Joseph Cradock (1742-1826) had been a student at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He left the University without a degree, but in 1765 was granted the honorary degree of M.A. by the Chancellor, the Duke of Newcastle. His Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs appeared in 1828.
162. “Were it shewn”says some one. See the review of Farmer's Essay in the Critical Review of January, 1767 (vol. xxiii., p. 50).
163. Peter Burman (1668-1741), Professor at Utrecht and at Leyden; editor of Horace, Ovid, Lucan, Quintilian, and other Latin classics.
“Truly,”as Mr. Dogberry says.Much Ado, iii. 5. 22.
Burgersdicius,—Franco Burgersdijck (1590-1629), Dutch logician, Professor at Leyden. His Institutionum logicarum libri duo was for long a standard text-book. Cf. Goldsmith, Life of Parnell, ad init.: “His progress through the college course of study was probably marked with but little splendour; his imagination might have been too warm to relish the cold logic of Burgersdicius.” See also the Dunciad, iv. 198.
Locke. This paragraph is a reply to an argument in the Critical Review (xxiii., pp. 47, 48).
the Water-poet, John Taylor (1580-1653); cf. Farmer's note, p. 212.
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The quotation is from Taylor's Motto (Spenser Society Reprint of Folio of 1630, p. 217):—
I was well entred (forty Winters since)
As far as possum in my Accidence;
And reading but from possum to posset,
There I was mir'd, and could no further get.
In his Thiefe he says “all my schollership is schullership” (id., p. 282).
164. held horses at the door of the playhouse. This anecdote was given in Theophilus Cibber's Lives of the Poets, 1753, i., p. 130. Johnson appended it, in his edition, to Rowe's Account of Shakespeare (ed. 1765, p. clii), and it was printed in the same year in the Gentleman's Magazine (xxxv., p. 475). The story was told to Pope by Rowe, who got it from Betterton, who in turn had heard it from Davenant; but Rowe wisely doubted its authenticity and did not insert it in his Account (see the Variorum edition of 1803, i., pp. 120-122).—Farmer makes fun of it here,—and uses it to vary the Critical reviewer's description—“as naked with respect to all literary merit as he was when he first went under the ferula” (Crit. Rev. xxiii., p. 50).
Dodsley, Robert (1703-1764), publisher and author, declared himself “Untutored by the love of Greece or Rome” in his blank verse poem Agriculture, 1753, canto ii., line 319. His Toy-Shop, a Dramatick Satire, was acted and printed in 1735. The quotation is not verbally accurate; see the New British Theatre, 1787, xvii., p. 48.
A word of exceeding good command.2 Henry IV., iii. 2. 84.
165. learned Rubbish. Cf. Pope, Essay on Criticism, line 613.
Paths of Nature. Cf. Prior, Charity, line 25.
one of the first criticks of the age. Dr. Johnson: see Introduction, p. xxvii.
a brother of the craft.“Mr. Seward, in his Preface to Beaumont and Fletcher, 10 vols. 8vo., 1750” (Farmer). Cf. Theobald, Introduction to Shakespeare Restored: “Shakespeare's works have always appear'd to me like what he makes his Hamlet compare the world to, an unweeded Garden grown to Seed.”
contrary to the statute. See Horace, Ars Poetica, 136, etc.
166. Small Latin and less Greek.“This passage of Ben. Jonson, so often quoted, is given us in the admirable preface to the late edition, with a various reading, ‘Small Latin and no Greek’; which hath been held up to the publick as a modern sophistication: yet whether an error or not, it was adopted above a century ago by W. Towers, in a panegyrick on Cartwright. His eulogy, with more than fifty others, on this now forgotten poet, was prefixed to the edit. 1651” (Farmer). Johnson corrected the error in subsequent editions. See note, p. 135.
“darling project,” etc. Kenrick, Review of Dr. Johnson's New Edition of Shakespeare, 1765, p. 106: “Your darling project ... of invidiously representing him as a varlet, one of the illiterate vulgar.”
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166. braying faction. See Don Quixote, ii. 25 and 27. those who accuse him, etc. Dryden, Essay of Dramatic Poesy.
160. “Greatest commendation” should read “greater commendation.”
sufficient to decide the controversy. See Johnson, p. 135.
167. whose memory he honoured. Farmer has added to the quotation from Jonson's Poem “To the Memory of my Beloved Mr. William Shakespeare” a phrase from the passage “De Shakespeare Nostrati” in Jonson's Discoveries: “I loved the man, and do honour his memory on this side idolatry as much as any.”
“Jealousy,” cries Mr. Upton. In his Critical Observations, 1748, p. 5.
Drayton, “In his Elegie on Poets and Poesie, p. 206. Fol., 1627” (Farmer).
Digges, Leonard (1588-1635). “From his Poem ‘upon Mister William Shakespeare,’ intended to have been prefixed, with the other of his composition, to the folio of 1623: and afterward printed in several miscellaneous collections: particularly the spurious edition of Shakespeare's Poems, 1640. Some account of him may be met with in Wood's Athenae” (Farmer).
Fuller,—Worthies of England, 1662, “Warwickshire,” p. 126: “Indeed his Learning was very little, so that as Cornish diamonds are not polished by any Lapidary, but are pointed and smoothed even as they are taken out of the Earth, so nature it self was all the art which was used upon him.” The concluding phrase of Farmer's quotation is taken from an earlier portion of Fuller's description: “William Shakespeare ... in whom three eminent Poets may seem in some sort to be compounded, 1. Martial ... 2. Ovid ... 3. Plautus, who was an exact comedian, yet never any scholar, as our Shakespeare (if alive) would confess himself.”
untutored lines. Dedication of the Rape of Lucrece.
Mr. Glldon.“Hence perhaps the ill-starr'd rage between this critick and his elder brother, John Dennis, so pathetically lamented in the Dunciad. Whilst the former was persuaded that ‘the man who doubts [pg 329] of the learning of Shakespeare hath none of his own,’ the latter, above regarding the attack in his private capacity, declares with great patriotick vehemence that ‘he who allows Shakespeare had learning, and a familiar acquaintance with the Ancients, ought to be looked upon as a detractor from the glory of Great Britain.’ Dennis was expelled his college for attempting to stab a man in the dark: Pope would have been glad of this anecdote” (Farmer). Farmer supplied the details in a letter to Isaac Reed dated Jan. 28, 1794: see the European Magazine, June, 1794, pp. 412-3.
Sewell, in the preface to the seventh volume of Pope's Shakespear, 1725.
169. Upton, in his Critical Observations, 1748, pp. 3 and 5.
“Hath hard words,” etc. Hudibras, 1. i. 85-6.
trochaic dimeter, etc. See Upton, Critical Observations, p. 366, etc.
“it was a learned age,” etc. Id., p. 5. Cf. Hurd's Marks of Imitation, 1757, p. 24.
Grey, in his Notes on Shakespeare, 1754, vol. i., p. vii.
Dodd, William (1729-1777), the forger, editor of the Beauties of Shakespeare, 1752.
Whalley. Farmer is here unfair to Whalley. The Enquiry into the Learning of Shakespeare shows plainly that Whalley preferred Shakespeare to Jonson. Further, his Enquiry was earlier than his edition of Jonson. In it Whalley expresses the hope “that some Gentleman of Learning would oblige the Public with a correct Edition” (p. 23).
170. Addison ... Chevy Chase. See the Spectator, Nos. 70 and 74 (May, 1711).
Wagstaffe, William (1685-1725), ridiculed Addison's papers on Chevy Chase in A Comment upon the History of Tom Thumb, 1711.
Marks of Imitation. Hurd's Letter to Mr. Mason, on the Marks of Imitation was printed in 1757. It was added to his edition of Horace's Epistles to the Pisos and Augustus.
as Mat. Prior says,—Alma, i. 241: “And save much Christian ink's effusion.”
Read Libya. Upton, Critical Observations, p. 255.
171. Heath.“It is extraordinary that this Gentleman should attempt so voluminous a work as the Revisal of Shakespeare's Text, when, he tells us in his Preface, ‘he was not so fortunate as to be furnished with either of the Folio editions, much less any of the ancient Quartos’: and even ‘Sir Thomas Hanmer's performance was known to him only by Mr. Warburton's representation’ ” (Farmer).
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171. Thomas North.“I find the character of this work pretty early delineated:
“'Twas Greek at first, that Greek was Latin made,
That Latin French, that French to English straid:
Thus 'twixt one Plutarch there's more difference,
Than i' th' same Englishman return'd from France.” (Farmer).
“What a reply is this?” Upton, Critical Observations, p. 249.
“Our author certainly wrote,” etc. Theobald, ed. 1733, vi., p. 178.
172. Epitaph on Timon.“See Theobald's Preface to K. Richard 2d. 8vo. 1720” (Farmer).
I cannot however omit, etc. The following passage, down to “from Homer himself” (foot of p. 175) was added in the second edition.
“The speeches copy'd from Plutarch,” etc. See Pope's Preface, p. 53.
Should we be silent.Coriolanus, v. 3. 94, etc.
174. The Sun's a thief.Timon of Athens, iv. 3. 439, etc.
Dodd. See the Beauties of Shakespeare, 1752, iii. 285, n. The remark was omitted in the edition of 1780.
“our Author,” says some one. This quotation is from the criticism of Farmer's Essay in the Critical Review of January, 1767 (vol. xxiii., p. 50; cf. vol. xxi., p. 21).
Mynheer De Pauw. See Anacreontis Odae et Fragmenta, Graece et Latine ... cum notis Joannis Cornelii de Pauw, Utrecht, 1732.
two Latin translations.“By Henry Stephens and Elias Andreas, Paris, 1554, 4to, ten years before the birth of Shakespeare. The former version hath been ascribed without reason to John Dorat. Many other translators appeared before the end of the century: and particularly the Ode in question was made popular by Buchanan, whose pieces were soon to be met with in almost every modern language” (Farmer).
Puttenham.Arte of English Poesie, iii., ch. xxii. (Arber, p. 259; Elizabethan Critical Essays, ed. Gregory Smith, ii., p. 171). The “some one of a reasonable good facilitie in translation” is John Southern, whose Musyque of the Beautie of his Mistresse Diana, containing translations from Ronsard, appeared in 1584.
175. Mrs. Lennox, Charlotte Ramsay or Lennox (1720-1804), author of Shakespear Illustrated: or the Novels and Histories on which the Plays of Shakespear are founded, collected and translated from the original Authors, with critical Remarks, 3 vols., 1753, 54. She is better known by her Female Quixote, 1752.
the old story.“It was originally drawn into Englishe by Caxton under the name of the Recuyel of the Historyes of Troye, etc.... Wynken de Worde printed an edit. Fol. 1503, and there have been several subsequent ones” (Farmer).
sweet oblivious antidote. Upton, p. 42, n.
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??pe????. Odyssey, iv. 221.
Chapman's seven books of the Iliad appeared in 1598. The translation of the Iliad was completed in 1611 and that of the Odyssey in 1614.
Barclay.“Who list thistory of Patroclus to reade, etc. Ship of Fooles, 1570, p. 21” (Farmer).
Spenser. Farmer quotes in a note from the Faerie Queene, iv. iii. 43.
Greek expressions. Upton, p. 321.
176. “Lye in a water-bearer's house,”Every Man in his Humour, Act i., Sc. 3.
176. Daniel the Historian, i.e. Samuel Daniel the poet (1562-1619), whose Collection of the Historie of England appeared in 1612 and 1617. Cf. p. 190.
Kuster. See note on p. 108. “Aristophanis Comoediae undecim. Gr. and Lat. Amst. 1710. Fol., p. 596” (Farmer).
unyoke (Hamlet, v. 1. 59). See Upton, pp. 321, 322.
Orphan heirs (Merry Wives, v. 5. 43), id., p. 322. “Dr. Warburton corrects orphan to ouphen; and not without plausibility, as the word ouphes occurs both before and afterward. But I fancy, in acquiescence to the vulgar doctrine, the address in this line is to a part of the Troop, as Mortals by birth, but adopted by the Fairies: Orphans with respect to their real Parents, but now only dependant on Destiny herself. A few lines from Spenser will sufficiently illustrate the passage” (Farmer). Farmer then quotes from the Faerie Queene, 111. iii. 26.
177. Heath.“Revisal, pp. 75, 323, and 561” (Farmer).
Upton. His edition of the Faerie Queene appeared in 1758.
William Lilly (1602-1681), astrologer. “History of his Life and Times, p. 102, preserved by his dupe, Mr. Ashmole” (Farmer). Elias Ashmole (1617-1692), who bequeathed his museum and library to the University of Oxford.
Truepenny. Upton, p. 26.
178. a legendary ballad. The reference is to King Lear. But the ballad to King Leire and his Three Daughters is of later date than the play. This error in Percy's Reliques was for long repeated by editors and critics.
The Palace of Pleasure, “beautified, adorned, and well furnished with pleasaunt Histories and excellent Nouelles, selected out of diuers good and commendable authors by William Painter, Clarke of the Ordinaunce and Armarie,” appeared in two volumes in 1566-67; reprinted by Haslewood in 1813 and by Mr. Joseph Jacobs in 1890.
English Plutarch. See above.
Jacke Drum's Entertainment: or, the Comedie of Pasquill and Katherine, 4to, London, 1601; reprinted 1616 and 1618.
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178. We are sent to Cinthio, in Mrs. Lennox's Shakespear Illustrated, 1753, vol. i., pp. 21-37.
Heptameron of Whetstone.“Lond., 4to, 1582. She reports, in the fourth dayes exercise, the rare Historie of Promos and Cassandra. A marginal note informs us that Whetstone was the author of the Commedie on that subject; which likewise might have fallen into the hands of Shakespeare” (Farmer).
Genevra of Turberville.“ ‘The tale is a pretie comicall matter, and hath bin written in English verse some few years past, learnedly and with good grace, by M. George Turberuil.’ Harrington's Ariosto, Fol. 1591, p. 39” (Farmer).
Coke's Tale of Gamelyn. Cf. Johnson's Preface, p. 133.
Love's Labour Wonne.“See Meres's Wits Treasury, 1598, p. 282” (Farmer). Cf. the allusion to it in Tyrwhitt's Observations and Conjectures, 1766, p. 16. Love's Labour Wonne has been identified also with the Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado, Midsummer Night's Dream, the Tempest, and Love's Labour's Lost.
Boccace.“Our ancient poets are under greater obligation to Boccace than is generally imagined. Who would suspect that Chaucer hath borrowed from an Italian the facetious tale of the Miller of Trumpington?” etc. (Farmer).
Painter's Giletta of Narbon.“In the first vol. of the Palace of Pleasure, 4to, 1566” (Farmer).
Langbaine.Account of the English Dramatick Poets, 1691, p. 462.
Appolynus.“Confessio Amantis, printed by T. Berthelet, Fol. 1532, p. 175, etc.” (Farmer). See G. C. Macaulay's edition of Gower, Oxford, 1901, iii. 396 (Bk. VIII., ll. 375, etc.).
Pericles. On Farmer's suggestion, Malone included Pericles in his edition of Shakespeare, and it has appeared in all subsequent editions except Keightley's. See Cambridge Shakespeare, vol. ix., p. ix.
The Yorkshire Tragedy.“ ‘William Caluerley, of Caluerley in Yorkshire, Esquire, murdered two of his owne children in his owne house, then stabde his wife into the body with full intent to haue killed her, and then instantlie with like fury went from his house to haue slaine his yongest childe at nurse, but was preuented. Hee was prest to death in Yorke the 5 of August, 1604.’Edm. Howes' Continuation of John Stowe's Summarie, 8vo, 1607, p. 574. The story appeared before in a 4to pamphlet, 1605. It is omitted in the Folio chronicle, 1631” (Farmer).
the strictures of Scriblerus.“These, however, he assures Mr. Hill, were the property of Dr. Arbuthnot” (Farmer). See Pope's Works, ed. Elwin & Courthope, x., p. 53.
This late example.Double Falshood, ii. 4. 6-8.
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You have an aspect. Id., iv. 1. 46.
a preceding elision.“Thus a line in Hamlet's description of the Player should be printed as in the old Folios:
agreeably to the accent in a hundred other places” (Farmer).
This very accent, etc. This passage, down to the end of the quotation from Thomson (top of p. 183), was added in the second edition.
Bentley. Preface to his edition of Paradise Lost, 1732.
180. Manwaring, Edward. See his treatise Of Harmony and Numbers in Latin and English Prose, and in English Poetry (1744), p. 49.
Green. May this “extraordinary gentleman” be George Smith Green, the Oxford watchmaker, author of a prose rendering of Milton's Paradise Lost, 1745; or Edward Burnaby Greene, author of Poetical Essays, 1772, and of translations from the classics? There is no copy of the “Specimen of a new Version of the Paradise Lost into blank verse” in the Library of the British Museum, nor in any public collection which the present editor has consulted.
Dee, John (1527-1608), astrologer.
Strike up, my masters. Double Falshood, Act i., Sc. 3.
181. Victor, Benjamin (died 1778), was made Poet Laureate of Ireland in 1755. He produced in 1761, in two volumes, the History of the Theatres of London and Dublin, from the year 1730 to the present time. A third volume brought the history of the theatre down to 1771. Farmer refers to vol. ii., p. 107: “Double Falshood, a Tragedy, by Mr. Theobald, said by him to be written by Shakespear, which no one credited; and on Enquiry, the following Contradiction appeared; the Story of the Double Falshood is taken from the Spanish of Cervantes, who printed it in the year after Shakespear died. This Play was performed twelve Nights.”
Langbaine informs us.English Dramatick Poets, p. 475.
Andromana.“This play hath the letters J.S. in the title page, and was printed in the year 1660, but who was its author I have not been able to learn,” Dodsley, Collection of Old Plays, 1744, vol. xi. p. 172. In the second edition (ed. Isaac Reed, 1780) the concluding words are replaced by a reference to the prologue written in 1671, which says that “'Twas Shirley's muse that labour'd for its birth.” But there appears to be no further evidence that the play was by Shirley.
Hume. See the account of Shakespeare in his History, reign of James I., ad fin., 1754: “He died in 1617, aged 53 years.” The date of his death, but not his age, was corrected in the edition of 1770.
MacFlecknoe, line 102.
182. Newton informs us, in the note on Paradise Lost, iv. 556 (ed. 1757, i., p. 202). See note on p. 110.
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182. Her eye did seem to labour.The Brothers, Act i., Sc. 1. “Middleton, in an obscure play, called A Game at Chesse, hath some very pleasing lines on a similar occasion:
Upon those lips, the sweete fresh buds of youth,
The holy dew of prayer lies like pearle,
Dropt from the opening eye-lids of the morne
Upon the bashfull Rose” (Farmer).
Lander, William (died 1771), author of An Essay on Milton's use and imitation of the Moderns in his Paradise Lost, 1750.
Richardson, Jonathan (1665-1745), portrait painter, joint author with his son of Explanatory Notes and Remarks on Milton's Paradise Lost, 1734. The quotation is taken from p. 338.
183. The stately sailing Swan. Thomson, Spring, 778-782.
Gildon. See Pope's Shakespeare, vol. vii., p. 358.
Master Prynne.“Had our zealous Puritan been acquainted with the real crime of De Mehun, he would not have joined in the clamour against him. Poor Jehan, it seems, had raised the expectations of a monastery in France, by the legacy of a great chest, and the weighty contents of it; but it proved to be filled with nothing better than vetches. The friars, enraged at the ridicule and disappointment, would not suffer him to have Christian burial. See the Hon. Mr. Barrington's very learned and curious Observations on the Statutes, 4to, 1766, p. 24. From the Annales d'Acquytayne, Paris, 1537.—Our author had his full share in distressing the spirit of this restless man. ‘Some Play-books are grown from Quarto into Folio; which yet bear so good a price and sale, that I cannot but with griefe relate it.—Shackspeer's Plaies are printed in the best Crowne-paper, far better than most Bibles!’ ” (Farmer).
Whalley.Enquiry, pp. 54-5; Tempest, iv. 1. 101; Aeneid, i. 46. Farmer added the following note in the second edition: “Others would give up this passage for the Vera incessu patuit Dea; but I am not able to see any improvement in the matter: even supposing the poet had been speaking of Juno, and no previous translation were extant.” See the Critical Review, xxiii., p. 52.
“Most inestimable Magazine,” etc. From A Whore, Spenser Society Reprint of Folio of 1630, p. 272.
By two-headed Janus.Merchant of Venice, i. 1. 50.
Like a Janus with a double-face—Taylor's Motto, Spenser Soc. Reprint, p. 206.
Sewel. Apparently a mistake for “Gildon,” whose Essay on the Stage is preceded immediately, in the edition of 1725, by Sewell's preface. “His motto to Venus and Adonis is another proof,” says Gildon, p. iv.
Taylor ... a whole Poem,—Taylor's Motto, “Et habeo, et careo, et curo,” Spenser Soc. Reprint, pp. 204, etc.
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sweet Swan of Thames. Pope, Dunciad, iii. 20:
Taylor, their better Charon, lends an oar
(Once Swan of Thames, tho' now he sings no more).
Dodd.Beauties of Shakespeare, iii., p. 18 (ed. 1780).
185. Pastime of Pleasure.“Cap. i., 4to, 1555” (Farmer).
Pageants.“Amongst ‘the things which Mayster More wrote in his youth for his pastime’ prefixed to his Workes, 1557, Fol.” (Farmer).
a very liberal Writer. See Daniel Webb's Remarks on the Beauties of Poetry, 1762, pp. 120, 121.
This passage, to “classical standard” (foot of p. 186), was added in the second edition.
See, what a grace.Hamlet, iii. 4. 55.
the words of a better Critick. Hurd, Marks of Imitation, 1757, p. 24.
186. Testament of Creseide.“Printed amongst the works of Chaucer, but really written by Robert Henderson, or Henryson, according to other authorities” (Farmer). It was never ascribed to Chaucer, not even in Thynne's edition.
Fairy Queen.“It is observable that Hyperion is used by Spenser with the same error in quantity” (Farmer).
Upton.Critical Observations, pp. 230, 231. Much Ado, iii. 2. 11.
Theophilus Cibber (1703-1758), the actor, put his name on the title page of the Lives of the Poets (five vols., 1753), which was mainly the work of Robert Shiels (died 1753); see Johnson's Life of Hammond, ad init., and Boswell, ed. Birkbeck Hill, iii. 29-31. For the reference to the Arcadia, see “Cibber's”Lives, i. 83.
Ames, Joseph (1689-1759), author of Typographical Antiquities, 1749.
187. Lydgate. Farmer has a long note here on the versification of Lydgate and Chaucer. “Let me here,” he says, “make an observation for the benefit of the next editor of Chaucer. Mr. Urry, probably misled by his predecessor Speght, was determined, Procrustes-like, to force every line in the Canterbury Tales to the same standard; but a precise number of syllables was not the object of our old poets,” etc.
Hurd. This quotation, which Farmer added in the second edition, is from Hurd's Notes to Horace's Epistolae ad Pisones et Augustum, 1757, vol. i., p. 214. Cf. also his Discourse on Poetical Imitation, pp. 125 and 132, and the Marks of Imitation, p. 74. The passage in which the “one imitation is fastened on our Poet” occurs in the Marks of Imitation, pp. 19, 20. Cf. note on p. 170.
Platonick Hell of Virgil. Farmer quotes in a note Aeneid, vi. 740-742.
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188. an old Homily.“At the ende of the Festyuall, drawen oute of Legenda aurea, 4to, 1508. It was first printed by Caxton, 1483, ‘in helpe of such Clerkes who excuse theym for defaute of bokes, and also by symplenes of connynge’ ” (Farmer).
brenning heate.“On all soules daye, p. 152” (Farmer).
our Greek Professor. Michael Lort (1725-1790), Regius Professor in Cambridge University from 1759 to 1771.
Blefkenius,—Dithmar Blefken, who visited Iceland in 1563 and wrote the first account of the island. “Islandiae Descript. Lugd. Bat. 1607, p. 46” (Farmer).
After all, Shakespeare's curiosity, etc.... original Gothic (top of p. 190), added in second edition.
Douglas. Farmer has used the 1710 Folio of Gavin Douglas's Aeneid.
“Shakespeare himself in the Tempest.” Quoted from the Critical Review, xxiii., p. 50; cf. also xix., p. 165.
Most sure, the Goddess.Tempest, i. 2. 421.
Epitaphed, the inventor of the English hexameter. Gabriel Harvey's Four Letters (Third Letter). See Elizabethan Critical Essays, ed. Gregory Smith, ii. 230.
halting on Roman feet. Pope, Epistle to Augustus, 98: “And Sidney's verse halts ill on Roman feet.”
Hall. Satire i. 6.
190. Daniel's Defence of Rhyme, in answer to Campion's Observations on the Art of English Poesie, appeared in 1602.
in his eye. Cf. Theobald, Preface to Richard II., p. 5, and Whalley, Enquiry, p. 54.
Ye elves of hills.Tempest, v. 1. 33.
Holt.“In some remarks on the Tempest, published under the quaint title of An Attempte to rescue that aunciente English Poet and Play-wrighte, Maister Williaume Shakespeare, from the many Errours faulsely charged upon him by certaine new-fangled Wittes. Lond. 8vo, 1749, p. 81” (Farmer). On the title page Holt signs himself “a gentleman formerly of Gray's Inn.” He issued proposals in 1750 for an edition of Shakespeare. Cf. p. 206.
Auraeque, etc. Ovid, Met. vii. 197-8.
Golding.“His work is dedicated to the Earl of Leicester in a long epistle in verse, from Berwicke, April 20, 1567” (Farmer). The translation of the first four books had appeared in 1565.
Some love not a gaping Pig.Merchant of Venice, iv. 1. 47.
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191. Peter le Loier.“M. Bayle hath delineated the singular character of our fantastical author. His work was originally translated by one Zacharie Jones. My edit. is in 4to, 1605, with an anonymous Dedication to the King: the Devonshire story was therefore well known in the time of Shakespeare.—The passage from Scaliger is likewise to be met with in The Optick Glasse of Humors, written, I believe, by T. Wombwell; and in several other places” (Farmer). Reed quotes a manuscript note by Farmer on the statement that it was written by Wombwell: “So I imagined from a note of Mr. Baker's, but I have since seen a copy in the library of Canterbury Cathedral, printed 1607, and ascribed to T. Walkington of St. John's, Cambridge.”
He was a man, etc. Henry VIII., iv. 2. 33.
192. Holingshed. Farmer's quotations from Holinshed are not literatim.
Indisputably the passage, etc. (to the end of the quotation from Skelton),—added in the second edition.
Hall's Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke (1548) was freely used by Holinshed, but there is a passage in Henry VIII. which shows that the dramatist knew Hall's chronicle at first hand.
193. Skelton.“His Poems are printed with the title of Pithy, Pleasaunt, and Profitable Workes of Maister Skelton, Poete Laureate,” etc. Farmer then explains with his usual learning Skelton's title of “poet laureate.”
Upton.Critical Observations, p. 47, n.
Pierce Plowman. This reference was added in the second edition. On the other hand, the following reference, which was given in the first edition after the quotation from Hieronymo, was omitted: “And in Dekker's Satiro-Mastix, or the Untrussing of the humourous Poet, Sir Rees ap Vaughan swears in the same manner.”
Hieronymo, ii. 2. 87, 91-93 (Works of Thomas Kyd, ed. Boas, p. 24).
Garrick.“Mr. Johnson's edit., vol. viii., p. 171” (Farmer). The following three pages, from “a Gentleman” (foot of p. 193) to the end of the Latin quotation at the top of p. 197, were added in the second edition.
Grimald's “Three Bookes of Duties, tourned out of Latin into English” appeared in 1555. “I have met with a writer who tells us that a translation of the Offices was printed by Caxton in the year 1481: but such a book never existed. It is a mistake for Tullius of Old Age, printed with the Boke of Frendshipe, by John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester. I believe the former was translated by William Wyrcestre, alias Botoner” (Farmer).
There is no bar.Henry V., i. 2. 35.
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195. It hath lately been repeated, etc. In the Critical Review, xxiii., p. 50; cf. p. xxi, p. 21.
Guthrie, William (1708-1770), whose reports to the Gentleman's Magazine were revised by Johnson. He wrote histories of England (4 vols., 1744, etc.), the World (12 vols., 1764, etc.), and Scotland (10 vols., 1767). His Essay upon English Tragedy had appeared in 1747. See note, p. 101.
Wake, Sir Isaac (1580-1632). The Rex Platonicus, celebrating the visit of James I. to Oxford in 1605, appeared in 1607.
197. Grey.Notes on Shakespeare, p. vii.; cf. vol. ii., p. 289, etc.
Whalley.Enquiry, p. v.
a very curious and intelligent gentleman. Capell: see below.
It hath indeed been said, etc. In the Critical Review, xxiii., p. 50. Accordingly the following passage (to “Mr. Lort,” foot of p. 199) was added in the second edition.
Saxo Grammaticus.“ ‘Falsitatis enim (Hamlethus) alienus haberi cupidus, ita astutiam veriloquio permiscebat, ut nec dictis veracitas deesset, nec acuminis modus verorum judicio proderetur.’ This is quoted, as it had been before, in Mr. Guthrie's Essay on Tragedy, with a small variation from the Original. See edit. fol. 1644, p. 50” (Farmer). The quotation was given in the Critical Review, xxiii., p. 50.
198. The Hystorie of Hamblet. It is now known that Shakespeare's “original” was the early play of Hamlet, which was probably written by Thomas Kyd, towards the end of 1587. See Works of Kyd, ed. Boas, Introduction, iv.
Though Farmer disproves Shakespeare's use of Saxo Grammaticus, he errs in the importance he gives to the Hystorie of Hamblet. No English “translation from the French of Belleforest” appears to have been issued before 1608.
Duke of Newcastle, Thomas Pelham-Holles (1693-1768), first Lord of the Treasury, 1754, Lord Privy Seal, 1765-66, Chancellor of Cambridge University from 1748.
Tom Rawlinson (1681-1725), satirised as “Tom Folio” by Addison in the Tatler, No. 158.
Colman, George, the elder (1732-1794), brought out the Comedies of Terence translated into familiar blank verse in 1765. He replied to Farmer's Essay, the merit of which he admitted, in the appendix to a later edition. Farmer's answer is given in the letter which Steevens printed as an appendix to his edition of Johnson's Shakespeare, [pg 339] 1773, viii., App. ii., note on Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 2. In a long footnote in the Essay, Farmer replies also to an argument advanced by Bonnell Thornton (1724-1768), Colman's associate in the Connoisseur, in his translation of the Trinummus, 1767.
200. Redime te captum.Eunuchus, i. 1. 29; Taming of the Shrew, i. 1. 167.
translation of the Menaechmi.“It was published in 4to, 1595. The printer of Langbaine, p. 524, hath accidentally given the date 1515, which hath been copied implicitly by Gildon, Theobald, Cooke, and several others. Warner is now almost forgotten, yet the old criticks esteemed him one of ‘our chiefe heroical makers.’ Meres informs us that he had ‘heard him termed of the best wits of both our Universities, our English Homer’ ” (Farmer). See note on p. 9.
Riccoboni, Luigi (1674-1753). See his RÉflexions historiques sur les differens thÉatres de l'Europe, 1738, English translation, 1741, p. 163: “If really that good comedy Plautus was the first that appeared, we must yield to the English the merit of having opened their stage with a good prophane piece, whilst the other nations in Europe began theirs with the most wretched farces.”
Hanssach, Hans Sachs (1494-1576).
201. Gascoigne.“His works were first collected under the singular title of ‘A hundreth sundrie Flowres bounde up in one small Poesie. Gathered partly (by translation) in the fyne outlandish Gardins of Euripides, Ouid, Petrarke, Ariosto, and others: and partly by inuention, out of our owne fruitefull Orchardes in Englande: yelding sundrie sweete sauours of tragical, comical, and morall discourses, bothe pleasaunt and profitable to the well smellyng noses of learned Readers.’Black letter, 4to, no date” (Farmer).
“Our authour had this line from Lilly.” Johnson, edition of 1765, vol. iii., p. 20.
an unprovoked antagonist.“W. Kenrick's Review of Dr. Johnson's edit. of Shakespeare, 1765, 8vo, p. 105” (Farmer).
We have hitherto supposed. The next three paragraphs were added in the second edition.
Hearne, Thomas (1678-1735) edited William of Worcester's Annales Rerum Anglicarum in 1728. “I know indeed there is extant a very old poem, in black letter, to which it might have been supposed Sir John Harrington alluded, had he not spoken of the discovery as a new one, and recommended it as worthy the notice of his countrymen: I am persuaded the method in the old bard will not be thought either. At the end of the sixth volume of Leland's Itinerary, we are favoured by Mr. Hearne with a Macaronic poem on a battle at Oxford between the scholars and the townsmen: on a line of which, ‘Invadunt aulas bycheson cum forth geminantes,’ our commentator very wisely and gravely remarks: [pg 340]‘Bycheson, id est, son of a byche, ut e codice Rawlinsoniano edidi. Eo nempe modo quo et olim whorson dixerunt pro son of a whore. Exempla habemus cum alibi tum in libello quodam lepido & antiquo (inter codices Seldenianos in Bibl. Bodl.) qui inscribitur: The Wife lapped in Morel's Skin: or the Taming of a Shrew’ ” (Farmer). Farmer then gives Hearne's quotation of two verses from it, pp. 36 and 42.
202. Pope's list. At the end of vol. vi. of his edition.
Ravenscroft, Edward, in his Titus Andronicus, or the Rape of Lavinia, 1687, “To the Reader”; see Ingleby's Centurie of Prayse, p. 404.
203. The Epistles, says one, of Paris and Helen. Sewell, Preface to Pope's Shakespeare, vol. vii., 1725, p. 10.
It may be concluded, says another. Whalley, Enquiry, p. 79.
Jaggard.“It may seem little matter of wonder that the name of Shakespeare should be borrowed for the benefit of the bookseller; and by the way, as probably for a play as a poem: but modern criticks may be surprised perhaps at the complaint of John Hall, that ‘certayne chapters of the Proverbes, translated by him into English metre, 1550, had before been untruely entituled to be the doyngs of Mayster Thomas Sternhold’ ” (Farmer).
204. Biographica Britannica, 1763, vol. vi. Farmer has a note at this passage correcting a remark in the life of Spenser and showing by a quotation from Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, that the Faerie Queene was left unfinished,—not that part of it had been lost.
205. Anthony Wood.“Fasti, 2d. Edit., v. 1. 208.—It will be seen on turning to the former edition, that the latter part of the paragraph belongs to another Stafford. I have since observed that Wood is not the first who hath given us the true author of the pamphlet” (Fanner). Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. 378. But Stafford's authorship of this pamphlet has now been disproved: see the English Historical Review, vi. 284-305.
Warton, Thomas. Life of Ralph Bathurst, 2 vols., 1761.
Aubrey. See Brief Lives, ed. Andrew Clark, 1898, vol. ii., pp. 225-227. For Beeston, see vol. i., pp. 96-7.
Crendon.“It was observed in the former edition that this place is not met with in Spelman's Villare, or in Adams's Index; nor, it might have been added, in the first and the last performance of this sort, Speed's Tables and Whatley's Gazetteer: perhaps, however, it may be meant under the name of Crandon; but the inquiry is of no importance. It should, I think, be written Credendon; tho' better antiquaries than Aubrey have acquiesced in the vulgar corruption” (Farmer). But Crendon is only a misprint for Grendon.
Hamlet revenge. Steevens and Malone “confirm” Farmer's observation by references to Dekker's Satiromastix, 1602, and an anonymous [pg 341] play called A Warning for Faire Women, 1599. Farmer is again out in his chronology.
Holt. See above, p. 190. Johnson's edition of Shakespeare, vol. viii., Appendix, note on viii. 194.
Kirkman, Francis, bookseller, published his Exact Catalogue of all the English Stage Plays in 1671.
Winstanley, William (1628-1698), compiler of Lives of the most famous English Poets, 1687. “These people, who were the Curls of the last age, ascribe likewise to our author those miserable performances Mucidorous and the Merry Devil of Edmonton” (Farmer).
seven years afterward.“Mr. Pope asserts ‘The troublesome Raigne of King John,’ in two parts, 1611, to have been written by Shakespeare and Rowley: which edition is a mere copy of another in black letter, 1591. But I find his assertion is somewhat to be doubted: for the old edition hath no name of author at all; and that of 1611, the initials only, W. Sh., in the title-page” (Farmer).
Nash. This reference was added in the second edition. See Arber's reprint of Greene's Menaphon, p. 17, or Gregory Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays, i. 307, etc.
“Peele seems to have been taken into the patronage of the Earl of Northumberland about 1593, to whom he dedicates in that year, ‘The Honour of the Garter, a poem gratulatorie—the firstling consecrated to his noble name.’—‘He was esteemed,’ says Anthony Wood, ‘a most noted poet, 1579; but when or where he died, I cannot tell, for so it is, and always always hath been, that most Poets die poor, and consequently obscurely, and a hard matter it is to trace them to their graves. Claruit, 1599.’Ath. Oxon., vol. i., p. 300.—We had lately in a periodical pamphlet, called The Theatrical Review, a very curious letter, under the name of George Peele, to one Master Henrie Marle, relative to a dispute between Shakespeare and Alleyn, which was compromised by Ben. Jonson.—‘I never longed for thy companye more than last night; we were all verie merrie at the Globe, when Ned Alleyn did not scruple to affyrme pleasauntly to thy friende Will, that he had stolen hys speeche about the excellencie of acting in Hamlet hys tragedye, from conversaytions manifold, whych had passed between them, and opinions gyven by Alleyn touchyng that subjecte. Shakespeare did not take this talk in good sorte; but Jonson did put an end to the stryfe wyth wittielie saying, thys affaire needeth no contentione; you stole it from Ned no doubte: do not marvel: haue you not seene hym acte tymes out of number?’—This is pretended to be printed from the original MS. dated 1600; which agrees well enough with Wood's Claruit: but unluckily Peele was dead at least two years before. ‘As Anacreon died by the pot,’ says Meres, ‘so George Peele by the pox,’Wit's Treasury, 1598, p. 286” (Farmer).
Constable in Midsummer Night's Dream. Apparently a mistake for Much Ado.
[pg 342]
207. two children. Susannah, Judith, and Hamnet were all born at Stratford. Judith and Hamnet were twins. Cf. p. 21 and note.
“cheers up himself with ends of verse.” Butler, Hudibras, i. 3. 1011.
Wits, Fits, and Fancies.“By one Anthony Copley, 4to, black letter; it seems to have had many editions: perhaps the last was in 1614.—The first piece of this sort that I have met with was printed by T. Berthelet, tho' not mentioned by Ames, called ‘Tales, and quicke answeres very mery and pleasant to rede.’ 4to, no date.” (Farmer).
Heywood. In the “To the Reader” prefixed to his Sixt Hundred of Epigrammes (Spenser Society reprint, 1867, p. 198).
Dekker. Vol. iii., p. 281 (ed. 1873).
Water-poet. See the Spenser Society reprint of the folio of 1630, p. 545.
Rivo, says the Drunkard.1 Henry IV., ii. 4. 124.
209. What you will. Act ii., Sc. 1 (vol. i., p. 224, ed. 1856).
Love's Labour Lost, iv. 1. 100. This paragraph was added in the second edition.
Taming of the Shrew, ii. 1. 73.
Heath.Revisal of Shakespear's Text, p. 159. This quotation was added in the second edition.
Heywood.Epigrammes upon prouerbes, 194 (Spenser Soc. reprint, p. 158).
210. Howell, James (1594-1666), Historiographer, author of the Epistolae Ho-Elianae.Proverbs or old sayed Saws and Adages in English or the Saxon Tongue formed an appendix to his Lexicon Tetraglotton (1659-60). The allusion to Howell was added in the second edition.
Philpot, John (1589-1645). See Camden's Remains concerning Britain, 1674, “Much amended, with many rare Antiquities never before Imprinted, by the industry and care of John Philipot, Somerset Herald, and W. D. Gent”: 1870 reprint, p. 319.
Grey.Notes on Shakespeare, ii., p. 249.
Romeo.“It is remarked that ‘Paris, tho' in one place called Earl, is most commonly stiled the Countie in this play. Shakespeare seems to have preferred, for some reason or other, the Italian Conte to our Count:—perhaps he took it from the old English novel, from which he is said to have taken his plot.’—He certainly did so: Paris is there first stiled a young Earle, and afterward Counte, Countee, and County, according to the unsettled orthography of the time. The word, however, is frequently met with in other writers, particularly in Fairfax,” etc. (Farmer).
Painter, vol. ii. 1567, 25th novel. Arthur Broke's verse rendering, founded on Boaistuau's (or Boisteau's) French version of Bandello, [pg 343] appeared in 1562; and it was to Broke, rather than to Painter, that Shakespeare was indebted. See P. A. Daniel's Originals and Analogues, Part I. (New Shakspere Society, 1875).
Taming of the Shrew. Induction, i. 5.
Hieronymo, iii. 14, 117, 118 (ed. Boas, p. 78); cf. p. 193.
Whalley.Enquiry. p. 48.
Philips,—Edward Phillips (1630-1696), Milton's nephew. See his Theatrum Poetarum, or a Compleat Collection of the Poets, 1675, ii. p. 195. Cf. also Winstanley's English Poets, p. 218.
Heywood, in the Apology for Actors, 1612, alluded to above; see Hawkins's Origin of the English Drama, 1773, ii., p. 3, and Boas's Works of Kyd, 1901, pp. xiii, civ, and 411. Mr. Boas gives Hawkins the credit of discovering the authorship of The Spanish Tragedy“some time before 1773,” but the credit is Farmer's. Hawkins was undoubtedly indebted to Farmer's Essay.
not published by the author.“Every writer on Shakespeare hath expressed his astonishment that his author was not solicitous to secure his fame by a correct edition of his performances. This matter is not understood. When a poet was connected with a particular playhouse, he constantly sold his works to the Company, and it was their interest to keep them from a number of rivals. A favourite piece, as Heywood informs us, only got into print when it was copied by the ear, ‘for a double sale would bring on a suspicion of honestie.’ Shakespeare therefore himself published nothing in the drama: when he left the stage, his copies remained with his fellow-managers, Heminge and Condell; who at their own retirement, about seven years after the death of their author, gave the world the edition now known by the name of the first Folio, and call the previous publications ‘stolne and surreptitious, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors.’ But this was printed from the playhouse copies; which in a series of years had been frequently altered, thro' convenience, caprice, or ignorance. We have a sufficient instance of the liberties taken by the actors, in an old pamphlet by Nash, called Lenten Stuff, with the Prayse of the red Herring, 4to, 1599, where he assures us that in a play of his, called the Isle of Dogs, ‘foure acts, without his consent, or the least guesse of his drift or scope, were supplied by the players.’—This, however, was not his first quarrel with them. In the Epistle prefixed to Greene's Arcadia, which I have quoted before, Tom hath a lash at some ‘vaine glorious tragedians,’ and very plainly at Shakespeare in particular; which will serve for an answer to an observation of Mr. Pope, that had almost been forgotten: ‘It was thought a praise to Shakespeare that he scarce ever blotted a line. I believe the common opinion of his want of learning proceeded from no better ground. This, too, might be thought a praise by some.’ But hear [pg 344] Nash, who was far from praising: ‘I leaue all these to the mercy of their mother-tongue, that feed on nought but the crums that fall from the translator's trencher,—that could scarcely Latinize their neck verse if they should haue neede; yet English Seneca, read by candle-light, yeelds many good sentences—hee will affoord you whole Hamlets, I should say, handfuls of tragicall speeches.’ I cannot determine exactly when this Epistle was first published; but, I fancy, it will carry the original Hamlet somewhat further back than we have hitherto done; and it may be observed that the oldest copy now extant is said to be ‘enlarged to almost as much againe as it was.’ Gabriel Harvey printed at the end of the year 1592 Foure Letters and certaine Sonnetts, especially touching Robert Greene: in one of which his Arcadia is mentioned. Now Nash's Epistle must have been previous to these, as Gabriel is quoted in it with applause; and the Foure Letters were the beginning of a quarrel. Nash replied in Strange Newes of the intercepting certaine Letters, and a Convoy of Verses, as they were going privilie to victual the Low Countries, 1593. Harvey rejoined the same year in Pierce's Supererogation, or a new Praise of the old Asse; and Nash again, in Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up; containing a full Answer to the eldest Sonne of the Halter-maker, 1596.—Dr. Lodge calls Nash our true English Aretine: and John Taylor, in his Kicksey-Winsey, or a Lerry Come-twang, even makes an oath ‘by sweet satyricke Nash his urne.’—He died before 1606, as appears from an old comedy called The Return from Parnassus” (Farmer). See Gregory Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays, especially i. 424-5.
211. Hawkins. Johnson's Shakespeare, vol. viii., Appendix, note on iv., p. 454. The quotation from Johnson, and the references to Eliot and Du Bartas, were added in the second edition.
Est-il impossible.Henry V., iv. 4. 17.
French Alphabet of De la Mothe.“Lond., 1592, 8vo.” (Farmer).
Orthoepia of John Eliot.“Lond., 1593, 4to. Eliot is almost the only witty grammarian that I have had the fortune to meet with. In his Epistle prefatory to the Gentle Doctors of Gaule, he cries out for persecution, very like Jack in that most poignant of all Satires, the Tale of a Tub, ‘I pray you be readie quicklie to cauill at my booke, I beseech you heartily calumniate my doings with speede, I request you humbly controll my method as soone as you may, I earnestly entreat you hisse at my inventions,’ ” etc. (Farmer).
Sejanus. See Jonson's “To the Readers”: “Lastly, I would inform you that this book, in all numbers, is not the same with that which was acted on the public stage; wherein a second pen had good share: in place of which, I have rather chosen to put weaker, and, no doubt, less pleasing, of mine own, than to defraud so happy a genius of his right by my loathed usurpation.” Jonson is supposed to refer here to Shakespeare.
But what if ... Capell's Prolusions, added in the second edition.
[pg 345]
Pierce Penilesse, ed. J. P. Collier (Shakespeare Society, 1842), p. 60.
212. Tarlton, Richard (d. 1588),—Jests, drawn into three parts, ed. Halliwell (Shakespeare Society, 1844), pp. 24, 25: Old English Jest Books, ed. W. C. Hazlitt (1864), pp. 218, 219.
Capell. Cf. pp. 197 and 198. He describes Edward III. on the title page of his Prolusions or Select Pieces of Antient Poetry, 1760, as “thought to be writ by Shakespeare.”
Laneham, Robert, who appears in Scott's Kenilworth. The letter has been reprinted by the Ballad Society (1871), and the New Shakspere Society (1890). Referring to the spelling of the name, Farmer says in a note, “It is indeed of no importance, but I suspect the former to be right, as I find it corrupted afterward to Lanam and Lanum.”
Meres.“This author by a pleasant mistake in some sensible Conjectures on Shakespeare, lately printed at Oxford, is quoted by the name of Maister. Perhaps the title-page was imperfect; it runs thus: ‘Palladis Tamia. Wits Treasury. Being the second part of Wits Commonwealth, By Francis Meres Maister of Artes of both Universities.’ I am glad out of gratitude to this man, who hath been of frequent service to me, that I am enabled to perfect Wood's account of him; from the assistance of our Master's very accurate list of graduates (which it would do honour to the university to print at the publick expense) and the kind information of a friend from the register of his parish:—He was originally of Pembroke-Hall, B.A. in 1587, and M.A. 1591. About 1602 he became rector of Wing in Rutland; and died there, 1646, in the 81st year of his age” (Farmer). See Ingleby's Shakspere Allusion-Books or Gregory Smith's Elizabethan Critical Essays. The reference at the beginning of Farmer's note is to Tyrwhitt's Observations and Conjectures upon some passages of Shakespeare, 1766.
the Giant of Rabelais. See As You Like It, iii. 2. 238, and King Lear, iii. 6. 7, 8.
John Taylor. See note, p. 163. “I have quoted many pieces of John Taylor, but it was impossible to give their original dates. He may be traced as an author for more than half a century. His works were collected in folio, 1630, but many were printed afterward,” etc. (Farmer). The reference to Gargantua will be found on p. 160 of the Spenser Society Reprint of the Folio. Taylor refers to Rabelais also in his Dogge of Warre, id., p. 364.
213. Richard the third.“Some inquiry hath been made for the first performers of the capital characters in Shakespeare. We learn that Burbage, the alter Roscius of Camden, was the original Richard, from a passage in the poems of Bishop Corbet; who introduces his host at Bosworth describing the battle:
“But when he would have said King Richard died,
And call'd a horse, a horse, he Burbage cried.”
[pg 346]
The play on this subject mentioned by Sir John Harrington in his Apologie for Poetrie, 1591, and sometimes mistaken for Shakespeare's, was a Latin one, written by Dr. Legge, and acted at St. John's in our University, some years before 1588, the date of the copy in the Museum. This appears from a better MS. in our library at Emmanuel, with the names of the original performers.
It is evident from a passage in Camden's Annals that there was an old play likewise on the subject of Richard the Second; but I know not in what language. Sir Gelley Merrick, who was concerned in the hare-brained business of the Earl of Essex, and was hanged for it with the ingenious Cuffe in 1601, is accused, amongst other things, “quod exoletam Tragoediam de tragica abdicatione Regis Ricardi Secundi in publico theatro coram conjuratis data pecunia agi curasset” (Farmer).
213. Remember whom ye are, etc. Richard III., v. 3. 315.
Holingshed.“I cannot take my leave of Holingshed without clearing up a difficulty which hath puzzled his biographers. Nicholson and others have supposed him a clergyman. Tanner goes further and tells us that he was educated at Cambridge and actually took the degree of M.A. in 1544.—Yet it appears by his will, printed by Hearne, that at the end of life he was only a steward, or a servant in some capacity or other, to Thomas Burdett, Esq. of Bromcote, in Warwickshire.—These things Dr. Campbell could not reconcile. The truth is we have no claim to the education of the Chronicler: the M.A. in 1544 was not Raphael, but one Ottiwell Holingshed, who was afterward named by the founder one of the first Fellows of Trinity College” (Farmer).
writers of the time.“Ascham, in the Epistle prefixed to his Toxophilus, 1571, observes of them that ‘Manye Englishe writers, usinge straunge wordes, as Lattine, Frenche, and Italian, do make all thinges darke and harde,’ ” etc. (Farmer).
all such reading as was never read.Dunciad, i., line 156, first edition (see Introduction, p. xliv.; iv., line 250, edition of 1742).
Natale solum.“This alludes to an intended publication of the Antiquities of the Town of Leicester. The work was just begun at the press, when the writer was called to the principal tuition of a large college, and was obliged to decline the undertaking. The plates, however, and some of the materials have been long ago put into the hands of a gentleman who is every way qualified to make a proper use of them” (Farmer). This gentleman was John Nichols, the printer, whose History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester appeared from 1795 to 1815.
215. primrose path.Hamlet, i. 3. 50; cf. Macbeth, ii. 3. 21.
Age cannot wither.Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 2. 240.
