THE WAKING MAN*S DREAM. 407
some degree modernized in 1620 or 1630, but upon that point it is not necessary for me to offer an opinion.
If my conjecture be correct, that Edwards's story-book of 1570 was reprinted fifty or sixty years afterwards, and that my five leaves are a portion of that reprint, we have arrived at the source of the Induction to " The Taming of a Shrew ; " for I take it for granted that Shakespeare's comedy was constructed upon the older play, in which the Induction stands, in substance, as it is given by our immortal dramatist. I subjoin a verbatim el literatim copy of my fragment, and I shall be happy to receive any farther information regarding it, either through " The Shakespeare Society's Papers," or otherwise.
H. G, NORTON.
LIVERPOOL, March 4, 1845. -
THE WAKING MAN'S DREAME. The Fifth Event
HP HE Greek proverbe saith, that a man is but the -L dreame of a shaddow, or the shad dow of a dreame: is there then anything more vaine then a shadow, which is nothing in it selfe, being but a privation of light framed by the opposition of a thicke body unto a luminous ? is there any thing more frivolous then a dreame, which hath no subsistence but in the hollownesse of a sleeping braine, and which, to speake properly, is nothing but a meere gathering together of Chimericall Images, and this is it which makes an ancient say, that we are but dust and shadow : our life is compared unto those, who sleeping dreame that they eate, and waking find themselves empty and hungry; and who is he that doth not find this experimented in himselfe, as often as he revolves in his jnemory the time which is past ? who can in these passages of this world distinguish the things which have been done from those that have beene dreamed ? vanities, delights, riches, pleasures, and