[{273}] I choose for a parallel Shakespeare’s use of Plutarch in the composition of his Roman plays rather than his use of Hall and Holinshed in the composition of his English histories, because Froissart is a model more properly to be set against Plutarch than against Holinshed or Hall.
[{278}] This brilliant idea has since been borrowed from the Chairman—and that without acknowledgment—by one of those worthies whose mission it is to make manifest that no burlesque invention of mere man’s device can improve upon the inexhaustible capacities of Nature as shown in the production and perfection of the type irreverently described by Dryden as ‘God Almighty’s fool.’
[{279}] This word was incomprehensibly misprinted in the first issue of the Society’s Report, where it appeared as “foulness.” To prevent misapprehension, the whole staff of printers was at once discharged.
[{291}] When the learned member made use of this remarkable phrase he probably had in his mind the suggestive query of Agnès, si les enfants qu’on fait se faisaient pas l’oreille? But the flower of rhetoric here gathered was beyond the reach of Arnolphe’s innocent ward. The procreation in such a case is even more difficult for fancy to realise than the conception.