Note 61 — Chapter XXXIII

I have never seen any edition of the Diana cited earlier than that of Madrid, 1545; but I possess one in 4to, 112 leaves, well printed at Valencia, in 1542, without the name of the printer. The story of Narvaez, of which I shall have occasion to speak when we come to Antonio Villegas, does not stand in the fourth book of this copy, as it does in the copies of subsequent editions. The Diana of Montemayor was so popular, that at least sixteen editions of the original appeared in eighty years; six French translations, according to Gordon de Percel (Bib. de l’Usage des Romans, Paris, 1734, 12mo, Tom. II. pp. 23, 24); two German, according to Ebert; and one English. The last, by Bartholomew Yong, (London, 1598, folio,) is excellent, and some of its happy versions of the poetry of Montemayor are found in “England’s Helicon,” 1600 and 1614, reprinted in the third volume of the “British Bibliographer,” London, 1810, 8vo. The story of Proteus and Julia, in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” was supposed by Mrs. Lenox and Dr. Farmer to be taken from that of Felismena, in the second book of Montemayor’s Diana, and therefore Collier has republished Yong’s translation of the last in the second volume of his “Shakspeare’s Library,” (London, s. a. 8vo,) though he doubts whether Shakspeare were really indebted to it. Malone’s Shakspeare, Boswell’s ed., London, 1821, 8vo, Vol. IV. p. 3, and Brydges, Restituta, London, 1814, 8vo, Vol. I. p. 498. Poor abridgments of the Diana of Montemayor, and of Polo’s Continuation, were published at London, 1738, 12mo.