Note 262 — ACT IV., SCENE 1.
Reading edition
This incident is borrowed from the Italian, and it is employed by many of their novelists. It also forms the eighth story of "Les Comptes du Monde adventureux," printed at [Paris in 1555, and a translation from the Italian.] Casti founded his tale of "La Celia" upon it, with the variation of making the old woman a negress; but in this change he was not original. Richard Brome employed it in his "Novella," acted at the Blackfriars Theatre thirty years before Killigrew's play was published.—Collier.