OF PATNEFULL ADUENTURES. 237
with a staff in one hand and a bunch of bays in the other; while before him, upon a table, lies a book, which we may suppose to be a copy of his ' Confessio Amantis,' containing, as is well known, a version of the story of ' Pericles/ under the name of Apollonius of Tyre. His dress, as represented in the woodcut, merits notice, inasmuch as it is, in all probability, such as the actor wore who played the part of Gower, and who spoke the Prologue and interlocutions in Shakespeare's 'Pericles.' It is merely a sort of gown, very plain, opening in front, and reaching just below the knee. In my fifty copies of the small publication relating to this subject, I gave a fac-simile of this interesting dramatic relic.
" Now, to speak a little more particularly of the contents of this literary rarity. It professes, as we have seen by the title-page, to give the c history of the Play of Pericles' as it had been recently acted on the stage; and, at the end of * the Argument' prefixed, the reader is entreated to receive the novel * in the same manner' as the play had been received when c by the King's Majesties Players it was excellently presented.' The King's Majesty's Players of course consisted^of the company to which Shakespeare had been always attached, which performed in the summer at the Globe on the Bankside, and in the winter at the Blackfriars.
" It has always been lamented that in so few old dramas lists of characters are supplied; but here they are furnished as the accompaniment to a mere narration ; and, since the names almost entirely accord with those found in Shakespeare's ' Pericles,' though not prefixed to it, it is needless to insert them here. The divisions of the story do not follow the five acts of the play, for the tract is composed of eleven chapters, which include all the incidents, nearly in the course in which they are employed by Shakspeare.