Dryden, Essay of Dramatic Poesy: “Those who accuse him to have wanted learning give him the greater commendation” (ed. W. P. Ker, i., p. 80).
[42]. Colchus, etc. Ars poetica, 118.
Siquid tamen, etc. Id. 386. The form Maeci was restored about this time by Bentley.
[43]. Companies of Players. See Mr. Sidney Lee's Life of Shakespeare, p. 34.
we are told by Ben Johnson. See p. [22]. But Heminge and Condell tell us so themselves in the preface to the Folio: “His mind and hand went together: and what he thought he uttered with that easinesse, that wee have scarce received from him a blot in his papers.”
Vos, O. Ars poetica, 291.
Poets lose half the Praise, etc. These lines are not by the Earl of Roscommon, but by Edmund Waller. They occur in Waller's prefatory verses to Roscommon's translation of Horace's Ars poetica.
Dennis's criticism of Jonson is apparently inspired by Rymer's remarks on Catiline (Short View, pp. 159-163). “In short,” says Rymer, “it is strange that Ben, who understood the turn of Comedy so well, and had found the success, should thus grope in the dark and jumble things together without head or tail, without rule or proportion, without any reason or design.”
[44]. Vir bonus, etc. Horace, Ars poetica, 445.
[45]. ad Populum Phalerae. Persius, iii. 30.