[196]. All hail, Macbeth. 1. iii. 48-50.
Macbeth. The probable date of Macbeth is 1606.
Wake, Sir Isaac (1580-1632). The Rex Platonicus, celebrating the visit of James I. to Oxford in 1605, appeared in 1607.
[197]. Grey. Notes on Shakespeare, p. vii.; cf. vol. ii., p. 289, etc.
Whalley. Enquiry, p. v.
a very curious and intelligent gentleman. Capell: see below.
It hath indeed been said, etc. In the Critical Review, xxiii., p. 50. Accordingly the following passage (to “Mr. Lort,” foot of p. [199]) was added in the second edition.
Saxo Grammaticus. “ ‘Falsitatis enim (Hamlethus) alienus haberi cupidus, ita astutiam veriloquio permiscebat, ut nec dictis veracitas deesset, nec acuminis modus verorum judicio proderetur.’ This is quoted, as it had been before, in Mr. Guthrie's Essay on Tragedy, with a small variation from the Original. See edit. fol. 1644, p. 50” (Farmer). The quotation was given in the Critical Review, xxiii., p. 50.
[198]. The Hystorie of Hamblet. It is now known that Shakespeare's “original” was the early play of Hamlet, which was probably written by Thomas Kyd, towards the end of 1587. See Works of Kyd, ed. Boas, Introduction, iv.
Though Farmer disproves Shakespeare's use of Saxo Grammaticus, he errs in the importance he gives to the Hystorie of Hamblet. No English “translation from the French of Belleforest” appears to have been issued before 1608.