ON RESPECTABLE PEOPLE

Signed ‘A. Z.’ in the Magazine.

[434].Buys golden opinions.Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 7. ‘The learned pate,’ etc. Timon of Athens, Act IV. Sc. 3. [435]. Otway, etc. Otway, according to the familiar but probably untrue account first given by T. Cibber in The Lives of the Poets, was choked by the first mouthful of a roll which he bought with money given to him by a gentleman in a coffee-house. For a song.’ The story of Lord Burghley’s ungenerous treatment of Spenser was first recorded by Fuller. The time gives evidence of it.’ Cf. ‘This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1. [436]. ‘What can ennoble sots,’ etc. Pope, An Essay on Man, IV. 215–6. All honourable men.Julius Cæsar, Act III. Sc. 2. [437].Lives and fortunes men.’ For the old formula of ‘lives and fortunes’ see Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 18 and note.)