most commonly known, that he might have
some tie of popular association and interest to work in aid of his
purpose. It is to be observed, further, that the parts of Benedick and
Beatrice, of Dogberry and Verges, and of several other persons, are
altogether original with him; so that he stands responsible for all
the wit and humour, and for nearly all the character, of the play.
Then too, as is usual with him, the added portions are so made to knit
in with the borrowed matter by mutual participation and interaction as
to give a new life and meaning to the whole.

So that in this case, as in others, we have the soul of originality
consisting in something far deeper and more essential than any mere
sorting or l