of a most romantic and imaginative kind, has had but little attention at the hand of investigators into Shakespeare's sources of inspiration. Both material derived from books and literary inspiration combine to throw light upon certain of Shakespeare's works, which have given great trouble to the historians of his art. It is quite natural that writers should draw upon what they have done before and should execute variations upon it, particularly in their earlier years, but also later in the course of their lives, when they have afforded far greater proofs of their capacity. Shakespeare was no exception to this, any more than the great contemporary poet of _Don Quixote,_ who was also the author of the _Galatea_ and of _Persiles y Sigismunda. The Comedy of Errors,_ as we know, consists of a motive from Plautus, repeated and rearranged innumerable times by the dramatists of the Renaissance. In treating this theme, Shakespeare rendered it on the one hand yet more artificial, while on the other, he endowed it with a more marked tendency towards the romantic, and notwithstanding the frivolity and frigidity of misunderstandings arising from identity of appearance, he yet revived them here and there according to his wont with a touch of the reality of life. The intrigue of the Menecmi, or of very close resemblance, pleased him so much that he introduced it in _Twelfth Night,_ where the pair are of different sex. This variation was first employed by Cardinal Bibbiena in his _Calandria,_ but the Cardinal made use of it to increase the lubricity of the intrigue, while Shakespeare drew from it a theme for most graceful poetic inspiration. One would think that the tragic theme of _Titus Andronicus_ (which many critics would like to say was not by Shakespeare, but dare not, because here the proofs of authenticity are very strong), was also born of a love for literary models, for the tragedy of horrors, so common in Italy in those days of the _Canaci_ and the _Orbecchi,_ which were rather imitations of Seneca than of Sophocles and Euripides, and had already inspired plays to the predecessors of Shakespeare, with slaughter for their theme. What more natural then, than that Shakespeare as a young man should strike this note? The splendid eloquence with which he adorned the horrible tale is Shakespearean.