a song." This could have been none other than the
"goold old man" Adam, in and about whom we have so much noble thought;
and we thus learn that his character, beautiful in itself, yet more so
for this circumstance, was sustained by the Poet himself.

In regard to the originals of this play, two sources have been pointed
out,--_The Cook's Tale of Gamelyn_, sometime attributed to Chaucer,
but upon better advice excluded from his works; and a novel by Thomas
Lodge entitled _Rosalynd; Euphues' Golden Legacy_. As the _Tale of
Gamelyn_ was not printed till more than a century later, it has been
questioned whether Shakespeare ever saw it. Nor indeed can much be
alleged as indicating that he ever did: one point there is, however,
that may have some weight that way. An old knight, Sir John of
Boundis, being about to die, calls in his wise friends to advise him
touching the distribution of his property among his three sons. They
advise him to settle all his lands on the eldest, and leave the
youngest without any thing. Gamelyn, the youngest, being his favourite
son, he rejects their advice, and bestows the largest portion upon
him. The Poet goes much more according to their advice; Orlando, who
answers to Gamelyn, having no share in the bulk of his father's
estate. A few other resemblances, also, may be traced, wherein the
play differs from Lodge's novel; though none of them are so strong as
to force the inference that Shakespeare must have consulted the
_Tale_. Nor, in truth, is the matter of much consequence, save as
bearing upon the question whether the Poet was of a mind to be
unsatisfied with such printed books as lay in his way. I would not
exactly affirm him to have been "a hunter of manuscripts"; but
indications are not wanting, that he sometimes had access to them: nor
is it at all unlikely that one so greedy of intellectual food, so
eager and so apt to make the most of all the means within his reach,
should have gone beyond the printed resources of his time. Besides,
there can be no question that Lodge was very familiar with the _Tale
of Gamelyn_: he follows it so closely in a large part of his novel as
to leave scarce any doubt that he wrote with the manuscript before
him; and if he, who was also sometime a player, availed himself of
such sources, why may not Shakespeare have done the same?

The practical use of such inquiries is, that they exhibit the Poet in
the character where I like especially to view him, namely,