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.
[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.”