A TRAGEDY, IN FIVE ACTS; BY WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. AS PERFORMED AT THE THEATRES ROYAL, DRURY LANE AND COVENT GARDEN. PRINTED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE MANAGERS FROM THE PROMPT BOOK. WITH REMARKS BY MRS INCHBALD. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER ROW. REMARKS. The fable of this admired tragedy, however romantic it may appear, is founded on real events, which took place in Verona, at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Mr Malone says, that "Breval, in his travels, on a strict inquiry into the histories of Verona, found, that Shakspeare had varied very little from the truth, either in the names, characters, or other circumstances of this play." Such an extraordinary and affecting story as that of Romeo and Juliet soon became the subject of poems, novels, and other literary works all over Italy, and from thence found its way into other countries. A poem, from this little Italian history, by Mr Arthur Brooke, is supposed to have been the production from whence Shakspeare formed the present drama. The following title, according to the fashion of those distant days, was affixed to that poem : "The tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, containing a rare Example of true Constancie: with the subtill Councels and Practices of an old Fryer, and their ill Event." |