agreeably to the accent in a hundred other places” (Farmer).
This very accent, etc. This passage, down to the end of the quotation from Thomson (top of p. 183), was added in the second edition.
Bentley. Preface to his edition of Paradise Lost, 1732.
180. Manwaring, Edward. See his treatise Of Harmony and Numbers in Latin and English Prose, and in English Poetry (1744), p. 49.
Green. May this “extraordinary gentleman” be George Smith Green, the Oxford watchmaker, author of a prose rendering of Milton's Paradise Lost, 1745; or Edward Burnaby Greene, author of Poetical Essays, 1772, and of translations from the classics? There is no copy of the “Specimen of a new Version of the Paradise Lost into blank verse” in the Library of the British Museum, nor in any public collection which the present editor has consulted.
Dee, John (1527-1608), astrologer.
Strike up, my masters. Double Falshood, Act i., Sc. 3.
181. Victor, Benjamin (died 1778), was made Poet Laureate of Ireland in 1755. He produced in 1761, in two volumes, the History of the Theatres of London and Dublin, from the year 1730 to the present time. A third volume brought the history of the theatre down to 1771. Farmer refers to vol. ii., p. 107: “Double Falshood, a Tragedy, by Mr. Theobald, said by him to be written by Shakespear, which no one credited; and on Enquiry, the following Contradiction appeared; the Story of the Double Falshood is taken from the Spanish of Cervantes, who printed it in the year after Shakespear died. This Play was performed twelve Nights.”
Langbaine informs us. English Dramatick Poets, p. 475.
Andromana. “This play hath the letters J.S. in the title page, and was printed in the year 1660, but who was its author I have not been able to learn,” Dodsley, Collection of Old Plays, 1744, vol. xi. p. 172. In the second edition (ed. Isaac Reed, 1780) the concluding words are replaced by a reference to the prologue written in 1671, which says that “'Twas Shirley's muse that labour'd for its birth.” But there appears to be no further evidence that the play was by Shirley.
Hume. See the account of Shakespeare in his History, reign of James I., ad fin., 1754: “He died in 1617, aged 53 years.” The date of his death, but not his age, was corrected in the edition of 1770.
MacFlecknoe, line 102.
182. Newton informs us, in the note on Paradise Lost, iv. 556 (ed. 1757, i., p. 202). See note on p. 110.
[pg 334]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:
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 passage 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 Whore, Spenser Society Reprint of Folio of 1630, p. 272.
By two-headed Janus. Merchant of Venice, i. 1. 50.
Like a Janus 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.
[pg 335]sweet Swan of Thames. Pope, Dunciad, iii. 20:
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 passage, to “classical 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 quantity” (Farmer).
Upton. Critical Observations, pp. 230, 231. Much Ado, iii. 2. 11.
Theophilus Cibber (1703-1758), the actor, put his name on the title page of the Lives of the Poets (five vols., 1753), which was mainly the work of Robert Shiels (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 passage 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 Hell of Virgil. Farmer quotes in a note Aeneid, vi. 740-742.
[pg 336]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.
Most sure, the Goddess. 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 title 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 title 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.
[pg 337]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 passage from Scaliger is likewise to be met with in The Optick Glasse of Humors, written, I believe, by T. Wombwell; and in several other places” (Farmer). Reed quotes a manuscript 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 passage, etc. (to the end of the quotation from Skelton),—added in the second edition.
Hall's Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke (1548) was freely used by Holinshed, but there is a passage in Henry VIII. which shows that the dramatist knew Hall's chronicle at first hand.
193. Skelton. “His Poems are printed with the title of Pithy, Pleasaunt, and Profitable Workes of Maister Skelton, Poete Laureate,” etc. Farmer then explains with his usual learning Skelton's title 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.
[pg 338]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 passage (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 acuminis 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, [pg 339] 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 associate 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 Réflexions historiques sur les differens théatres 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 title 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. 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 cum forth geminantes,’ our commentator very wisely and gravely remarks: [pg 340] ‘Bycheson, id est, son of a byche, ut e codice Rawlinsoniano edidi. Eo nempe modo quo et olim whorson dixerunt pro son of a whore. Exempla habemus cum 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 Titus 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 entituled to be the doyngs of Mayster Thomas Sternhold’ ” (Farmer).
204. Biographica Britannica, 1763, vol. vi. Farmer has a note at this passage 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 authorship 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.
Hamlet revenge. Steevens and Malone “confirm” Farmer's observation by references to Dekker's Satiromastix, 1602, and an anonymous [pg 341] 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 asserts ‘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 assertion 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 title-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 noble 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 passed 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.
[pg 342]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, [pg 343] appeared in 1562; and it was to Broke, rather than to Painter, that Shakespeare was indebted. See P. A. Daniel's Originals and Analogues, 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.
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 surreptitious, 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 assures 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 [pg 344] 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 Asse; 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-twang, even makes an oath ‘by sweet satyricke Nash his urne.’—He died before 1606, as appears from an old comedy called The Return from Parnassus” (Farmer). See Gregory Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays, especially i. 424-5.