Chapter X: Book IV: , ch. vi-viii. Read, Dunlop, and Hazlitt all had express’d the

same opinion. The Spanish tale turns upon the fact of Anselmo, the Curious Impertinent, enforcing his friend Lothario to tempt his wife Camilla. Such a theme, however, is common, and with variations is to be found in Italian novelle. Recent authorities are inclined to suggest that the plot of Beaumont and Fletcher’s _The Coxcomb_ (1610), much of which runs on similar lines, is not founded on Cervantes. Southerne, in his comedy, _The Disappointment; or, The Mother in Fashion_ (1684) and ’.tarch Johnny Crowne’ in _The Married Beau_ (1694), both comedies of no little wit and merit, are patently indebted to _The Curious Impertinent_. Cervantes had also been used three quarters of a century before by Nat Field in his _Amends for Ladies_ (4to, 1618), where Sir John Loveall tries his wife in an exactly similar manner to Lorenzo, Count Philippo and Anselmo.

The amours of the Florentine court are Mrs. Behn’s own invention; but the device by which Curtius ensnares Frederick is not unlike Vendice and Hippolito’s trapping of the lecherous old Duke in _The Revenger’s Tragedy_ (4to, 1607), albeit the saturnine Tourneur gives the whole scene a far more terrible and tragic catastrophe.

In January, 1537, Lorenzino de Medici having enticed Duke Alessandro of Florence to his house under pretext of an assignation with a certain Caterina Ginori, after a terrible struggle assassinated him with the aid of a notorious bravo. Several plays have been founded upon this history. Notable amongst them are Shirley’s admirable tragedy, _The Traitor_ (licensed May, 1631, 4to 1635) and in later days de Musset’s _Lorenzaccio_ (1834).

The Mask in Act V of _The Amorous Prince_ is in its purport most palpably akin to the Elizabethans.

THEATRICAL HISTORY.

_The Amorous Prince_ was produced by the Duke’s Company in the spring of 1671 at their Lincoln’s Inn Fields theatre, whence they migrated in November of the same year to the magnificent new house in Dorset Garden. No performers’ names are given to the comedy, which met with a very good reception. It seems to have kept the boards awhile, but there is no record of any particular revival.

THE AMOROUS PRINCE.