Some of your correspondents may be able to give me information respecting
an old ballad that has very recently fallen in my way, on a story similar
to that of Shakspeare's _Winter's Tale_, and in some particulars still more
like Greene's novel of _Pandosto_, upon which the _Winter's Tale_ was
founded. You are aware that the earliest known edition of Greene's novel is
dated 1588, although there is room to suspect that it had been originally
{2} printed before that year: the first we hear of the _Winter's Tale_ is
in 1611, when it was acted at court, and it was not printed until it
appeared in the folio of 1623.
The ballad to which I refer has for title _The Royal Courtly Garland, or
Joy after Sorrow_: it is in ordinary type, and was "Printed and sold in
Aldermary Churchyard, London." It has no date, and in appearance does not
look older than from perhaps, 1690 to 1720; it may even be more recent, as
at that period it is not easy to form a correct opinion either from
typography or orthography: black-letter has a distinguishing character at
various periods, so as to enable a judgment to be formed within, perhaps,
ten years, as regards an undated production: but such is not the case with
Roman type, or white-letter. What I suspect, however, is that this ballad
is considerably older, and that my copy is only a comparatively modern
reprint with some alterations; it requires no proof, at this time of day,
to show that it was the constant habit of our old publishers of ephemeral
literature to reprint ballads without the slightest notice that they had
ever appeared before. This, in fact, is the point on which I want
information, as to _The Royal Courtly Garland, or Joy after Sorrow_. Can
any of your correspondents refer me to an older copy, or do they know of
the existence of one which belongs to a later period? I cannot be ignorant
of DR. RIMBAULT'S learning on such matters, and I make my appeal especially
to him.
It is very possible that it may bear a different title in other copies, and
for the sake of identification I will furnish a few extracts from the
various "parts" (no fewer than six) into which the ballad is divided;
observing that they fill a closely printed broadside, and that the
production is entirely different from Jordan's versification of the
_Winter's Tale_, under the title of _The Jealous Duke and the injured
Duchess_, which came out in his _Royal Arbor of Loyal Poesie_, 8vo. 1664.
It is singular that two ballads, hitherto wholly unknown, should have been
written upon the same incidents of the same drama, although we are yet
without evidence that Jordan's effusion was ever published as a broadside.
Not a single name is given to any of the persons in my _Royal Courtly
Garland_, but the places of action are reversed exactly in the same way as
in Greene's novel of _Pandosto_, where what Shakspeare represents as
passing in Sicily occurs in Bohemia, and _vice versa_; moreover, the error
of representing Bohemia as a maritime country belongs to my ballad, as well
as to the novelist and the dramatist. The King of Bohemia, jealous of an
"outlandish prince," who he suspected had intrigued with his queen, employs
his cup-bearer to poison the prince, who is informed by the cup-bearer of
the design against his life.
"For fear of the king the prince dare not stay:
The wind being fair, he sailed away,
Saying, I will escape from his blood-thirsty hand
By steering away to my native land."
Not long after his departure, the queen, "who had never conceived before"
(which varies both from Greene and Shakspeare), produces a daughter, which
the king resolves to get rid of by turning it adrift at sea in "a little
boat." He so informs the queen, and she in great grief provides the outfit
for the infant voyager:
"A purse of rare jewels she placed next her skin,
And fasten'd it likewise securely within;
A chain round her neck, and a mantle of gold,
Because she her infant no more should behold."
It is revealed to the king in a dream that his wife is innocent, but she
soon dies of a broken-heart. Meanwhile, the prince, on his return to his
own dominions, marries, and has a son. The infant princess is driven on
shore in his kingdom, and is saved by an old shepherd, and brought up by
him and his wife as their own child, they carefully concealing the riches
they had found in the "little boat."
"This child grew up, endued with grace,
A modest behaviour, a sweet comely face;
And being arrived at the age of fifteen,
For beauty and wisdom few like _her_ were seen."
"Her" is misprinted _him_ in the original, and the whole, as may be
expected, is not a first-rate specimen of typography. The son of the prince
sees and falls in love with the supposed shepherd's daughter, and, to avoid
the anger of the prince his father, he secretly sails away with her and the
old shepherd. By a storm they are driven on the coast of Bohemia:
"A violent storm on the sea did arise,
Drove them to Bohemia; they are took for spies;
Their ship was seized, and they to prison sent:
To confine them a while the king's fully bent."
Here we arrive at an incident which is found in Greene, but which
Shakspeare had the judgment to avoid, making the termination of his drama
as wonderful for its art, as delightful for its poetry. Greene and my
ballad represent the king of Bohemia falling in love with his own daughter,
whom he did not recognise. She effectually resisted his entreaties, and he
resolves "to hang or burn" the whole party; but the old shepherd, to save
himself, reveals that she is not his daughter, and produces "the mantle of
gold" in which he had found her:
"He likewise produced the mantle of gold.
The king was amazed the sight to behold;
Though long time the shepherd had used the same,
The king knew it marked with his own name."
This discovery leads directly to the unwinding of the plot: the young
prince makes himself known, and his father being sent for, the lovers are
{3} "married in triumph" in Bohemia, and the old shepherd is made "a lord
of the court."
If any of your readers can inform me of another copy of the above ballad,
especially unmodernised (the versification must have suffered in the
frequent reprints) and in black-letter of an early date, they will do me a
favour. At present I am unable to decide whether it was founded upon
Greene's novel, Shakspeare's play, or upon some independent, possibly
foreign, narrative. I am by no means satisfied that Greene's novel was not
a translation, and we know that he was skilful in Italian, Spanish, and
French.