Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare Part 34

182. _Newton informs us_, in the note on _Paradise Lost_, iv. 556 (ed.

1757, i., p. 202). See note on p. 110.

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 pa.s.sage 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.

184. _John Taylor._ See notes, pp. 163 and 212.

"_Most inestimable Magazine_," etc. From _A Wh.o.r.e_, Spenser Society Reprint of Folio of 1630, p. 272.

_By two-headed Ja.n.u.s._ _Merchant of Venice_, i. 1. 50.

_Like a Ja.n.u.s 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.

_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 pa.s.sage, to "cla.s.sical 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 quant.i.ty" (Farmer).

_Upton._ _Critical Observations_, pp. 230, 231. _Much Ado_, iii. 2. 11.

_Theophilus Cibber_ (1703-1758), the actor, put his name on the t.i.tle page of the _Lives of the Poets_ (five vols., 1753), which was mainly the work of Robert s.h.i.+els (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 pa.s.sage in which the "one imitation is fastened on our Poet" occurs in the _Marks of Imitation_, pp.

19, 20. Cf. note on p. 170.

188. _Upton._ _Critical Observations_, p. 217.

_Whalley._ _Enquiry_, pp. 55, 56.

_Measure for Measure_, iii. 1. 118.

_Platonick h.e.l.l of Virgil._ Farmer quotes in a note _Aeneid_, vi. 740-742.

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).

_Menage._ Cf. p. 109.

_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_.

189. _Till the foul crimes._ _Hamlet_, i. 5. 12.

"_Shakespeare himself in the Tempest._" Quoted from the _Critical Review_, xxiii., p. 50; cf. also xix., p. 165.