Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare Part 35

_Most sure, the G.o.ddess._ _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 t.i.tle 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 t.i.tle 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.

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 pa.s.sage from Scaliger is likewise to be met with in _The Optick Gla.s.se of Humors_, written, I believe, by T. Wombwell; and in several other places" (Farmer). Reed quotes a ma.n.u.script 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 pa.s.sage_, etc. (to the end of the quotation from Skelton),-added in the second edition.

Hall's _Union of the Two n.o.ble and Ill.u.s.tre Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke_ (1548) was freely used by Holinshed, but there is a pa.s.sage in _Henry VIII._ which shows that the dramatist knew Hall's chronicle at first hand.

193. _Skelton._ "His Poems are printed with the t.i.tle of _Pithy, Pleasaunt, and Profitable Workes of Maister Skelton, Poete Laureate_,"

etc. Farmer then explains with his usual learning Skelton's t.i.tle 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.

194. _Upton._ _Critical Observations_, p. 300.

_This villain here._ _2 Henry VI._, iv. 1. 106.

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.

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.

196. _All hail, Macbeth._ 1. iii. 48-50.

_Macbeth._ The probable date of _Macbeth_ is 1606.

_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 pa.s.sage (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 ac.u.minis 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.

199. _Painter._ See above, p. 178.

_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, 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 a.s.sociate 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 _Reflexions historiques sur les differens theatres 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 t.i.tle 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.