Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare Part 36

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.

202. _Gosson._ See Arber's reprint, p. 40.

_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 c.u.m forth_ geminantes,' our commentator very wisely and gravely remarks: '_Bycheson_, id est, _son_ of a _byche_, ut e codice Rawlinsoniano edidi. Eo nempe modo quo et olim _whorson_ dixerunt pro _son of a wh.o.r.e_. Exempla habemus c.u.m 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 _t.i.tus 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 _ent.i.tuled_ to be the doyngs of Mayster Thomas Sternhold' "

(Farmer).

204. _Biographica Britannica_, 1763, vol. vi. Farmer has a note at this pa.s.sage 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 authors.h.i.+p 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_.

206. _Rowe tells us._ See p. 4.

_Hamlet revenge._ Steevens and Malone "confirm" Farmer's observation by references to Dekker's _Satiromastix_, 1602, and an anonymous 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 a.s.serts '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 a.s.sertion 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 t.i.tle-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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sed 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_.

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).

208. _Master Page, sit._ _2 Henry IV._, v. 3. 30.

_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, appeared in 1562; and it was to Broke, rather than to Painter, that Shakespeare was indebted. See P. A. Daniel's _Originals and a.n.a.logues_, 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.