Essays By Ralph Waldo Emerson Part 25

[Footnote 574: Locke. John Locke. (See note 18.)]

[Footnote 575: Rousseau. Jean Jacques Rousseau, a French philosopher of the eighteenth century.]

[Footnote 576: Homer. (See note 550.)]

[Footnote 577: Menn. Menn, or Mann, was in Sanscrit one of fourteen legendary beings; the one referred to by Emerson, Mann Vaivasvata was supposed to be the author of the laws of Mann, a collection made about the second century.]

[Footnote 578: Saadi or Sadi. (See note 552.)]

[Footnote 579: Milton. Of this great English poet and prose writer of the seventeenth century, Emerson says: "No man can be named whose mind still acts on the cultivated intellect of England and America with an energy comparable to that of Milton. As a poet Shakespeare undoubtedly transcends and far surpa.s.ses him in his popularity with foreign nations: but Shakespeare is a voice merely: who and what he was that sang, that sings, we know not."]

[Footnote 580: Delphi. Here, source of prophecy. Delphi was a city in Greece, where was the oracle of Apollo, the most famous of the oracles of antiquity.]

[Footnote 581: Our English Bible. The version made in the reign of King James I. by forty-seven learned divines is a monument of n.o.ble English.]

[Footnote 582: Liturgy. An appointed form of worship used in a Christian church,--here, specifically, the service of the Episcopal church. Emerson's mother had been brought up in that church, and though she attended her husband's church, she always loved and read her Episcopal prayer book.]

[Footnote 583: Grotius. Hugo Grotius was a Dutch jurist, statesman, theologian, and poet of the seventeenth century.]

[Footnote 584: Rabbinical forms. The forms used by the rabbis, Jewish doctors or expounders of the law.]

[Footnote 585: Common law. In a general sense, the system of law derived from England, in general use among English-speaking people.]

[Footnote 586: Vedas. The sacred books of the Brahmins.]

[Footnote 587: aesop's Fables. Fables ascribed to aesop, a Greek slave who lived in the sixth century before Christ.]

[Footnote 588: Pilpay, or Bidpai. Indian sage to whom were ascribed some fables. From an Arabic translation, these pa.s.sed into European languages and were used by La Fontaine, the French fabulist.]

[Footnote 589: Arabian Nights. _The Arabian Nights' Entertainment or A Thousand and One Nights_ is a collection of Oriental tales, the plan and name of which are very ancient.]

[Footnote 590: Cid. _The Romances of the Cid_, the story of the Spanish national hero, mentioned in note on _Heroism_139:5, was written about the thirteenth century by an unknown author; it supplied much of the material for two Spanish chronicles and Spanish and French tragedies written later on the same subject.]

[Footnote 591: Iliad. The poem in which the Greek, poet, Homer, describes the siege and fall of Troy. Emerson here expresses the view adopted by many scholars that it was the work, not of one, but of many men.]

[Footnote 592: Robin Hood. The ballads about Robin Hood, an English outlaw and popular hero of the twelfth century.]

[Footnote 593: Scottish Minstrelsy. _The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, a collection of original and collected poems, published by Sir Walter Scott in 1802.]

[Footnote 594: Shakespeare Society. The Shakespeare Society, founded in 1841, was dissolved in 1853. In 1874 The New Shakespeare Society was founded.]

[Footnote 595: Mysteries. See "Kyd, Marlowe, etc." 531.]

[Footnote 596: Ferrex and Porrex, or Gorboduc. The first regular English tragedy, by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, printed in 1565.]

[Footnote 597: Gammer Gurtor's Needle. One of the first English comedies, written by Bishop Still and printed in 1575.]

[Footnote 598: Whether the boy Shakespeare poached, etc. For a fuller account of the facts of Shakespeare's life, of which some traditions and facts are mentioned here, consult some good biography of the poet.]

[Footnote 599: Queen Elizabeth. Dining her reign, 1558-1603, the English drama rose and attained its height, and there was produced a prose literature hardly inferior to the poetic.]

[Footnote 600: King James. King James VI. of Scotland and I. of England who was Elizabeth's kinsman and successor; he reigned in England from 1603 to 1625.]

[Footnote 601: Ess.e.xes. Walter Devereux was a brave English gentleman whom Elizabeth made Earl of Ess.e.x in 1572. His son Robert, the second Earl of Ess.e.x, was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth's.]

[Footnote 602: Leicester. The Earl of Leicester, famous in Shakespeare's time, was Robert Dudley, an English courtier, politician, and general, the favorite of Queen Elizabeth.]

[Footnote 603: Burleighs or Burghleys: William Cecil, baron of Burghley, was an English statesman, who, for forty years, was Elizabeth's chief minister.]

[Footnote 604: Buckinghams. George Villiers, the first duke of Buckingham, was an English courtier and politician, a favorite of James I. and Charles I.]

[Footnote 605: Tudor dynasty. The English dynasty of sovereigns descended on the male side from Owen Tudor. It began with Henry VII.

and ended with Elizabeth.]

[Footnote 606: Bacon. Consult English literature and history for an account of the great statesman and author, Francis Bacon, "the wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind."]

[Footnote 607: Ben Jonson, etc. In his _Timber or Discoveries_, Ben Jonson, a famous cla.s.sical dramatist contemporary with Shakespeare, says: "I loved the man and do honor his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was indeed honest and of an open and free nature: had an excellent fancy; brave notions and gentle expressions: wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped.... His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so, too. Many times he fell into those things could not escape laughter.... But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned."]

[Footnote 608: Sir Henry Wotton. An English diplomatist and author of wide culture.]

[Footnote 609: The following persons, etc. The persons enumerated were all people of note of the seventeenth century. Sir Philip Sidney, Earl of Ess.e.x, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Milton, Sir Henry Vane, Isaac Walton, Dr. John Donne, Abraham Cowley, Charles Cotton, John Pym, and John Hales were Englishmen, scholars, statesmen, and authors.

Theodore Beza was a French theologian; Isaac Casaubon was a French-Swiss scholar; Roberto Berlarmine was an Italian cardinal; Johann Kepler was a German astronomer; Francis Vieta was a French mathematician; Albericus Gentilis was an Italian jurist; Paul Sarpi was an Italian historian; Arminius was a Dutch theologian.]

[Footnote 610: Many others whom doubtless, etc. Emerson here enumerates some famous English authors of the same period, not mentioned in the preceeding list.]

[Footnote 611: Pericles. See note on _Heroism_, 352.]

[Footnote 612: Lessing. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, a German critic and poet of the eighteenth century.]

[Footnote 613: Wieland. Christopher Martin Wieland was a German contemporary of Lessing's, who made a prose translation into German of Shakespeare's plays.]

[Footnote 614: Schlegel. August Wilhelm von Schlegel, a German critic and poet, who about the first of the nineteenth century translated some of Shakespeare's plays into cla.s.sical German.]

[Footnote 615: Hamlet. The hero of Shakespeare's play of the same name.]

[Footnote 616: Coleridge. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an English poet, author of critical lectures and notes on Shakespeare.]

[Footnote 617: Goethe. (See note 85.)]

[Footnote 618: Blackfriar's Theater. A famous London theater in which nearly all the great dramas of the Elizabethan age were performed.]

[Footnote 619: Stratford. Stratford-on-Avon, a little town in Warwickshire, England, where Shakespeare was born and where he spent his last years.]

[Footnote 620: Macbeth. One of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies, written about 1606.]

[Footnote 621: Malone, Warburton, Dyce, and Collier. English scholars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who edited the works of Shakespeare.]

[Footnote 622: Covent Garden, Drury Lane, the Park, and Tremont: The leading London theaters in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.]