Page:Romeo and Juliet (Dowden).djvu/30

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INTRODUCTION

from Da Porto to Shakespeare. Nor does there appear to be, except through a certain influence exercised on Bandello, any real connection between Shakespeare's tragedy and the poem in ottava rima published at Venice in 1553, possibly the work of Gherardo Bolderi assuming the name of Clitia or Clizia. It will be found in Torri's volume already mentioned. Mr. Daniel points out certain variations from Da Porto, of which the most interesting is that here for the first time Tebaldo's death is supposed by Lady Capulet to be the cause of Juliet's grief. An attempt was made by J. C. Walker, in his Historical Memoir on Italian Tragedy, 1799 (pp. 49–64), to show that Shakespeare had utilised to some extent as a source the Hadriana, a tragedy of the year 1578, by the blind poet Luigi Groto. The loves of Latino and Hadriana are unquestionably derived in part from the loves of Da Porto's Romeo and Giulietta; but Mr. Daniel, who gives a complete analysis of the play, is right in saying that the resemblances between La Hadriana and Shakespeare's tragedy are rather to be sought in special passages than in the general conduct of the two plays. Following Walker and Lloyd, and adding to their enumeration, he notices the song of the nightingale when the lovers part, the description of the effects of the opiate, the consolation offered to the father on the supposed death of his daughter, and other seeming points of contact; yet, although Groto was known in England in Shakespeare's time, Mr. Daniel's conclusion is expressed in the words: "Notwithstanding these resemblances, I find it difficult to believe that Shakespeare could have made use of Groto's