NOTES ON LECTURES ON THE AGE OF ELIZABETH
I. GENERAL VIEW OF THE SUBJECT
[170]. Add, to the Bibliographical Note: ‘The volume was printed by B. M’Millan, Bow Street, Covent Garden.’
[175]. Coke. Sir Edward Coke (1552–1634), the jurist.
[176]. Mere oblivion. As You Like It, II. 7.
Poor, poor dumb names [mouths.] Julius Caesar, III. 2.
Webster. John Webster (? d. 1625).
Deckar. Thomas Dekker (c. 1570–c. 1637).
Marston. John Marston (? 1575–1634).
Marlow. Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593).
Chapman. George Chapman (? 1559–1634).
Heywood. Thomas Heywood (c. 1575–c. 1641).
Middleton. Thomas Middleton (c. 1570–1627).
Jonson. Ben Jonson (1572/3–1637).
Beaumont. Francis Beaumont (1584–1616).
Fletcher. John Fletcher (1579–1625).
Rowley. William Rowley (c. 1585–c. 1642) is chiefly remembered as a collaborator with the better-known Elizabethan Dramatists.
How lov’d, how honour’d once. Pope’s Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady.
Draw the curtain of time. Cf. Twelfth Night, I. 5. ‘Draw the curtain and shew you the picture.’
Of poring pedantry. ‘Of painful pedantry the poring child.’ Warton: Sonnet written in a blank leaf of Dugdale’s Monasticon.
[177]. The sacred influence of light. Paradise Lost, II. 1034.
Pomp of elder days. Warton’s sonnet referred to above.
Nor can we think what thoughts. Dryden’s The Hind and the Panther, I. 315.
[178]. Think ... there’s livers out of Britain. Cymbeline, III. 4.
By nature’s own sweet and cunning hand. Twelfth Night, I. 5.
Where Pan, knit with the Graces [‘while universal Pan.’] Paradise Lost, IV. [266].
There are more things between [in] heaven and earth. Hamlet, I. 5.
[179]. Matchless, divine, what we will. Pope, Imitations of Horace, Epis. I., Book II. 70.
[180]. Less than smallest dwarfs. Paradise Lost, I. 779.
Desiring this man’s art. Shakspeare’s Sonnets, XXIV. 7.
In shape and gesture proudly eminent. Paradise Lost, I. 590.
His soul was like a star. Wordsworth’s London, 1802.
[181]. Drew after him. Paradise Lost, II. 692.
Otway ... Venice Preserved. Thomas Otway’s (1651–85) play was published in 1682.
Jonson’s learned sock. Milton’s L’Allegro.
[183]. To run and read. Habakkuk, ii. 2.
Penetrable stuff. Hamlet, III. 4.
My peace I give unto you [‘not as the world giveth.’] St. John, xiv. 27.
That they should love one another. Ibid. XV. 12.
[184]. Woman behold thy son. Ibid. XIX. 26–7.
To the Jews. 1 Cor. I. 23.
[185]. Soft as sinews of the new-born babe. Hamlet, III. 3.
The best of men. Dekker’s The Honest Whore. Part I. Act V. 2.
[186]. Tasso by Fairfax. Edward Fairfax’s translation of Jerusalem Delivered was published in 1600.
Ariosto by Harrington. Sir John Harington’s translation of Orlando Furioso was published in 1591.
Homer and Hesiod by Chapman. A part of George Chapman’s translation of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey appeared in 1598 and the rest at various dates to 1615; Hesiod in 1618.
Virgil long before. Possibly Gawin Douglas’s version of the Æneid (1512–53) is in mind.
Ovid soon after. (?) Arthur Golding’s Ovid (1565–75).
North’s translation of Plutarch. In 1579, by Sir Thomas North.
Catiline and Sejanus. Acted in 1611 and 1603 respectively.
The satirist Aretine. Pietro Aretino (1492–1557), the ‘Scourge of Princes.’ Machiavel. The Arte of Warre and The Florentine Historie appeared in English in 1560 and 1594 respectively.
Castiglione. Count Baldasare Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano, a Manual for Courtiers, was translated in 1561 by Sir Thomas Hoby.
Ronsard. Pierre de Ronsard (1524–85), ‘Prince of Poets.’
Du Bartas. Guillaume de Saluste Seigneur du Bartas (1544–1590), soldier, statesman and precursor of Milton as a writer on the theme of creation. His ‘Diuine Weekes and Workes’ were Englished in 1592 and later by ‘yt famous Philomusus,’ Joshua Sylvester (1563–1618). See Dr. Grosart’s edition of his works.
[187]. Fortunate fields and groves, etc. Paradise Lost, III. 568–70.
Prospero’s Enchanted Island. Modern editors give Eden’s History of Travayle, 1577, as the probable source of Setebos, etc.
Right well I wote. The Faerie Queene, Stanzas I.–III.
[188]. Lear ... old ballad. Or rather from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Britonum, c. 1130. The ballad of King Leir (Percy’s Reliques) is probably of later date than Shakespeare.
Othello ... Italian novel. The Heccatommithi of Giraldi Cinthio. The work may have been known in England through a French translation.
Those bodiless creations. Hamlet, III. 4.
Your face, my Thane. Macbeth, I. 5.
Tyrrel and Forrest. In King Richard III.
[189]. Thick and slab. Macbeth, IV. 1.
Snatched a [wild and] fearful joy. Gray’s Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.
The great pestilence of Florence. In 1348. The plague forms but the artificial framework of the tales; to escape it certain Florentines retire to a country house and, in its garden, they tell the tales that form the book.
The course of true love never did run even [smooth.] A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I. 1.
The age of chivalry. ‘The age of chivalry is gone ... and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever.’ Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution. Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 89.
The gentle Surrey. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (c. 1517–1547) whose Songs and Sonnets are in Tottel’s Miscellany (1557).
Sir John Suckling, 1609–42. Besides writing A ballad upon a wedding Sir John was the best player at bowls in the country and he ‘invented’ cribbage.
Who prized black eyes. The Session of the Poets, Ver. 20.
Like strength reposing. ‘’Tis might half slumbering on it own right arm.’
Keats’ Sleep and Poetry, 237.
[190]. They heard the tumult. Cowper’s The Task, IV. 99–100.
‘I behold
The tumult and am still.’
Fletcher’s Noble Kinsmen. The Two Noble Kinsmen, 1634. Although Fletcher was certainly one of the two authors of the play, it is not known who was the other. Scenes have been attributed, with some probability, to Shakespeare.
The Return from Parnassus. 1606. See post, p. 280.
It snowed of meat and drink. Canterbury Tales, Prologue, 345.
As Mr. Lamb observes. Cf. Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, Lamb’s note attached to Marston’s What you will.
[191]. In act and complement [compliment] extern. Othello, I. 1.
Description of a madhouse. In The Honest Whore, Part I. Act V. 2.
A Mad World, my Masters. The title of one of Middleton’s comedies, 1608.
Like birdlime, brains and all. Othello, II. 1.
‘My invention
Comes from my pate as birdlime does from frize;
It plucks out brains and all.’
[192]. But Pan is a God. Lyly’s Midas, Act IV. 1.
Materiam superabat opus. Ovid, Met., II. 5.
II. ON LYLY, MARLOW, Etc.
It is not possible to give references to thoroughly satisfactory texts of the Elizabethan dramatists for the simple reason that, unfortunately, few exist. For reading purposes the volumes of select plays in ‘The Mermaid Series’ and a few single plays in ‘The Temple Dramatists’ may be mentioned.
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[192]. The rich strond. The Faerie Queene, III. iv. 20, 34.
[193]. Rich as the oozy bottom. King Henry V., I. 2. [‘sunken wreck.’]
Majestic though in ruin. Paradise Lost, II. 300.
The Cave of Mammon. The Faerie Queene, II. vii. 29.
New-born gauds, etc. Troilus and Cressida, III. 3.
Ferrex and Porrex. By Thomas Norton (1532–1584), and Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst (1536–1608). Acted Jan. 18, 1561–2.
[194]. No figures nor no fantasies. Julius Caesar, II. 1.
[195]. Sir Philip Sidney says. In his Apologie for Poetrie.
[196]. Mr. Pope ... says. See Spence, Letter to the Earl of Middlesex, prefixed to Dodsley’s edition of Gorboduc.
His Muse. Thomas Sackville wrote the Induction (1563).
John Lyly. The Euphuist (c. 1554–1606), a native of the Kentish Weald. Midas (1592), Endymion (1591), Alexander and Campaspe (1584), Mother Bombie (1594).
[198]. Poor, unfledged. Cymbeline, III. 3.
Very [most] tolerable. Much Ado about Nothing, III. 3.
Grating their lean and flashy jests. Lycidas, 123–4.
‘their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw.’
Bobadil. Captain Bobadil, in Every Man in his Humour.
[199]. The very reeds bow down. Act IV. 2.
Out of my weakness. Hamlet, II. 2.
It is silly sooth. Twelfth Night, II. 4.
[201]. Did first reduce. Elegy to Henry Reynolds, Esquire, 91 et seq.
Euphues and his England. Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit, appeared in 1579 and Euphues and his England the year following. They may be read in Arber’s reprint.
Pan and Apollo. Midas, IV. 1.
[202]. Note. Marlowe died in 1593. He was stabbed in a tavern quarrel at Deptford.
Life and Death of Doctor Faustus. Printed 1604, 1616. See the editions of Dr. A. W. Ward and Mr. Israel Gollancz. The latter is a ‘contamination’ of the two texts.
[202]. Fate and metaphysical aid. Macbeth, I. 5.
[203]. With uneasy steps. Paradise Lost, I. 295.
Such footing [resting.] Paradise Lost, I. 237–8.
How am I glutted. Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, Scene I. [public schools with silk.]
[205]. What is great Mephostophilis. Scene III.
My heart is harden’d. Scene VI.
Was this the face? Scene XVII.
[206]. Oh, Faustus. Scene XIX.
Yet, for he was a scholar. And the next quotation. Scene XX.
[207]. Oh, gentlemen? Scene XIX.
Snails! what hast got there. Cf. Scene VIII.
‘Come, what dost thou with that same book?
Thou can’st not read.’
As Mr. Lamb says. Lamb’s Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, ed. Gollancz, Vol. I. p. 43. (Published originally in 1808).
Lust’s Dominion. Published 1657. The view now seems to be that Dekker had a hand in it: in the form in which we have it it cannot be Marlowe’s. See also W. C. Hazlitt’s Manual of Old Plays, 1892.
Pue-fellow [pew-fellow.] Richard III, IV. 4.
The argument of Schlegel. Cf. Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature (Bohn, 1846), pp. 442–4.
[208]. What, do none rise? Act V. 1.
Marlowe’s mighty line. The phrase is Ben Jonson’s, in his lines ‘To the Memory of my Beloved Master William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us,’ originally prefixed to the First Folio of Shakespeare, 1623.
I know he is not dead. Lust’s Dominion, I. 3.
Hang both your greedy ears, and the next quotation. Ibid. Act II. 2.
Tyrants swim safest. Act V. 3.
[209]. Oh! I grow dull. Act III. 2.
And none of you. King John, V. 7.
Now by the proud complexion. Lust’s Dominion, Act III. 4.
But I that am. Antony and Cleopatra, I. 5.
These dignities. Lust’s Dominion, Act V. 5.
Now tragedy. Act V. 6.
Spaniard or Moor. Act V. 1.
And hang a calve’s [calf’s] skin. King John, III. 1.
The rich Jew of Malta. The Jew of Malta, acted 1588.
[209]. Note Falstaff. Cf. ‘minions of the moon,’ 1 King Henry IV., I. 2.
[210]. The relation. Act II. 3.
As the morning lark. Act II. 1.
In spite of these swine-eating Christians. Act II. 3.
One of Shylock’s speeches. Merchant of Venice, Act I. 3.
[211]. Edward II. 1594.
Weep’st thou already? Act V. 5.
The King and Gaveston. Cf. Act I. 1.
The lion and the forest deer. Act V. 1.
The Song. See p. 298 and note.
[212]. A Woman killed with Kindness. 1603.
Oh, speak no more. Act II. 3.
Cold drops of sweat. Act III. 2.
Astonishment. Act IV. 4.
[213]. Invisible, or dimly seen. Paradise Lost, V. 157.
Fair, and of all beloved. Act II. 3.
The affecting remonstrance. Act V. 5.
The Stranger. Benjamin Thompson’s (1776?–1816) translation of Kotzebue’s (1761–1819) Menschenhass und Reue.
Sir Giles Over-reach. In Massinger’s A New Way to Pay Old Debts.
[214]. This is no world in which to pity men. A Woman killed with Kindness, Act III. 3 (ed. Dr. Ward).
His own account. See his address ‘To the Reader’ in The English Traveller, printed 1633.
The Royal King and Loyal Subject. 1637.
A Challenge for Beauty. 1636.
Shipwreck by Drink. Act II. 1.
Fair Quarrel. 1617.
A Woman never Vexed. 1632.
Women beware Women. 1657.
[215]. She holds the mother in suspense. Act II. 2.
Did not the Duke look up? Act I. 3.
[216]. How near am I. Act III. 1.
[218]. The Witch. No date can be given for this play.
The moon’s a gallant. Act III. 3. [‘If we have not mortality after ‘t’] [‘leave me to walk here.’]
[220]. What death is ‘t you desire? Act V. 2.
[222]. Mr. Lamb’s Observations. The same extract from the Specimens is quoted in Characters of Shakespear’s Plays, vol. I. p. 194 [cannot co-exist with mirth.]
III. ON MARSTON, CHAPMAN, Etc.
[223]. Blown stifling back. Paradise Lost, XI. 313.
[224]. Monsieur Kinsayder. This was the nom-de-plume under which John Marston published his Scourge of Villanie, 1598.
Oh ancient Knights. Sir John Harington’s translation of Orlando Furioso was published in 1591.
Antonio and Mellida. 1602.
[225]. Half a page of Italian rhymes. Part I. Act IV.
Each man takes hence life. Part I. Act III.
What you Will. 1607.
Who still slept. Act II. 1.
Parasitaster and Malcontent. Parasitaster; or The Fawn, 1606. The Malcontent, 1604.
[226]. Is nothing, if not critical. Othello, II. 1.
We would be private. The Fawn, Act II. 1.
Faunus, this Granuffo. Act III.
[227]. Though he was no duke. Act II. 1.
Molière has built a play. L’École des Maris.
Full of wise saws. As You Like It, Act II. 7.
[228]. Nymphadoro’s reasons. The Fawn, Act III.
Hercules’s description. Act II. 1.
Like a wild goose fly. As You Like It, II. 7.
[230]. Bussy d’Ambois. 1607.
The way of women’s will.
‘It is not virtue, wisdom, valour, wit,
Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit,
That woman’s love can win, or long inherit,
But what it is hard is to say,
Harder to hit....’
Samson Agonistes, 1010 et seq.
Hide nothing. Paradise Lost, I. 27.
[231]. Fulke Greville. Lord Brooke (1554–1628). Alaham and Mustapha were published in the folio edition of Brooke, 1633. He was the school friend, and wrote the Life, of Sir Philip Sidney. His self-composed epitaph reads, ‘Fulke Grevill, servant to Queene Elizabeth, councellor to King James, frend to Sir Philip Sidney.’ See Hazlitt’s Essay ‘Of Persons one would wish to have seen.’
The ghost of one of the old kings. Alaham.
Monsieur D’Olive. 1606.
Sparkish. In Wycherley’s Country Wife (1675).
Witwoud and Petulant. In Congreve’s The Way of the World (1700).
[234]. May-Day. 1611.
All Fools. 1605.
The Widow’s Tears. 1612.
Eastward Hoe. 1605. Ben Jonson accompanied his two friends to prison for this voluntarily. Their imprisonment was of short duration.
On his release from prison. See Drummond’s Conversations, XIII.
Express ye unblam’d. Paradise Lost, III. 3.
Appius and Virginia. Printed 1654.
The affecting speech. I.e. that of Virginius to Virginia, Act IV. 1.
Wonder of a Kingdom. Published 1636.
Jacomo Gentili. In the above play.
Old Fortunatus. 1600.
[235]. Vittorio Corombona. The White Devil, 1612.
Signior Orlando Friscobaldo. In The Honest Whore, Part II., 1630.
The red-leaved tables. Heywood’s A Woman killed with Kindness, Act II. 3.
The pangs. Wordsworth’s Excursion, VI. 554.
The Honest Whore. In two Parts, 1604 and 1630.
Signior Friscobaldo. The Second Part, Act I. 2.
[237]. You’ll forgive me. The Second Part, Act II. 1.
It is my father. The Second Part, Act IV. 1.
Oh! who can paint.
[238]. Tough senior. Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act I. 2.
And she has felt them knowingly. Cymbeline, III. 3.
I cannot. The Honest Whore, Second Part, Act IV. 1.
[239]. The manner too. The Second Part, Act III. 1.
I’m well. The First Part, Act I. 3 [‘midst of feasting’].
Turns them. II. Henry IV., I. 2.
Patient Grizzel. Griselda in Chaucer’s Clerke’s Tale. Dekker collaborated in a play entitled The Pleasant Comedy of Patient Grissill (1603).
The high-flying. The Honest Whore, Second Part, Act II. 1. etc.
[240]. White Devil. 1612.
Duchess of Malfy. 1623.
By which they lose some colour. Cf. Othello, I. 1. ‘As it may lose some colour.’
[241]. All fire and air. Henry V., III. 7, ‘he is pure air and fire,’ and Antony and Cleopatra, V. 2, ‘I am fire and air.’
Like the female dove. Hamlet, V. 1, ‘As patient as the female dove, when that her golden couplets are disclosed.’
The trial scene and the two following quotations, The White Devil. Act III. 1.
[243]. Your hand I’ll kiss. Act II. 1.
The lamentation of Cornelia. Act V. 2.
The parting scene of Brachiano. Act V. 3.
[245]. The scenes of the madhouse. Act IV. 2.
The interview. Act IV. 1.
I prythee, and the three following quotations and note on p. 246. The Duchess of Malfy, Act IV. 2.
[246]. The Revenger’s Tragedy. 1607.
The dazzling fence. Cf. the ‘dazzling fence’ of rhetoric, Comus, 790–91.
The appeals of Castiza. Act II. 1., and Act IV. 4.
[247]. Mrs. Siddons has left the stage. Mrs. Siddons left the stage in June 1819. See The Round Table, vol. I., Note to p. 156.
On Salisbury-plain. At Winterslow Hut. See Memoirs of W. Hazlitt. 1867, vol. I. p. 259.
Stern good-night. Macbeth, Act II. 2. ‘The fatal bellman which gives the stern’st good night.’
Take mine ease. 1 Henry IV. III. 3.
Cibber’s manager’s coat. Colley Cibber (1671–1757), actor, dramatist, and manager. See the Apology for his Life (1740).
Books, dreams. Personal Talk. [‘Dreams, books, are each a world.... Two shall be named pre-eminently dear ... by heavenly lays....’]
IV. ON BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, Etc.
[249]. Misuse [praise] the bounteous Pan. Comus, 176–7.
Like eagles newly baited. Cf.
‘All plumed like estridges that with the wind
Baited like eagles having lately bathed.’
1 King Henry IV., IV. 1.
[250]. Cast the diseases of the mind. Cf.
‘Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased ... cast
The water of my land, find her disease,
And purge it to a sound and pristine health?’
Macbeth, V. 3.
Wonder-wounded. Hamlet, V. 1.
Wanton poets. Cf. Marlowe’s Edward II., Act I. 1., and Beaumont and Fletcher’s The Maid’s Tragedy, II. 2.
[251]. The Maid’s Tragedy. Acted 1609–10, printed 1619.
[252]. Do not mock me. Act IV. 1.
King and No King. Licensed 1611, printed 1619.
When he meets with Panthea. Act III. 1.
[253]. The False One. 1619.
Youth that opens. Act III. 2.
Like [‘I should imagine’] some celestial sweetness. Act II. 3.
‘Tis here, and the next quotation. Act II. 1. [‘Egyptians, dare ye think.’]
[254]. The Faithful Shepherdess. Acted 1610.
A perpetual feast. Comus, 479–80.
He takes most ease. The Faithful Shepherdess, Act V. 3.
Her virgin fancies wild. Paradise Lost, V. 296–7.
Here he woods. The Faithful Shepherdess, Act I. 3.
[255]. For her dear sake. Act V. 3.
Brightest. Act IV. 2.
If you yield. Act II. 2.
[256]. And all my fears. Act I. 1.
Sad Shepherd. 1637.
[257]. Tumbled him [He tumbled] down, and the two following quotations. The Two Noble Kinsmen, Act I. 1.
We have been soldiers. Act I. 3.
[258]. Tearing our pleasures. To his Coy Mistress, 43 and 44.
How do you. The Two Noble Kinsmen, Act II. 2. [‘lastly, children of grief and ignorance.’]
[261]. Sing their bondage. Cymbeline, III. 3.
The Bloody Brother, 1624; A Wife for a Month, 1623; Bonduca, acted c. 1619; Thierry and Theodoret, 1621; The Night Walker, 1625; The Little French Lawyer, c. 1618; Monsieur Thomas, c. 1619; The Chances, c. 1620; The Wild Goose Chase, acted 1621; Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, 1624.
[262]. Philaster. Acted c. 1608.
Sitting in my window. Act V. 5.
Into a lower world. Paradise Lost, XI. 283–5.
His plays were works. Suckling’s The Session of the Poets, ver. 5.
Note, Euphrasia. Philaster, Act V. 2.
[263]. Miraturque. Virgil, Georgics, II. 82.
The New Inn. Acted 1630.
The Fall of Sejanus. Acted 1603.
Two of Sejanus’ bloodhounds. Act III. 1.
To be a spy. Act IV. 3.
[264]. What are thy arts. Act IV. 5.
If this man. Act I. 2 [‘blood and tyranny.’]
[265]. The conversations between Livia. Act II. 1.
Catiline’s Conspiracy. Acted 1611.
David’s canvas. Jacques Louis David (1748–1825), historical painter.
The description of Echo. Act I. 1. Cynthia’s Revels was acted in 1600 and printed the year after.
The fine comparison ... the New Inn. Cf. Act III. 2.
Massinger and Ford. Philip Massinger (1583–1640) and John Ford (1586–? 1656).
Musical as is Apollo’s lute. Comus, 478.
[266]. Reason panders will. Hamlet, III. 4.
The true pathos. Burns, Epistle to Dr. Blacklock.
The Unnatural Combat, 1639; The Picture, licensed 1629; The Duke of Milan, 1623; A New Way to Pay Old Debts, 1633; The Bondman, 1624; The Virgin Martyr, 1622.
[267]. Felt a stain like a wound. Burke, Reflections on the French Revolution, ed. Payne, II. 89.
Note. See A View of the English Stage, and notes thereto.
[268]. Rowe’s Fair Penitent. 1703. Nicholas Rowe (1673–1718).
Fatal Dowry. 1632.
’Tis Pity She’s a Whore. 1633.
[269]. Annabella and her husband. Act IV. 3.
The Broken Heart. 1633.
[270]. Miss Baillie. See p. 147 and notes thereto.
Perkin Warbeck. 1634.
The Lover’s Melancholy. 1628.
Love’s Sacrifice. 1633.
Note. Soft peace. Act IV. 4.
The concluding one. Act V. 2 and 3 [‘court new pleasures’.]
[272]. Already alluded to. See p. 230.
[273]. Mr. Lamb in his impressive eulogy. Specimens, vol. II. p. 199.
[274]. Armida’s enchanted palace. The sorceress who seduces the Crusaders. Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered.
Fairy elves. Paradise Lost, I. 781 et seq.
‘Like that Pygmean race
Beyond the Indian mount; or faery elves.’
Deaf the praised ear. Pope’s Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady.
V. ON SINGLE PLAYS, POEMS, Etc.
The Four P’s. ? 1530–3.
John Heywood. (c. 1497–c. 1575). He was responsible for various collections of Epigrams, containing six hundred proverbs.
[276]. False knaves. Much Ado about Nothing, IV. 2.
[277]. Count Fathom. Chap. XXI.
Friar John. Rabelais’ Gargantua, I. 27.
[278]. L. 5 from foot. Take [taste].
[279]. Which I was born to introduce. Swift’s lines On the Death of Dr. Swift.
As a liar of the first magnitude. Congreve’s Love for Love, Act II. 5.
[280]. Mighty stream of Tendency. The Excursion, IX. 87.
Full of wise saws. As You Like It, Act II. 7.
The Return from Parnassus. 1606.
Like the Edinburgh Review. Only two numbers were published, which were reprinted (8vo) 1818.
Read the names. The Return from Parnassus, Act I. 2.
[282]. Kempe the actor. William Kempe, fl. c. 1600.
Burbage. Richard Burbage (c. 1567–1618), the builder of the Globe Theatre, and a great actor therein.
Few (of the University). Act IV. 3.
[283]. Felt them knowingly. Cymbeline, III. 3.
Philomusus and Studioso. Act II. 1, Act III. 5.
Out of our proof we speak. Cymbeline, III. 3.
I was not train’d. Charles Lamb’s Sonnet, written at Cambridge, August 15, 1819.
[284]. Made desperate. The Excursion, VI. 532–3, quoted from Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Dying, Chap. 1, § V.
A mere scholar. Return from Parnassus, II. 6.
The examination of Signor Immerito. Act III. 1.
[286]. Gammer Gurton’s Needle. Printed 1575. John Still (1543–1607), afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells, is supposed to be its author.
[287]. Gog’s crosse, and the following quotations. Act I. 5.
[289]. Such very poor spelling. Cf. Lamb’s story of Randal Norris, who once remarked after trying to read a black-letter Chaucer, ‘in those old books, Charley, there is sometimes a deal of very indifferent spelling.’ See
Lamb’s Letter to H. Crabb Robinson, Jan. 20, 1827; Hone’s Table Book, Feb. 10, 1827; and the first edition of the Last Essays of Elia, 1833. A Death-Bed.
The Yorkshire Tragedy. 1604 (attributed to Shakespeare); Sir John Oldcastle, 1600, (? by Munday and Drayton); The Widow of Watling Street, [The Puritan, or The Widow, etc.], 1607 (? by Wentworth Smith). See The Round Table, vol. I. p. 353, et seq., for Schlegel and Hazlitt on these.
Green’s Tu Quoque, by George Cook. Greene’s ‘Tu Quoque,’ 1614, by Joseph Cooke (fl. c. 1600). Greene, the comedian, after whom the play is called, died 1612.
[290]. Suckling’s melancholy hat. Cf. p. 270 ante.
Microcosmus, by Thomas Nabbes. 1637. Thomas Nabbes flourished in the time of Charles I.
[291]. What do I see? Act IV.
[292]. Antony Brewer’s Lingua. 1607. This play is now said to be by John Tomkins, Scholar of Trinity, Cambridge (1594–8).
Mr. Lamb has quoted two passages. Specimens, vol. I. pp. 99–100.
[292]. Why, good father. Act II. 4.
[293]. Thou, boy. Act II. 1.
The Merry Devil of Edmonton. 1608. The author is unknown.
Sound silver sweet. Romeo and Juliet, II. 2.
The deer-stealing scenes. The Merry Devil of Edmonton, Act V. 1, etc.
[294]. Very honest knaveries. Merry Wives of Windsor, IV. 4.
The way lies right. The Merry Devil of Edmonton, Act IV. 1.
The Pinner of Wakefield. By Robert Greene (1560–1592). His works have been edited by Dr. Grosart, and by Mr. Churton Collins.
Hail-fellow well met. Cf. Swift’s My Lady’s Lamentation.
Jeronymo. 1588. The Spanish Tragedy (? 1583–5), licensed and performed 1592. See Prof. Schick’s edition in ‘The Temple Dramatists.’ Thomas Kyd, baptised November 6, 1558, died before 1601.
Which have all the melancholy madness of poetry. Junius: Letter No 7. to Sir W. Draper.
VI. ON MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, Etc.
[295]. The False One. 1619.
Valentinian. Produced before 1619. ‘Now the lusty spring is seen,’ Act II. 5.
The Nice Valour, or Passionate Madman. Published 1647.
Most musical. Il Penseroso, 62.
[296]. The silver foam. Cowper’s Winter’s Walk at Noon, ll. 155–6—
‘Her silver globes, light as the foamy surf
That the wind severs from the broken wave.’
Grim-visaged, comfortless despair. Cf. ‘grim visag’d war.’ Richard III., I. 1; and ‘grim and comfortless despair.’ Comedy of Errors, V. 1.
Beaumont died. His years were thirty-two (1584–1616).
’Tis not a life. Philaster, Act V. 2. See p. 262.
The lily on its stalk green. Chaucer, The Knighte’s Tale, 1036.
Lapt in Elysium. Comus, 257.
Raphael. Raphael’s years were thirty-seven (1483–1520).
[297]. Now that his task. Comus, 1012.
Rymer’s abuse. See Thomas Rymer’s (1641–1713) The Tragedies of the Last Age Considered (1678). He was called by Pope ‘the best’ and by Macaulay ‘the worst’ English critic.
The sons of memory. Milton’s Sonnet on Shakespeare, 1630.
Sir John Beaumont (1582–1628), the author of Bosworth Field.
Fleeted the time carelessly. As You Like It, I. 1. [‘golden world.’]
[298]. Walton’s Complete Angler. Third Day, chap. iv.
Note. Rochester’s Epigram. Sternhold and Hopkins were the joint authors of the greater number of the metrical versions of the Psalms (1547–62) which used to form part of the Book of Common Prayer.
299–300. Drummond of Hawthornden. William Drummond (1585–1649). His Conversations with Ben Jonson were written of a visit paid him by Jonson in 1618. Mention might be made of Mr. W. C. Ware’s edition of his Poems (1894), wherein many variations from Hazlitt’s text of the sonnets may be noted, too numerous to detail here.
Note. I was all ear. Comus, 560.
[301]. The fly that sips treacle. Gay’s Beggar’s Opera, II. 2.
Sugar’d sonnetting. Cf. Francis Meres’ Palladis Tamia, 1598, concerning Shakespeare’s ‘sugred Sonnets,’ and Judicio in The Return from Parnassus (see p. 281 ante), ‘sugar’d sonnetting.’
[302]. The gentle craft. The sub-title of a play of T. Dekker’s: The Shoemaker’s Holiday, or the Gentle Craft (1600). The phrase has long been associated with that handicraft.
A Phœnix gazed by all. Paradise Lost, V. 272.
Give a reason for the faith that was in me. Cf. Sydney Smith’s—‘It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him.’
[303]. Oh, how despised. Act I. 1.
[304]. The Triumph of his Mistress. The Triumph of Charis.
Nest of spicery. Richard III., IV. 4.
Oh, I could still. Cynthia’s Revels, I. 1.
[306]. A celebrated line. See Coleridge’s Tragedy Osorio, Act iv., Sc. 1., written 1797, but not published in its original form until 1873. Coleridge’s Poetical Works, ed. Dykes Campbell, p. 498.
‘Drip! drip! drip! drip! in such a place as this
It has nothing else to do but drip! drip! drip!’
Recast and entitled Remorse, the tragedy was performed at Drury Lane, Jan. 23, 1813, and published in pamphlet form. In the Preface Coleridge relates the story of Sheridan reading the play to a large company, and turning it into ridicule by saying—
‘Drip! drip! drip! there’s nothing here but dripping.’
Hazlitt’s quotation is taken, of course, from this Preface to Remorse.
[307]. The milk of human kindness. Macbeth, I. 5.
[309]. Daniel. Samuel Daniel, 1562–1619.
[311]. Michael Drayton (1563–1631). His Polyolbion, or ‘chorographicall’ description of England in thirty books was issued in 1612–22. See the Spenser Society’s editions of Drayton’s works.
P. Fletcher’s Purple Island. Phineas Fletcher (1582–1650). The Purple Island, 1633. The poem has been topographically catalogued under ‘Man, Isle of’!
Brown. William Browne (1591–c. 1643). Britannia’s Pastorals, 1613–16; a third book (in MSS.) was printed in 1852.
Carew. Thomas Carew (c. 1594–c. 1639).
Herrick. Robert Herrick (1591–1674). His poems were edited by Dr. Grosart in 1876.
Crashaw. Richard Crashaw (? 1612–1649), the English Mystic. See Dr. Grosart’s edition, 1872.
Marvell. Andrew Marvell (1621–1678). See Dr. Grosart’s edition, 1872–74.
[312]. Like the motes. ‘The gay motes that people the sunbeams.’ Milton’s Il Penseroso, 8.
[313]. On another occasion. See ante p. 83.
[315]. Clamour grew dumb. Pastorals, Book II. Song 1.
The squirrel. Book I. Song 5.
The hues of the rainbow. Book II. Song 3.
The Shepherd’s Pipe, 1614.
The Inner Temple Mask, 1620.
Marino. Giambattista Marini (1569–1625).
His form had not yet lost. Paradise Lost, I. 591.
Sir Philip Sidney (1554–86). See Grosart’s edition of the Poems and Arber’s editions of the Apologie and Astrophel and Stella.
[318]. Ford’s Version. See Act I. 1. The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia was published in 1690.
On compulsion. I. Henry IV. II. 4.
The soldier’s. Hamlet, III. 1.
Like a gate of steel. Troilus and Cressida III. 3. [‘receives and renders’].
[320]. With centric. Paradise Lost, VIII. 83.
[321]. So that the third day. Book I. chap. ii. [‘delightful prospects’].
Georgioni, i.e. Giorgione, or Giorgio Barbarella (1477–1511), the great Venetian painter.
[322]. Like two grains of wheat. The Merchant of Venice, I. 1. [‘hid in two bushels’].
Have you felt the wool. In The Triumph of Charis.
[323]. As Mr. Burke said of nobility. Cf. Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. Payne, vol. II. p. 163. ‘To be honoured and even privileged by the laws, opinions and inveterate usages of our country, growing out of the prejudice of ages, has nothing to provoke horror and indignation in any man.’
The shipwreck of Pyrochles. Book I. chap. i.
[324]. Certainly, as her eyelids. Book I. chap. i.
Adriano de Armada, in Love’s Labour Lost. See the two characteristic letters of Don Adriano de Armado, in Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act I. 1., and IV. 1.
[325]. The reason of their unreasonableness. Don Quixote, l. 1.
Pamelas and Philocleas. Heroines of the Arcadia.
[326]. Defence of Poetry. An Apologie for Poetry, 1595.
VII. CHARACTER OF LORD BACON’S WORKS, Etc.
One of the wisest. Pope’s Essay on Man, Epis. iv. 282.
As in a map. Cowper’s Task, vi. 17.
[327]. Large discourse. Hamlet, IV. 4.
[331]. Sir Thomas Brown. Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682).
[333]. The bosoms and businesses. Dedication to Bacon’s Essays.
Find no end. Paradise Lost, II. 561.
Oh altitudo. Religio Medici, Part I. ‘I love to lose myself in a mystery, to pursue my reason to an O altitudo!’
[334]. Differences himself by. Religio Medici, Part I. ‘But (to difference my self nearer, and draw into a lesser Circle).’
He could be content if the species were continued like trees. Religio Medici, Part II.
[335]. Walks gowned. Lamb’s Sonnet, written at Cambridge, August 15, 1819.
As it has been said. Cf. the passage quoted later (p. 340) from Coleridge.
[339]. Mr. Coleridge. See Coleridge’s Literary Remains, vol. II. 1836. On p. 340, l. 4 the phrase, as written by Coleridge, should be ‘Sir-Thomas-Brownness.’
[341]. Stuff of the conscience. Othello, I. 2.
To give us pause. Hamlet, III. I.
Cloys with sameness. Cf. Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis, XIX., ‘cloy thy lips with loathed satiety.’
Note. One of no mark. 1 Henry IV., III. 2.
Without form and void. Genesis, I. 2.
He saw nature in the elements of its chaos. Religio Medici, Part I.
[342]. Where pure Niemi’s faery banks [mountains]. Thomson’s Winter, 875–6.
Rains sacrificial roses [whisperings]. Timon of Athens, I. 1.
Some are called at age. Chap. i. § 3.
[343]. It is the same. Chap. iii. § 7.
I have read, and the next two quotations. Chap. i. § 2.
VIII. ON THE SPIRIT OF ANCIENT AND MODERN LITERATURE, Etc.
[345]. The Apostate and Evadne. The Apostate (1817) by Richard Lalor Sheil (1791–1851), Evadne (1819).
The Traitor by old Shirley. James Shirley’s (1596–1666) The Traitor (1637).
The last of those fair clouds.
Mr. Tobin. John Tobin (1770–1804). The Honey-Moon was produced at Drury Lane, Jan. 31, 1805. See Characters of Shakespear’s Plays, vol. I. p. 344.
The Curfew. Tobin’s play was produced at Drury Lane, Feb. 19, 1807.
[346]. Mr. Lamb’s John Woodvil. Published 1802.
There where we have treasured. Cf. St. Matt. vi. 21.
The tall [and elegant stag] deer that paints a dancing shadow of his horns in the swift brook [in the water, where he drinks].
Lamb’s John Woodvil, II. ii. 195–7.
But fools rush in. Pope’s Essay on Criticism, III. 66.
To say that he has written better. Lamb’s articles in Leigh Hunt’s Reflector on Hogarth and Shakespeare’s tragedies, appeared in 1811.
A gentleman of the name of Cornwall. Bryan Waller Procter’s (Barry Cornwall 1787–1874), Dramatic Scenes were published in 1819.
[347]. The Falcon. Boccaccio’s Decameron, 5th day, 9th story. See Characters of Shakespear’s Plays, vol. I. p. 331, and The Round Table, vol. I. p. 163.
[348]. A late number of the Edinburgh Review. The article is by Hazlitt himself, in the number for Feb. 1816, vol. 26, pp. 68, et seq.
Florimel in Spenser. Book III. 7.
There was magic. Othello, III. 4.
[349]. Schlegel somewhere compares. Cf. Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature (Bohn, 1846) p. 407.
So withered. Macbeth, I. 3.
The description of Belphœbe. The Faerie Queene, II. iii. 21 et seq.
[350]. All plumed like estriches. Cf. 1 King Henry IV. IV. 1.
[352]. Antres vast. Othello, I. 3.
Orlando ... Rogero. In Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso.
[353]. New-lighted. Hamlet, III. 4.
The evidence of things unseen. Hebrews, xi. 1.
Broods over the immense [vast] abyss. Paradise Lost, I. 21.
The ignorant present time. Macbeth, I. 5.
[355]. See o’er the stage. Thomson’s Winter, ll. 646–8.
The Orphan. By Otway, 1680.
Arabian trees. Othello, V. 2.
That sacred pity. As You Like It, II. 7.
Miss O’Neill. Eliza O’Neill (1791–1872).
[356]. Hog hath lost his Pearl. 1613.
Addison’s Cato. 1713.
Dennis’s Criticism. John Dennis’s (1657–1734) Remarks on Cato, 1713.
Don Sebastian. 1690.
The mask of Arthur and Emmeline. King Arthur, or the British Worthy 1691, a Dramatic Opera with music by Purcell.
[357]. Alexander the Great ... Lee. The Rival Queens (1677) by Nathaniel Lee (1655–92).
Œdipus. 1679.
Relieve the killing languor. Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 120).
Leave then the luggage, and the two following quotations. Don Sebastian, Act II. 1.
[359]. The Hughes. John Hughes (1677–1720) author of The Siege of Damascus 1720, and one of the contributors to The Spectator.
The Hills. Aaron Hill (1684–1749) poet and dramatist.
The Murphys. Arthur Murphy (1727–1805) dramatist and biographer.
Fine by degrees. Matthew Prior’s Henry and Emma.
Southern. Thomas Southerne (1660/1–1746), who wrote Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave (1696).
Lillo. George Lillo (1693–1739), Fatal Curiosity, 1737.
Moore. Edward Moore (1712–1757), The Gamester, 1753.
In one of his Letters. See the letter dated September, 1737.
Sent us weeping. Richard II. V. 1.
Rise sadder. Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner.
Douglas. A tragedy by John Home (1724–1808), first played at Edinburgh in 1756.
[360]. Decorum is the principal thing. ‘What Decorum is, which is the grand Master-piece to observe.’ Milton on Education, Works, 1738, I. p. 140.
Aristotle’s definition of tragedy. In the Poetics.
Lovers’ Vows. Mrs. Inchbald’s adaptation from Kotzebue, 1800.
Pizarro. Sheridan’s adaptation from Kotzebue’s The Spaniard in Peru, 1799.
Shews the very age. Hamlet, III. 2.
[361]. Orson. In the fifteenth century romance, Valentine and Orson.
Pure in the last recesses. Dryden’s translation from the Second Satire of Persius, 133.
There is some soul of goodness. Henry V., IV. 1.
There’s something rotten. Hamlet, I. 4.
[362]. The Sorrows of Werter. Goethe’s Sorrows of Werther was finished in 1774.
The Robbers. By Schiller, 1781.
It was my wish. Act III. 2.
[363]. Don Carlos. 1787.
His Wallenstein. Schiller’s, 1799; Coleridge’s, 1800.
Cumberland’s imitation. Richard Cumberland’s (1732–1811) Wheel of Fortune (1779).
Goethe’s tragedies. Count Egmont, 1788; Stella, 1776; Iphigenia, 1786.
Memoirs of Anastasius the Greek. Thomas Hope’s (1770–1831) Eastern romance was published in 1819 and was received with enthusiasm by the Edinburgh Review.
When in the fine summer evenings. Werther (ed. Bohn), p. 337.
[364]. As often got without merit. Othello, II. 3.