Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare Part 37

_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_.

211. _Henry the fifth_, Act iii., Sc. 4.

_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 surrept.i.tious, 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 a.s.sures 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 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 a.s.se_; 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-tw.a.n.g_, even makes an oath 'by sweet satyricke Nash his urne.'-He died before 1606, as appears from an old comedy called _The Return from Parna.s.sus_" (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).

_Seja.n.u.s._ 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.

_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 t.i.tle 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 t.i.tle-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 grat.i.tude to this man, who hath been of frequent service to me, that I am enabled to perfect Wood's account of him; from the a.s.sistance 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 pa.s.sages 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 pa.s.sage 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."

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 pa.s.sage 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 Ess.e.x, and was hanged for it with the ingenious Cuffe in 1601, is accused, amongst other things, "quod _exoletam_ Tragdiam de tragica abdicatione Regis Ricardi Secundi in publico theatro coram conjuratis data pecunia agi cura.s.set" (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).

214. _Hig, hag, hog._ _Merry Wives_, iv. 1. 44.

_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 princ.i.p.al 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.

Maurice Morgann.

221. _Candide_, chapters 9 and 15.

225. _general criticism is uninstructive._ Cf. Joseph Warton, _Adventurer_, No. 116: "General criticism is on all subjects useless and unentertaining; but it is more than commonly absurd with respect to Shakespeare, who must be accompanied step by step, and scene by scene, in his gradual developments of characters and pa.s.sions," etc.

239. line 28. _which._ The original has _who._

241. _Oldcastle._ See Rowe, p. 5, and note.

247. note. _Be thus when thou art dead._ _Oth.e.l.lo_, v. 2. 18.

248. _Barbarian._ See notes on Voltaire, pp. 117, etc.

_Love's Labour lost._ In his edition of _L.L.L._ (1768), Capell omitted fifteen lines from Biron's speech in Act iv., Sc. 3 (iv. 1 in his own edition, p. 54). He did not record the omission.

249. _Nothing perishable about him except that very learning_, etc. Cf.

Edward Young, _Conjectures on Original Composition_, 1759, p. 81, and Hurd, Notes on Horace's _Art of Poetry_, line 286 (1757, i., pp. 213, 4): "Our Shakespear was, I think, the first that broke through this bondage of cla.s.sical superst.i.tion. And he owed this felicity, as he did some others, to his want of what is called the advantage of a learned education."

251. _Macbeth_, i. 5. 18, 49; v. 5. 13; v. 3. 23.

_practicer of arts inhibited._ _Oth.e.l.lo_, i. 2. 78.

254. note. _Shakespeare's magic_, etc. Dryden, Prologue to the _Tempest_, 1667, lines 19, 20.

258. _miching malicho._ _Hamlet_, iii. 2. 147.

260. _but a choleric word._ _Measure for Measure_, ii. 2. 130.

262. _Cadogan_, William (1711-1797), a fashionable London doctor, who published in 1771 a _Dissertation on the Gout and on all Chronic Diseases_, in which he held that gout is "a disease of our own acquiring"

and "the necessary effect of intemperance."

267, note. _For if the Jew._ _Merchant of Venice_, iv. 1. 280.