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INTRODUCTION.
consequently confined to this country. For other nations, being in possession of an authenticated original, would have little inducement to seek after a newly fabricated copy. English verses found therein, with English proper names, and English law terms, and modes of speech, (arguments on which Mr. Douce lays much stress,) no more constitute another work than Horace's Art of Poetry, translated by Roscommon; or than Donne's Satires, modernized by Pope.
As the annexed tales gave occasion to some of Shakspeare's plays, and moreover are not defective in that kind of interest which is the peculiar merit of such things, I shall transcribe as many as appear in the English translation[1], following Mr. Douce's arrange-
- ↑ I follow a copy printed in 1703, "for R. Chiswell, B. Walford, G. Conyers, at the King in Little Britain, and J.W." It is a reprint of the edition of 1648, containing forty-four stories; and
