Three Notelets on Shakespeare. By William J. Thome, F.S.A. (John
Russell Smith.)—The most important of these essays is tho second, which consists of a series of papers from the Atheneum on Shakes- peare's knowledge of what Mr. Thorns has made it the fashion to call "folk-lore." Without much system or completeness, he pours out a fund of out-of-the-way information, which the lover of fairies, and es- pecially Shakespeare's fairies, must read to the very end before he lays the book down. The first essay is less popular in its character, but calls attention to the curious fact that as early as 1600 a company of English players travelled through Germany, performing German trans- lations of English plays. Tieck published apme of these translations —.among others "Julio and Hypolyta," which is a version either of the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," or more probably of an older play which is the common originaL Shakespeare is usually said to have taken the plot of the "Two Gentlemen of Verona" from the " Diana " of George Montemayor, but it is at least probable that most of his plays were derived from plays founded on novels rather than the novels them- selves. We are too apt to argue as if there were no books in Shakes- peare's time but such as have come down to us. The last essay, proving Shakespeare to have served under Leicester in the Low Countries by showing his familiar use of military terms in his plays, is a mere tour de force.
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