[1] N. J. Halpin: _Oberon's Vision in the Midsummer Night's Dream, illustrated by a Comparison with Lylie's Endymion_, 1842. [2] _New Shakspere Society's Transactions_, 1880-86, p. 67. [3] The passage in _The Maydes Metamorphosis_ runs as follows:-- "_Mopso_. I pray you, what might I call you? _1st Fairy_. My name is Penny. _Mopso_. I am sorry I cannot purse you. _Frisco_. I pray you, sir, what might I call you? _2nd Fairy_. My name is Cricket. _Frisco_. I would I were a chimney for your sake." [4] The passion for alliteration in his contemporaries is satirised in these lines of the prologue to _Pyramus and Thisbe_:-- "Whereat with blade, with bloody blameful blade, He bravely broach'd his boiling bloody breast." XIII _ROMEO AND JULIET--THE TWO QUARTOS--ITS ROMANESQUE STRUCTURE--THE USE OF OLD MOTIVES--THE CONCEPTION OF LOVE_ _Romeo and Juliet_, in its original form, must be presumed to date from 1591, or, in other words, from Shakespeare's twenty-seventh year. The matter was old; it is to be found in a novel by Masuccio of Salerno, published in 1476, which was probably made use of by Luigi da Porta when, in 1530, he wrote his _Hystoria novellamente ritrovata di dui nobili Amanti_. After him came Bandello, with his tale, _La sfortunata morte di due infelicissimi amanti;_ and upon it an English writer founded a play of _Romeo and Juliet_, which seems to have been popular in its day (before 1562), but is now lost. An English poet, Arthur Brooke, found in Bandello's _Novella_ the matter for a poem: _The tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet, written first in Italian by Bandell and now in Englishe by Ar. Br_. This poem is composed in rhymed iambic verses of twelve and fourteen syllables alternately, whose rhythm indeed jogs somewhat heavily along, but is not unpleasant and not too monotonous. The method of narration is very artless, loquacious, and diffuse; it resembles the narrative style of a clever child, who describes with minute exactitude and circumstantiality, going into every detail, and placing them all upon the same plane.[1]. Shakespeare founded his play upon this poem, in which the two leading characters, Friar Laurence, Mercutio, Tybalt, the Nurse, and the Apothecary, were ready to his hand, in faint outlines. Romeo's fancy for another woman immediately before he meets Juliet is also here, set forth at length; and the action as a whole follows the same course as in the tragedy.