Page:Poet Lore, volume 1, 1889.djvu/147

Leander (i. i. 22 and iii. i. 119), according to Fleay and others, were suggested by Marlowe's "Hero and Leander," which was entered on the Stationers' Registers in 1593 (the year of his death), though not printed until 1598; but the story was a familiar one, and no stress could be laid on the fact that Shakespeare's other references to it ("Romeo and Juliet," ii. 4. 44, "Midsummer-Night's Dream," v. i. 199, "As You Like It," iv. i. 101, 106) are "in no other play earlier than 1596," as Fleay says, even if that were true. The same critic believes that the mistake of Padua for Milan (ii. 5. 2) shows that the play was written at about the sanie time as the "Merchant of Venice." "If Shakespeare had not, at the time when he finally produced the 'Two Gentlemen,' begun his study for the Venetian story, whence this name? It only occurs there, once in 'Much Ado,' and in the non-Shakespearian parts of the 'Taming of the Shrew.' In like manner the mistake of Verona for Milan (iii. 4. 81, V. 4. 129) indicates that he had been preparing 'Romeo and Juliet'" (Fleay's "Life of Shakespeare," 1886, p. 189). That the name of Padua should get into Shakespeare's head in connection with Italy before he used it in the "Merchant" is of course inconceivable; but it does seem possible that the name of Verona might have occurred to him while writing this particular play, even if he had not been preparing "Romeo and Juliet." These be some of "the pranks of Puck among the critics," to which Dowden alludes in his comments on the "Sonnets." And of the same type is Chalmers's insistence on the "obvious allusions to Spenser's sonnets (1595)" in iii. 2. 68 fol.:

So Steevens, Fleay, and others think that Shakespeare would hardly have referred to "Merops' son" (iii. i. 153) if, in preparing his "King John," he had not lit upon the following passage in the old play he used in his work:

It has also been noted that Launce's pun (ii. 3. 42) about "the